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Lesson 12:Lesson 12: A Latina’s Voice: Is Authenticity A Latina’s Voice: Is Authenticity

Possible?Possible?

Professor Daniel Bernardi /Professor Michelle Martinez

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In the last lecture…In the last lecture…

• Documentary Films-As anthropology-As self-

representation• “What about that other

alien?”-Criminalization of undocumented

immigrants-Documenting the undocumented

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In this lecture…In this lecture…• The three waves of

Chicano/a Film

• Postmodernism and the Mexican-American border dilemma

• Lourdes Portillo: Chicana Cinema– La Ofrenda (1988)– The Devil Never Sleeps (1994)

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Three Waves of Chicano Three Waves of Chicano CinemaCinema

Lesson 12: Part 1

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11stst Wave (1969-76) Wave (1969-76)

• Radical documentary Era• Cinematic expression of a culturally nationalist

movement• Politically contestational and formally

oppositional

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NationalismNationalism

“Recognizing that the Latino experience had been denigrated and stereotyped by the dominant cinema and that Latino talent was largely ignored by the industry, the First Wave turned its back on Hollywood

and found inspiration in revolutionary Cuban documentaries.”

-Charles Ramirez Berg (185)

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Cinema for Cinema for La RazaLa Raza

• Goals for the First Wave:– Decolonialize consciousness– Educate Chicanos about their heritage– Give voice to silenced history– Instill ethnic pride by celebrating culture– Mold a self-determined identity– Expose conditions of oppression– Mobilize La Raza politically, culturally, socially

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22ndnd Wave (1977-present) Wave (1977-present)

• Marks changes in movement• Still rebellious, not as separatist• Accessibility to mainstream funding (includes PBS)• Appearance of narrative films• Emergence of Chicana filmmakers

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Mainstream RecognitionMainstream Recognition

• Second Wave Feature Length Films:– Zoot Suit (1981)– La Bamba (1987)– The Ballad of Gergorio Cortez (1982)– The Milagro Beanfield War (1988)– El Norte (1982)– Mi Familia (1995)– Selena (1997)

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Mainstream Recognition Mainstream Recognition continuedcontinued

– Born In East L.A. (1987)– Stand and Deliver (1988)– American Me (1992)– Blood In, Blood Out (1993)

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Chicana RisingChicana Rising• The Second Wave introduced Chicana

documentarians, experimental filmmakers and videographers, and feature length screenwriters:– Sylvia Morales (Chicana [1979])– Lourdes Portillo (La Ofrenda [1989])– Susan Rancho (Garment Workers [1975])– Frances Salomé (España Anima [1989])– Sandra P. Hahn (Replies of the Night [1989])– Evelina Fernandez (Luminarias [2000])

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33rdrd Wave (late 1980s-present) Wave (late 1980s-present)

• Mostly made up of genre films• Inside and outside of Hollywood• Adheres closely to Hollywood paradigm

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33rdrd Wave (late 1980s-present) Wave (late 1980s-present)continuedcontinued

• Films do not accentuate Chicano resistance or oppression

• Ethnicity is one of many facts that shape lives of characters

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The Big PointThe Big Point

Chicana/o Film production emerged from a grassroots, low-budget call-to-arms

movement to a refined,financially-backed industry, creating big names and garnering a

mainstream audience. Chicana/o film production has gone through various phases

to get this recognition.

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The Big Point continuedThe Big Point continued

Beginning with nationalist themes and a “by La Raza for La Raza” mindset to an

informative and subversive historical documentary phase, retelling histories from inside the culture merging into a phase that has landed on international

screens and prime time television, stating Chicano/a and Latino/a ethnicity, not as

an “other” but as a “matter of fact.”

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Postmodernism and Border Postmodernism and Border DocumentaryDocumentary

Lesson 12: Part 2

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PostmodernismPostmodernism

“Postmodernists argue that a decentralized society inevitably creates

responses/perceptions that are described as post-modern, such as the rejection of what are seen as the false, imposed unities of

meta-narrative and hegemony; the breaking of traditional frames of genre, structure and

stylistic unity; and the overthrowing of categories that are the result of logocentrism and other forms of artificially imposed order.”

