Taking in the View: Golden Age Acapulco
Images of 1950’s Acapulco promote the idea of a tropical paradise that is simultaneously timeless and historical; bound in local traditions and internationally modern. The framing of nature, people, geography and, especially, water creates these narratives and ultimately conspires to construct the image of what we now call the Golden Age of Acapulco.
Set within the background of a prosperous postwar Mexico, Acapulco stood as a beacon of modernity and economic vitality achieved through federal and private investment in the local tourism industry. Located on the Pacific Coast, app. 450 km south of Mexico City, Acapulco was a trendy destination for Hollywood film stars, international jetsetters, and Mexican middle-to-upper classes from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. President Miguel Alemán Valdés (Pres. 1946-52) spearheaded a campaign for major tourism infrastructure development during a period that also saw substantial coastal land expropriations and utter neglect for the construction and improvement of workers’ housing and public utility services. Taking into account this double standard for development, a way of seeing nature emerged that was influenced by the profitable prospects of beach tourism and facilitated by technological advances in aerial photography. James C. Scott’s notion of “tunnel vision” helps to explain how certain images, by narrowing vision and bringing into focus only certain aspects of a far more complex reality, enable a way of seeing the landscape that turns nature into natural resources. In addition, specific metaphors are used in images, such as the deserted space, man vs. nature, etc.. and these metaphors reframe national and geopolitical histories by playing on the observer’s perceptions. Of great interest are the commercial postcards of Acapulco of the 1950’s, which present a homogenized view of water, that is, water as it functioned solely in the industry of leisure. Modernity in these postcards is related to infrastructure, and does not include the iconic indigenous figure as protagonist -as was customary in images of the time. There are also photographs by Lola Alvarez Bravo made for a book entitled Acapulco en el sueño, 1951, written by poet Francisco Tario, where different visual metaphors are evoked to comment on the socioeconomic and political histories of Acapulco. Siqueiros’ Acapulco Bay (1957) is also significant because here we see how form and content embody the intersections between the modern gaze and modernity.To sum up, images construct modernity, nature, and history via the framing of water within the context of 1950’s Acapulco.
