Guevara children denounce Che branding

by infomatique | June 7, 2008 at 02:48 pm
378 views | 10 Recommendations | 2 comments

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Che Guevara is an icon of the 20th century whose brand has turned into a worldwide marketing phenomenon.

The fact that Guevara was a communist guerrilla and Marxist ideologue is an irony of little interest to his capitalist exploiters. It has, however, become a problem for his children. Aleida Guevara this week denounced the commercialisation of her father's image as an affront to his socialist ideals.

Aleida, 47, the eldest of Guevara's four children by his second wife, complained of the inappropriate usage of her father's image  during an internet forum sponsored by Cuba's government ahead of what would have been her father's 80th birthday on June 14.

The famous image portrait was based on an image taken by the Cuban photographer Alberto Korda in Havana in 1960. It was pinned to his studio wall for seven years until the Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli mass produced it around the time of Guevara's death.

Korda willingly forfeited royalties but he sued a British advertising agency for using the photo to promote vodka.

Cuba's government has used the image to promote its revolution and to rake in tourist dollars through state-run stores which sell Che paraphernalia.

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Amy Judd
Amy Judd
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 14:51 on June 7th, 2008

infomatique, I like this story. It's good stuff.

I hadn't heard about this. Guevara's image is everywhere in Cuba, and I remember thinking about the irony of it when I was there, so it's about time his family spoke out against it.

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infomatique

 I have never made it to Cuba but some of my friends who have been there made the same comment as you have just made.

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