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Postmodernism continuedPostmodernism continued“Scholars who accept the division of post-modernity as a distinct period believe that society has collectively eschewed modern ideals and instead adopted ideas that are

rooted in the reaction to the restrictions and limitations of those ideas, and that the present

is therefore a new historical period.”

-Wikipedia

For more information on Postmodernism click For more information on Postmodernism click herehere

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Chicana/os as PostmodernistsChicana/os as Postmodernists

“Mexican Americans have lived with realities that we now call postmodern—

fragmentation, heterogeneity, hybridity, an ironic relation to the past, and a healthy

skepticism about the master narratives of progress, liberation, and science—for the

past 150 years.” (197)

-Charles Ramirez Berg

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Border DiscourseBorder Discourse

“Of course, in a broad sense, all or nearly all Chicana/o filmmakers—whether they work in fiction or nonfiction cinema—are border documentarians, in that their films almost always refer back to our Mexican roots,

directly or indirectly juxtaposing that heritage with their present American

existence.” (198)- Charles Ramirez Berg

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The Cinematic Discourse on the The Cinematic Discourse on the Border and ImmigrationBorder and Immigration

• Chicana/o borderland documentaries break with the mass media’s perspective on the border

• Hollywood’s system treatment of the border lies in its underlying assumption that Americans must be “compelled” to cross into Mexico

• That people in the movies don’t just go- they have to be pushed into going

• Hollywood typically places protagonists south of the border as escape from something on the north side

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Hollywood’s EthnocentrismHollywood’s Ethnocentrism

“No one in the movies needs an excuse to visit and vacation in Western Europe, but how often do Americans go to Mexico to meet the people,

to study Mexican art, history, or music, to sample the food, or to see the sights? Such

activities would imply the possibility of learning something from Mexico and Mexicans,

something Hollywood’s ethnocentric prejudice typically denies even the most open-minded,

liberal, countercultural characters.” (199)-Charles Ramirez Berg

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Border as Plot DeviceBorder as Plot Device• Likeable thieves running from the law• Adventurers looking for a good time

(party)• Lovers fleeing romantic entanglements• Business men or swindlers looking to

improve their fortune• Disenchanted expatriates seeking

retreat

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Chicana/o CrossingsChicana/o Crossings

“In contrast, the people in Chicana/o border documentaries voluntarily return to Mexico, either physically, or in their

dreams and memories, or in their folkways (music, murals, food). Moreover, as

opposed to Hollywood’s south-of-the-border travelers, these willing border

crossers do so almost entirely for cultural reasons.” (199-200)

-Charles Ramirez Berg

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The Big PointThe Big PointThe experiences of Mexican-Americans and their film production is a discourse that reflects postmodernism in the following ways: double-

coding and contradictions, hybridity, ironic attitude towards history, tradition and memory,

an oppositional stance, and an incoherent narrative. This great mix of attitudes and

expressions are not only postmodern in form and content, but reflect the mix that informs

Chicana/o identity.

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Lourdes PortilloLourdes Portillo

Lesson 12: Part 3

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Chicana CinemaChicana Cinema

• Born in Mexico in 1944

• Her father was an administrator for a newspaper office

• Because of his job, there were many different kinds of books around the house; she was an avid reader

• Moved to Los Angeles as an adolescent

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Informed by Freud, MarxInformed by Freud, Marx“The Soviets were giving magazines away in Mexico

and I thought what a romantic place this was because they depicted the Soviet Union in a very

romantic way. And also, I remember Bohemia, which was another magazine that was published in Cuba,

a very famous magazine I found out later. You know, those things I remember affecting me a lot. And also, later when we came to the United States, we still had

a lot of books, because my father was always working in some kind of printing thing. I remember

reading Freud when I was fifteen.” -From an interview with Lourdes Portillo

by Michelle Martinez

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FilmsFilms• After the Earthquake/Despues del

