Ché Guevara: The Man and the Myth as Reflected in

“The Motorcycle Diaries”

Che is still popular on

College Campuses 40+

years after his death (Ché

Chic, 2004).

Does the popular movie The Motorcycle Diaries introduce the real

Che to this generation or just add to his myth?

The Motor Cycle Diaries was based on Ernesto Ché

Guevara’s journal of his 1952 trip through South America,

Notas de viaje, translation by Ann Wright published as

The Motorcycle Diaries: A Journey around South America

in 1995 (Che Guevara, 2002).

•Ernesto and his friend,

Alberto Granado take

off from Buenos Aires

in December 1951 on a

1939 bike they call

“The Mighty One.”

•They make a 9,000

trek through their

homeland, then Chile,

Peru, Ecuador,

Colombia and

Venezuela.

(Salles, 2004).

But “The Mighty One” does not prove to be so mighty and dies

along the way so they have to make the rest of the trip on foot,

hitchhiking and by boat completing the trip four months later than

anticipated (Salles, 2004).

The film was directed by Brazilian, Walter Salles

and stared Mexican Actor, Gael Garcia Bernal.

The Motorcycle Diaries won the 2005 Academy

Award for best Foreign Language Film.

It was a beautifully filmed and well acted movie but how accurately

did it depict South America in the 1950’s and how much did it tell us

about the person Ernesto Guevara Serna was and the revolutionary

he became as Ché Guevara?

Washington Post film Critic, Stephen

Hunter (2004) says the picture is “less an

evocation of Ché the man than Youth the

experience (para. 1).”

Let the world change you and you can change the world.

Movie:

Guevara was changed

by this experience into

a revolutionary while on

his journey (Salles,

2004).

Reality:

Guevara was influenced by his mother’s

radical political ideas. At age 14, he

joined the Partido Union Democratica

and participated in violent protests

against the government of Juan Peron.

On the other hand,

clearly this trip

confirmed his beliefs

that the poor,

especially the

indigenous peoples of

South America, were

oppressed by the

wealthy

Latifundia

was a system of land tenure that concentrated land ownership in

the lands of wealthy estate owners. These estates were worked by

share croppers or migrant worker who had no share in the profits

and could be displaced at the will of the land owners.

•This concentration

of land ownership

began with the

Spanish conquest

of South America,

grew worse with

independence from

Spain in the 1800’s.

•The situation had

not improved by

the 1950’s when

Guevara made his

trip.

•Today, half a

century later,

inequality of land

ownership is still a

problem in parts of

South America.

Machu Picchu,

the "Lost City of the Incas"

•Royal estate of the Inca emperor.

•Abandoned about the time of the Spain inquest.

•Never found so not destroyed by the Spanish

•Rediscovered by explorer Hiram Bingham’s in 1911

“How is it possible

to feel nostalgic for

a world I never

knew,”

Perhaps the Inca’s most amazing accomplishment was a

series of highways that connected the empire and made

communication and governing possible. (How hard it

would have been to pave roads over the Andes!) The Incan

empire was the largest and most powerful of the Pre-

Columbian civilizations.

Tupac Amaru

Puppet emperor who

rebelled against the

Spanish government and

the Catholic Church in the

late 16th Century.

Alberto is inspired to unite the

Quecha, form a party and

encourage the people to vote.

He wants to “reactivate Tupac

Amaru’s revolution .”

Ernesto’s response was, “A

revolution without guns? It

would never work.”

This is the only indication in the

entire movie that Guevara

advocated violent revolution for

social change.

At the San Pablo Leper ColonyNear the end of their journey, Ernesto, who had dropped out of

Medical School to come on the trip, volunteered in a leper

colony. He is upset by the callousness of the nuns who serve

as nurses there. But it should be noted that he spent only three

week at the colony, while the nuns had dedicated their entire

lives to helping the lepers.

In the postscript of the

film the rest of

Guevara’s life is

summed up as follows:

…Ernesto Ché

Guevara, one of the

most prominent and

inspiring leaders of the

Cuban revolution. Ché

went on to fight for his

ideals in the Congo and

Bolivia where he was

captured and, with the

support of the CIA,

murdered in October

1967.

While the above statement is basically accurate, it leaves out

some important facts.

