Part 4 - From Mexico to Canada

After living in the Czech Republic for five years, our family moved to Mexico City, where we remained for two years before moving to Canada. Mexico served as my introduction to the Western culture, and once again television was the main medium in doing so. Yet again cartoons and TV programs, many dubbed in to Spanish, were integral in teaching myself the language and the culture.

I found the cartoons in the West, like He-Man, Superman, and The Hulk, had too many pointless explosions and unnecessarily frightening characters like Skeletor.

Not being able to identify with the images, I generally found myself watching animated programs only if there was no better programming on TV. I much more preferred programs like Knight Rider and the Dukes of Hazard.


What changed at this age was my preference and mode of consumption. Eleven years old now, and a fan of Formula 1 racing, I found myself watching programs like The Dukes of Hazard or Knight Rider over animated cartoons like He Man, largely because of to the car chases (a new Western culture phenomenon for me) and the main characters associated with them. Characters like Luke and Bo Duke and mainly Michael Knight soon became my new idols and were my introduction to the Western definition of a male role model. This new definition was to some extent conflicted with the Eastern European ideal. While it was perfectly acceptable for a man to be romantic, in love, or emotional in much of Czech programming, the Western role models rarely showed emotion or desired romance, but were often muscular and well dressed. Idealizing them for their toughness, I often acted out the roles as my new idols in my role-playing with toy cars alone and with my friends.


Arriving to Canada changed my consumption preferences once again after my newfound friends introduced me to the culture of the Saturday morning cartoon and WWF wrestling. Learning that Canada will be our permanent home, in my desire to fit in, I found myself watching many of the cartoons I rejected earlier in Mexico. These cartoons now included G.I. Joe and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, cartoons that most of my friends were obsessed with and frantically collected their action figures (another new Western culture phenomenon at that time for me). In playing with these G.I. Joe action figures, I felt awkward pretending to shoot and explode other characters, building, and cars, and secretly disliked acting out pretend WWF matches. Perhaps Althusser would call it a clash of ideologies, but Wrestling was a popular culture item that completely escaped me. I found the stories of wrestling fake and shallow and could never understand why my friends questioned their reality. Although they had a muscular physique and acting macho, these half naked characters in tight pants failed to represent any sort of role model for me. Fearing rejection however, I performed along with these actions anyway.

Submissively consuming media texts with violence or violent undertones continued through my teens and into early adulthood when belonging to a peer group mattered to me the most. In the form of a TV series or film, the texts like The Terminator or Rambo were an integral part of popular culture for my age group, and consumption of these was virtually an expected practice for a Western male. A role I immersed myself in for a long period of time to the point of virtual cultural amnesia of my early childhood.