Terremoto (1979)– Short narrative film about Central

American exiles to San Francisco – Explores assimilation

• Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo (1986)– Documentary exploring the political crisis

regarding disappearances in Argentina– Nominated for an Academy Award

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FilmsFilms

• Vida (1989) – Short narrative film about a Latina with

AIDS in NYC

• Columbus On Trial (1992)– Collaboration with Culture Clash– Subversive performance video

challenging notions about Christopher Columbus

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FilmsFilms

• Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena (1999)– Feature length documentary about the

impact of Selena on girls/women in TX• Conversations With Intellectuals About

Selena (1999) – Documentary

• My McQueen (2004)– Documentary exploring filming of Bullit – Explores masculinity

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La OfrendaLa Ofrenda

• La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead (1988)

– Cultural exploration of Mexican heritage– Documents celebrations of El Dia de Los

Muertos in Mexico– Then shifts to celebrations in San

Francisco– Bilingual/Transborder– Won several honors on film festival circuit

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La Ofrenda La Ofrenda as ofrendaas ofrenda

“With Las Madres I ended up very angry after finding out everything that I found out. It was devastating for me. And the

way I reacted was, ‘Let’s talk about death the way Mexicans talk about death. Let’s

find out what it’s about in Mexico. It will be a happier film’.”

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La Ofrenda La Ofrenda as ofrenda as ofrenda continuedcontinued

“So basically, that’s what it was. And at the same time, I saw at La Galeria de la Raza, my friend Ralph Maradiaga started doing these beautiful celebrations for the dead. It was just the very

very beginning of the renaissance of The Day of the Dead in the United States. I wanted to

capture that moment, because it went on to become a cultural phenomenon, right now.”

-From an interview with Lourdes Portillo by Michelle Martinez

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As PostmodernAs Postmodern

“…for the unassimilated Mexican American, the move (between Mexico and the U.S) is

smooth and natural and makes sense culturally because it mimics the back-and-

forth cultural shifts that Mexican Americans make daily.” (208)

-Charles Ramirez Berg

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The Devil Never SleepsThe Devil Never Sleeps

• The Devil Never Sleeps/ EI Diablo Nunca Duerme (1994)

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The Devil Never SleepsThe Devil Never Sleepscontinuedcontinued

• Experimental documentary that blurs the lines between borders:– Private/public– Voyeur/exhibitionist– Mexico/United States– Filmmer/Filmed– Spanish/English

• Example of Chicana Film Noir– Filmmaker as detective

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Experimental FormExperimental Form

“…using mirrors in film is very evocative, because you are already seeing a mirror, then a mirrored mirror, you know what I’m saying? That was a strategy that we used in filming The Devil Never Sleeps that was

really thought out with the cinematographer.”

-From an interview with Lourdes Portillo by Michelle Martinez

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As PostmodernAs Postmodern“The primary message for Mexican American viewers

is that, for all their nostalgia about their roots, they can’t easily go home again. What’s worse, with

Mexican Americans marginalized from both the U.S. and Mexican systems, they have no home. From this perspective, The Devil Never Sleeps is a persuasive

postmodern treatise on Mexican American alienation, illustrating how we are caught betwixt and between, unable to fit on either side of the border.”

(213)

-Charles Ramirez Berg

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Señorita ExtraviadaSeñorita Extraviada

• Señorita Extraviada: Missing Young Woman (2001)– Documentary– Tells the story of the hundreds of

kidnapped, raped and murdered young women of Juárez, Mexico

– Filmmaker as investigator– Examines global economy

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Seeking Justice through FilmSeeking Justice through Film

“…Señorita Extraviada, was very very hard for me because the theme of it was so hard, what’s happening is so hard, and then the follow up and doing all of the human rights work was very difficult. It

took me like five years to actually get it out of my system, you know.”

-From an interview with Lourdes Portillo by Michelle Martinez

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The Big PointThe Big PointPortillo’s unique style in filmmaking has brought her critical attention and she has opened the door for many younger Latina

filmmakers. Her ease as a transborder investigator is indelibly postmodern as work seeks truth in solving mysteries of

identity.

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End of Lecture 12End of Lecture 12

Next Lecture: Resistance ain’t futile, is it?