BB reader Dan Berkes says, "Meet the Slavic Mexicans! How a Cold War lover's quarrel resulted in one Eastern European nation's adoption of Mexican music and movies. Does this make Tito the father of the mashup?"

In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (May 7, 1892 - May 4, 1980) broke up with the Soviet leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (Dec. 21, 1879 - March 5, 1953) and Yugoslavia was on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. There were tanks on both sides of the border and Tito's regime imprisoned many Soviet sympathizers (real or just suspected). Russian films were suddenly not so popular anymore.

Yugoslav authorities had to look somewhere else for film entertainment. They found a suitable country in Mexico: it was far away, the chances of Mexican tanks appearing on Yugoslav borders were slight and, best of all, in Mexican films they always talked about revolution in the highest terms. How could an average moviegoer know that it was not the Yugoslav revolution?

Update: BoingBoing reader meeroh says, "Naturally, the Yu-Mex mashup was parodied, with the parodies often far better than the originals. One of my favorite parodies songs is here (MP3), and the somewhat poorly transcribed lyrics are here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments