Scripting Sexual Tourism: Fusco and Bustamante's STUFF, Prostitution and Cuba's Special Period

This essay negotiates the tension between the real-life economic problems of post-Soviet Cuba, sexual tourism, and its representation in a performance piece by Latina artists Fusco and Bustamante entitled STUFF. As such it deals with the blurring lines of scholarship distinction between studies of human behavior in particular historical contexts and the dramatic. The artistic/theatrical performance of a social phenomenon (tourism) which has itself been recently theorized as 'stage-able' creates the framework for a parodic intent in the performance piece STUFF. It begins by questioning the ability to translate the notion of 'script' and of 'scripted' behavior from a bilingual, linguistic perspective, later moving towards an analysis of prostitution in Cuba's Special Period as defined from a number of political perspectives. This article proposes that STUFF plays with the referential aspect of socially scripted behavior to build an effective parody that suggests a cultural critique of Neoliberal, global consumerism.