<br /><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpFirst" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The</span></i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";"> <i>Motorcycle Diaries</i> is a 2004 for film that is based off of the diary that Ernesto (Che) Guevara kept while traveling through South America, with his friend Alberto Granado, in 1952. Throughout his travels across South America, Guevara forms a love for its people, and a wish to see them treated fairly by the governments of the continent. </span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">The film’s purpose is to show how Guevara had his “political awakening as he was pulled away from his familiar life in Argentina and exposed to a continent of brutal extremes”, and how this formed him into the revolutionary that he later became. (Elena 21) The film excellently shows his restlessness, as discussed by the Eduardo Elena reading. It also shows his lack of knowledge of the countries he visits and his not taking the time to research those countries. Doing so could have saved him a lot of trouble later on as a revolutionary trying to start a guerilla action in Bolivia, as Ann Zulawski discusses in her essay.</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Guevara was not alone in his travels in the 1950s. He “came of age in a time marked by the regular movement of people across Argentina, from rural residents relocating to urban areas to short-term leisure travel.” (Elena 22) His entire generation seemed to have that restless need to travel, but not everyone was able to the way he did. Guevara was able to freely break social and spatial boundaries during his travels due to his “position as a male in 1950s Argentine society.” (26) However he made the effort to separate himself form normal tourists by avoiding large cities and trying to connect to more “rural folk.” (28, 31) Meeting these people did not seem to end his views of them as stereotypes. The film does appear accurate that he “went farther than his peers to seek out people from different social worlds,” but also glosses over the “social landscape of the 1950s.” (32, 33) This could be seen as important in shaping Guevara’s future, so it seems to be a strange omission. It is also interesting that Guevara largely ignored the politics of his native Argentina when he was younger. He did not become involved in politics until after his travels, and then not even in his home country. </span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in; text-indent: 0.5in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">Even though his journeys greatly influenced him, they: </span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">reflected the increasing rigidity of his view of political action, coupled with a deepening inability to perceive the full complexity of social conditions… contributed to his final failure in Bolivia, as the guerilla-traveler attempted to lead a revolution among a largely indigenous population about whom he knew almost nothing. (48)</span></div><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpMiddle" style="margin-left: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">This meshes with what Zulawski discusses in her essay; mainly the fact that Guevara spent very little time in the country of Bolivia. (181) His diary lacked the same level of description that he gave to other countries. (183) He ultimately failed to see that the proletariats of Bolivia had a strong hand in the government and would have started change themselves. Especially since few even knew he was in the country in 1967. (204)</span></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U9ULAWmxF8k/TXREhJGKPuI/AAAAAAAAABI/ywiAPm8Qmfc/s1600/comradejd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-U9ULAWmxF8k/TXREhJGKPuI/AAAAAAAAABI/ywiAPm8Qmfc/s320/comradejd.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">STILL GUILTY!</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNoteLevel1CxSpLast" style="margin-left: 0in;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman";">It seems the mighty Che forgot that knowledge is power. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/1378570525637450649-6620185785369009309?l=dcaldwellhistory475.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
