Americana E-Journal of American Studies in Hungary
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AMERICANA E-JOURNAL OF AMERICAN STUDIES IN HUNGARY VOLUME XIV, NUMBER 2, FALL 2018 "FIRST DEGREE FRIENDSHIP: CINEMATOGRAPHIC ASPECTS OF FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT’S GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY TOWARDS LATIN AMERICA" BY ANDRÁS LÉNÁRT http://americanaejournal.hu/vol14no2/lenart András Lénárt is senior assistant professor at the Department of Hispanic Studies, University of Szeged, Hungary. He holds a PhD in Cotemporary History. His research interests include Spanish and Latin American history and cinema, the relation between film studies and universal history, as well as Inter-American studies. Lénárt is the author of two books and the co-editor of several volumes. His book chapters, essays and articles have appeared in Spanish, Hungarian, British, Italian, Mexican, German and Canadian journals, volumes of essays and books, and also on the website of the US Library of Congress, National Film Registry. He is currently the president of the International Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (FIEALC) and is member of various international research groups and associations, such as the Association for Spanish Film Historians, the Association for European Historians of Latin America (AHILA), and also of the General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He is also founding member of the Inter-American Research Centre at the University of Szeged. Email: [email protected] Abstract: Cultural policy, including film policy, has played a crucial role in strengthening a country’s domestic and foreign policy. The United States of America’s attitude towards Latin America has been changed several times throughout the 20th century, depending on the current international situation. The aim of my article is to present the cinematographic aspects of this policy in the 1930s and the first half of the 1940s, within the framework of the Good Neighbor Policy, formulated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In this mission special offices, departments and directors had a key role, with the support of several famous filmmakers. Keywords: Good Neighbor Policy, Inter-American Cinema, Stereotypes, Nelson D. Rockefeller, Walt Disney According to the historian John Henry Coatsworth, between 1898 (the Spanish-American War) and the beginning of the 21st century the United States of America successfully intervened in forty-one changes of government in Latin America (excluding the failed attempts): seventeen times acted directly and twenty-four times used indirect interference (Coatsworth 2005). The guiding principle was the Monroe Doctrine, announced in 1823 within the framework of the North American isolationism. According to this doctrine, any European states’ intervention in the life course of the American continent was deemed unacceptable. Meanwhile, the United States would guarantee the security and peace in the New World. Hence, the political, economic, cultural and military influence of the United States was reinforced throughout the hemisphere: the ideology of the Manifest Destiny and the Monroe Doctrine’s corollaries prompted US hegemony over Latin America and the Caribbean region, exploiting arguments such as the vital expansion of civilization and the prevention of possible threats that could come from other countries. Upon entering the First World War in 1917, the US principle of isolationism was temporarily suspended and although in the interwar period the country returned to its previous stance, after the Second World War the US has been present as a predominant global superpower. 1. THE BIRTH OF THE GOOD NEIGHBOR POLICY In the 1930s, in line with the transformation of the international circumstances, the Monroe Doctrine’s role was slowly diminishing and thus in 1933 President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced the Good Neighbor Policy. This policy’s objective was the development of a Pan-American solidarity against external threats by taking into account the political and social shifts that were taking place in Europe throughout this decade. Just before the outbreak of the Second World War, it was clear that the US would need several allies and it seemed obvious that its neighbors might logical be its partners as well. It was also probable that Fascism and Nazism, considering their increasing popularity in Europe, would have followers among Latin American governments. And indeed, during World War II, these nations were an essential support for the USA: in some countries (like Nicaragua or Guatemala) even right-wing dictatorships were installed to go along with the White House’s goals. A crucial detail of this policy was the abrogation of the Platt Amendment in 1934, an appendix that the northern ‘neighbor’ had added to the constitution of Cuba in 1901 in order to restrict Cubans’ independence. In addition, during the same year US troops left Haiti that was occupied in 1915 during the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, who feared that European interests would diminish the influence of the United States both in that country and throughout the whole Caribbean region (Danticat 9-10). Roosevelt sought to replace American interventionism with a call for cooperation among all the nations of the Americas. On March 4, 1933, the thirty-second president of the United States of America proclaimed in his inaugural address the following: In the field of world policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others – the neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors. (Houck 111) This new attitude was incompatible with the use of military force in Latin America and in the Caribbean. Both the president and the members of his government emphasized in their public speeches that the White House desisted from armed intervention in these regions. In order to make this purpose clear, the US government signed two agreements in 1933: one in Montevideo and the other in Buenos Aires, in which the parties stated that: “no country has the right to intervene directly or indirectly in the internal or external affairs of another” (Selser 597). The new approach towards Latin America brought about social and cultural transformations as well. It was indispensable to make a series of readjustments regarding the perception of the participating countries and the peoples of the American continent. Subsequently, cultural diplomacy played a crucial role in this mission: its sphere of action included both the domestic and the foreign policy. International research on the cultural dimensions involving the relations between the United States and Latin America – carried out in archives and film archives of American countries and also in film studios – has uncovered new possibilities for analysis about the confluences between politics, economy, society and that of cultural identity. These new researches constitute today, and in this article, a fundamental component of the interdisciplinary field of Inter-American studies. 2. TOWARDS A NEW INTER-AMERICAN FILM POLICY In August 1940, President Roosevelt established the Office for Coordination of Commercial and Cultural Relations Between the American Republics (OCCCRBAR), which in 1941 adopted the name Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (OCIAA). Subsequently, from 1945 this organ was known as Office of Inter-American Affairs (OIAA). In historiography the latter denomination is used most frequently, even if the reference is made to the predecessor entities. The main task of the OIAA was to oppose the German and Italian influences on the American continent and to improve the image of the USA in Latin America and vice versa. This Office was created to assist in the preparation and coordination of policies to stabilize the Latin American economies, to secure and deepen U.S. influence in the region, and to combat Axis inroads into the hemisphere, particularly in the commercial and cultural spheres. (Cramer – Prutsch 786) The coordinator of the Office was the philanthropist businessman Nelson A. Rockefeller. The OIAA’s scope of action covered the fields of trade, communication, press, radio, cinema, education, culture and, as an integral element of all activities, propaganda. The OIAA could rely on the cooperation of the most important and influential representatives of these areas. In Latin American countries the Office’s subsidiaries operated under the supervision of the American embassies and received the unconditional support of those company executives that had a far-reaching network of interests in the target regions. The activity of the OIAA sought to control all spheres of life where any kind of relationship between the American countries could be detected. Cultural duties formed a distinguished element in this organization’s mission through various instruments. For example, these included the appointment of goodwill ambassadors or the financing of cultural events and tours in Latin America. Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Bing Crosby, John Ford and the American Ballet dance company, among many others, were part of a wide range of collaborators spreading American culture across the Americas (Benamou 244-245). One of the OIAA’s most notable divisions was the Motion Picture Division under the direction of John Hay Whitney. He travelled to several Latin American countries in search of reliable partners and promoters in order to spread the democratic ideas among these societies by means of the movies – and so, trying to counteract