Lecture 5: How about some Latino stereotypes?

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Lecture 5 How about some Latino stereotypes?

• Professor Daniel Bernardi /
• Professor Michelle Martinez

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In the last lecture

• Semiotics of Stereotypes
• Falling Down (1993)
• Reception of Stereotypes

Ben Shahn, Conversations, 1958
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In this lecture

• Stereotypes Story
• Six Latino Stereotypes
• Resistance is Possible
• Progressive Images
• Latinos Playing Latinos

Dolores Del Río
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Stereotypes Story
Shot from Flying Down to Rio (1933)

• Lecture 5 Part 1

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Remember Semiotic Process
From Noodle Tools
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Remember Signs of Stereotyping
A mediated stereotype, then, operates by
gathering a specific set of negative traits
(signifiers) and assembling them into a
particular image (sign).
Charles Ramírez Berg

• Image/Sign El Bandido
• Traits/Signifiers Color, Sombrero, Smirk
• Signified Connotative Meanings (race, nation,
  morality, etc.)

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Remember Triangled Viewer

• Audience Invited Into Triangle
• Asked to Take a Side
• Hero (in-group)
• Other Character (out-group or just minor)
• Easiest Way into Movie is Assuming Positive Point
  (hence, identification)

Archetype Hero
- Stereotype
Viewer
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Start with Characters

• Entrenched Storytelling Conventions
• Goal-Oriented Protagonist
• White, Handsome, Straight, Protestant
• Stereotypes and Minor Characters
• Villains, Sidekicks, Temptresses
• Provide Hero w/ Opportunities to Display Moral,
  Physical and Intellectual Preeminence

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Consider Cinematic Elements Contributing to
Stereotypical Signs

• Mise-en-Scène
• Cinematography
• Editing
• Sound
• Costuming Make-up
• Performance

Shot from Falling Down (1993)
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Move to Narrative Structure

• Beginning Equilibrium
• Middle Disruption
• End Restoration of Status Quo

The status quo posited in the movies as the best
of all worlds is one that is safe, peaceful, and
prosperous. But it is also one that is white,
upper-middle-class, Protestant, English-speaking,
one that conforms to Anglo norms of beauty,
health, intelligence, and so forth. Charles
Ramírez Berg
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Stereotype Commutation Test

• Try to substitute another ethnicity into the role
  being analyzed. If the part can be played just
  as well as another ethnic, national, or, for that
  matter, gender group, then it is probably not a
  stereotype, but rather a stock comic or dramatic
  type (the jealous husband, the flirtatious wife,
  the deceptive best friend, and so forth). If no
  other ethnicity can be readily substituted for
  the role, then chances are that it relies on
  specific stereotypical traits of a particular
  cultural group to make its comedic or dramatic
  impact.
• Charles Ramírez Berg.

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Six Latino Stereotypes

• Lecture 5 Part 2

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The Six Types

• El Bandido
• Harlot
• Male Buffoon
• Female Clown
• Latin Lover
• Dark Lady

Jacqueline Obradors in Six Days, Seven Nights
(1998)
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Historical Point

• Sometimes the stereotypes were combined,
  sometimes they were altered superficially, but
  their core defining and demeaning
  characteristics have remained consistent for more
  than a century and are still evident today.
• Charles Ramírez Berg

Antonio Bandaras
Douglas Fairbanks
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El Bandido

• Dirty, Unkempt, Oily Hair
• Scars and Scowls
• Vicious, Cruel, Treacherous
• Irrational, Emotional, Violent
• Inability to Speak English

Frank Silvera in Hombre (1967)
Al Pacino in Scarface (1983)
Click Here to See Scene from Scarface (1993)
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The Harlot

• Corresponds to El Bandido
• Secondary Character
• Hot-tempered, Slave to Passion
• Inherent Nymphomania
• Sex Machine
• Innately Lusts for White Men

Linda Darnell in My Darling Clementine (1946)
Jacqueline Obradors in Six Days, Seven Nights
(1998)
Click Here to See Scene from My Darling
Clementine (1946)
Click Here to See Scene from Six Days, Seven
Nights (1998)
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The Male Buffoon

• Second-Banana Comic Relief
• Simpleminded
• Cannot Master English
• Heavy Accent
• Mispronounces Words
• Butt of Joke

Leo Carrillo in The Cisco Kid (1950)
Alfonso Arau in Three Amigos! (1986)
Click Here to See Scene from Three Amigos! (1986)
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The Female Clown

• