Being Like Che: The Popularity of Ernesto Guevara’s Image

“The revolutionary struggle of the cherries was squashed as they were trapped between two layers of chocolate. May their memory live on in your mouth,” reads the wrapper on the Magnum-brand “Cherry Guevara”-flavored ice cream bar. After eating away the layers of chocolate, cherry sauce and ice cream, one finds a wooden stick emblazoned with the words, “We will bite to the end!” These bars are sold all over the world; I picked one up from a street vendor in Jerusalem, an ocean, language, and culture away from the Latin American countries where Ernesto “Che” Guevara rose to fame as a revolutionary Communist figure.

Cherry Guevara ice cream is just one product among countless consumer goods that utilize Che’s likeness and persona. TheCheStore. com sells everything from t-shirts to beanies to lighters, all adorned with the iconic image of Che that has permeated the international market. That image, taken by photographer Alberto Korda in Cuba in 1960, depicts Che with his beret askew and his piercing gaze staring up and into the distance. It has ironically become both a universal symbol of struggle against capitalistic government as well as a huge commercial success in the years since Che’s death in 1967. What is it about this image that gives it such ideological and marketable power? How can these two qualities—anti-commercial ideology and commercial marketability—coexist with each other in the image, and why is it such a popular combination? It’s undeniable that his image still contains political meaning. In Israel, I saw Che’s face decorating the t-shirts of a number of young Palestinian nationalists.

Che Guevara’s wide-ranging and successful afterlife as a printed image is in part owed to the actual events of his life. In his own lifetime, was already a global figure who extended his ideology to various issues and locales. Though a native of Argentina, Che was a leader of the Cuban revolution, fought in the Congo, and gave speeches around the world about such topics as South African apartheid and racism in the United States. This broad-ranging activism detached his ideology from any specific country, and made Che into a voice for the world’s disenfranchised. He died fighting in Bolivia, a country that he had no relation to besides a common language, thus making him a martyr for the cause rather than one specific country. In addition, his death was likely ordered by the CIA, a symbol of capitalist power. His death was mourned not by just one nation in particular, but by countless people around the world who related to his anticapitalist ideology.

Dying as a martyr established him as a kind of savior figure among many who were moved by his ideas. He lived and died for his cause, and because that cause can be interpreted to fit almost any group or individual that feels disenfranchised, he became a universal savior. Even today, many people in Latin America dedicate altars to Che during El Dia de los Muertos, during which most altars are dedicated to Christian saints.

The distribution of Alberto Korda’s photograph of Che helped create his saint-like postmortem persona. Korda took the photo on March 5, 1960 in Havana, Cuba at a memorial service for the victims of a freighter accident, but the picture itself gives no hint of this setting. Che wears nothing that definitively distinguishes him as being in Cuba or fighting for the country—there is not a Cuban flag or symbol anywhere in the picture. His expression bears no sign of mourning, or any other clear emotion for that matter. It is unclear what he is looking at, or thinking about, or feeling. All of this ambiguity allowed (and continues to allow) the image to be interpreted along almost any set of precepts. The Korda image of Che Guevara, shorn of any context of where it was taken or what Che’s ideology really was, can be interpreted (and used, and commercialized) in countless ways. Many people around the world might recognize Che’s face, and perhaps associate him with the Cuban Revolution, and maybe with the other revolutions he participated in as well. However, it has been nearly five decades since his death, and in the absence of any living person to tie the image to, it transcends the life that he actually led.

Yet there is more to the image of Che than its contextual ambiguity that allowed it to become so universal. If it was only ambiguity that gave it power, then any face could have garnered such universal appeal. However, most people who see the image know something about Che. His revolutionary spirit is still remembered by many around the world, even if his specific actions and words are not. His image serves as a mnemonic device for that revolutionary ideal. It is what the revolution in question is that remains ambiguous and open to interpretation.

The image has been used for a wide range of protest movements, of which here is a partial list: The Zapatistas in Mexico have flaunted images of Che on their clothes, banners, flags, and posters since 1994. French protestors carried Che Guevara flags in 2000 at the trial of French farming and anti-neoliberalism activist Jose Bove, who destroyed a McDonald’s restaurant in protest. Che’s image appeared at social movement events of landless workers in Brazil (1997), striking university students in Mexico City (1999), and peace activists in Italy (2002). The image was displayed at an anti-neoliberal globalization really in Argentina accompanied by speeches from Bolivia’s socialist presidential candidate (and later president) Evo Morales and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. In Kazakhstan, supporters of that country’s Communist Party candidate wore Che’s image, and Columbian revolutionaries wore Che t-shirts as they ceremoniously laid down their weapons. The far range and reach of Che Guevara’s image as a political tool is evidenced by this extensive and varied list of movements that have employed the Korda photograph in shaping their own images. The only thing that these protests and movements seem to have in common is an antiestablishment bent, which is perhaps the only thing that interpretations of Che’s persona also have in common.

Yet Che’s image graces more than just revolutionary posters and clothing today. The fact that Che transcended any specific conflict during his lifetime implies that, at least where the image is used as a device for anti-capitalistic protest, it remains true to his far-ranging values and therefore might still be sacred relative to his own beliefs. However, there are also myriad cases in which Che’s image is appropriated without any political agenda in mind, but purely as a consumer product within the capitalist framework that Che fought against. From ice cream wrappers to key chains to condoms, the Korda photo adorns many items that do not clearly connect to the spirit of antiestablishment revolution.

Though this appropriation may seem to go against Che’s values, it still, in fact, serves to further his cause. Even when his image becomes a consumer good, Che avoids being fully co-opted into the dominant, mainstream ideology because he represents ideas and values not easily folded into traditional patriarchal, conservative and capitalistic ideologies. The image, no matter what product it graces, continues to represent antiestablishment revolution even when it is sold and displayed within the establishment. The ability to remain part of consumer culture while simultaneously representing values that undermine it actually gives Che’s image more power than it would have if it were not a desirable consumer good. Che Guevara is gone, and capitalism is still the dominant ideology of the world; the only way that his persona can continue to fight the system is by working within it.

Che’s image today is, rather than just a symbol of the man himself, a representation of the boundless and constant conflict between the mainstream system and those against it. Some of the few stories comparable to the dimensions of the battle that Che has become a symbol of are biblical parables and Greek epics. Che functions as a current site of this longrunning conflict, one that preceded his own life and remains ongoing after his death.

Members of the Organización de Pioneros José Martí, a Cuban youth organization, wear shirts emblazoned with Che’s signature and pledge to “be like Che.” What does that mean, in a world where Che is both in the system and against it, not a mere person but the embodiment of a conflict that transcends borders and years? That transcendence is something rarely accomplished by an individual. Equally rare is the fame and broad range that Che’s revolutionary life took on. Perhaps the exhortation to “be like Che” means not be like Ernesto Guevara, the man, but to be like Che’s image: existing within the system while simultaneously acting as a voice against it.