After the trip in the Motorcycle Diaries,

• Ernesto went on to finish medical school but decided not to

practice medicine.

• Went toGuatemala where he became a supporter of the president,

Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. When Arbenz was deposed, Ernesto

joined the revolutionary forces trying to reinstate him.

• In Mexico, he met Fidel

Castro and signed up as a

physician for Castro’s army of

Cuban revolutionaries.

Ultimate Guerrilla Warrior.

Castro’s right hand men.

In 1961, he published Guerrilla Warfare, a

training manual he hoped would help

bring about revolution in Latin America

and the rest of the world.

Unsuccessful president of the Cuban

National Bank and head of the Ministry of

Industry.

About this same time, Guevara began criticizing the Soviet

Union for their lack of support for the new Communist state.

Castro needing Soviet backing seems to have forced Guevara

out of office.

Ché Guevara in

the Palace of

Snakes,

Dahomey (now

Benin),

January 1965.

Guerrilla Warfare in Africa

Guevara tried to put the principles of Guerrilla Warfare into

practice in the Congo. The revolution backfired when a coup

replaced the besieged president of the Congo with a rightist

military junta.

After returning to Cuba,

Guevara assembly a group

of guerrillas to spread the

revolution to Bolivia. But

he had misread the

situation in the country,

where the president had

just been elected and

seemed to have popular

support.

He didn’t get along with the members of the Bolivian

Communist Party who resented him for telling them how to

run their own revolution. In the end a number of Bolivian

recruits deserted Ché and attempted to turn him over to the

Bolivian army. Eventually he was captured and executed in

Bolivia.

After his death,

Ché became a

martyr and a

symbol of

idealistic

rebellion. It is

really this symbol

rather than the

man that The

Motorcycle

Diaries is about.

Although many critics loved the movie, a number point out that

it gives a idealized impression of a man who was far from ideal.

L to R: Che Guevara, Raul Castro, and Fidel Castro

effective Communist leader without also being the conscienceless monster. I

know "Motorcycle Diaries" took place well before Guevara took up arms, but not

acknowledging the whole truth does neither the legend nor history any

favors…. It makes for a nice night at the movies, though. The story, for

"Motorcycle Diaries" is a film about the sowing of revolution designed for the

approval of bourgeois gentlefolk - for the very type of person that Ché , once

one himself, would not think twice about putting a bullet into. There I go again;

but why can't a film acknowledge that violence and repression were at least as

much a part of his legacy as egalitarianism, martyrdom and a really popular

poster?

-- Bob Strauss (2004), LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS

This is, then, a feel-good movie

about a guy who helped to

establish the Castro dictatorship

in Cuba, for which he killed many

and ordered the executions of

many more. That is the negative

spin, of course; the other is that

Ché was a tireless champion of

the suffering masses, and bravely

sacrificed his own life for their

cause. But he could not be the

One Critic’s Comments

References

“Ché Chic. ” (2004). The Wilson Quarterly, 28(4), 10-11. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/197249921?accountid=36334

Che Guevara. (2002). In Contemporary Hispanic Biography (Vol. 2). Detroit:

Gale. Retrieved from http://tinyurl.com/ztthqdh

Dorfman, A. (1999). Che Guevara. (Cover story). Time, 153(23), 210. Retrieved

from https://lynn-

lang.student.lynn.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.as

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Hunter, S. (2004, Oct 01). 'Motorcycle diaries': Che guevara's ride of

passage. The Washington Post . Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/409802567?accountid=36334

McCormick, G. H. (1998). Che Guevara: The legacy of a revolutionary

man. World Policy Journal, 14(4), 63. Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com/docview/232590328?accountid=36334

Salles, W. (Director). (2004). The Motorcycle Diaries [Motion picture]. United

States: Universal.

Strauss, B. (2004, September 23). Meet a kinder, gentler Ché in ‘Motorcycle

Diaries.’ Los Angeles Daily News. Retrieved from

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/MEET+A+KINDER,+GENTLER+CHE+IN+%6

0MOTORCYCLE+DIARIES'.-a0122482986

Tennenbaum, B. A., (ed). (1996). Encyclopedia of Latin American History and

Culture. New York: Simon & Schuster MacMillan.