The Puerto Rico of The Rum Diary

For my Literature class, I had the opportunity of watching The Rum Diary, a movie based on a book written by Hunter S. Thompson. Said movie takes place in the 1960's in the island of Puerto Rico and portrays a story of an American journalist, Johnny Deep as Paul Kemp, whom takes an independent job in Puerto Rico in order to be able to publish the truth.

Throughout the movie one observes the problematic of American migrants that are affecting the locals' culture and identity. Also, other issues (poverty, greediness, ignorance, alcoholism) that are going on in the island become present and make this movie a social criticism.

On the ignorance and greediness note, I can mention a quote said by Lotterman: "a reluctant part of America, like England with tropical fruit". This shows how the American immigrants portrayed the island and, consequently, how poorly they though of it. To them, Puerto Rico was only a pice of land they could use for their benefit and nothing more. Like Jamaica Kincaid would say, these immigrants are "ugly tourists" rather than being travellers because they only see the superficial side of things and look for pleasure and benefit rather than exploiting the island beauty and history.

Contrary to Lotterman, the tourist, Kemp was a dynamic character throughout the film because, in my opinion, he started off as a tourist but later became a traveler. At the beginning of the movie, Kemp was ignorant a somewhat egocentric. Nevertheless, once he moved into the apartment on the island, he transformed into a traveler. He began to find an interest and understand the problems that Puerto Rico was facing. 

There are definitely issues showed in this movie that we Puerto Ricans are still facing. The current media of our island is corrupted and, in many occasions, lacks to publish the complete truth about a situation. Most posts are about what the majority of the people want to hear and not necessarily the real scenario. Also, there are many occasions where were are treated like less than Americans. On the other hand, there are some differences because since the 1960’s Puerto Ricans have raised their voice and have grown as a society and population.