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The title of this essay derives from Luis García Berlanga's satirical film ¡Bienvenido, Mr Marshall! (1953), in which the inhabitants of a Castilian town, having heard a rumor that George Marshall, of the Marshall Plan, is to pass through on his way to Portugal from France, fantasize about the advantages his aid will bring.¹ Believing the US delegation will expect all Spaniards to behave like the romantic gypsies of Andalusia, they prepare for his anticipated arrival by redecorating the town and dressing up in costumes, transforming even their speech and behavior to resemble the B-movies starring Lola Flores. Berlanga's subtle film is simultaneously a parody of that gypsy/flamenco genre of Franco-era cinema, a denunciation of socioeconomic conditions in rural Spain, a critique of US foreign policy, and a multilayered analysis of the ways the expectations of various agents converge in the representations that shape their perceptions of themselves and reality. These processes become visible through the anticipated presence of an authority figure, whose power enthralls the local population, leading them to perform their identities in a way they never would otherwise. In the sixteenth century, the arrival of the inquisitor on his visit to the towns of his jurisdiction produced a similar effect, which is to say, a vivid dramatization of the disequilibrium in power relations constitutive of intercultural phenomena.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137484390_7

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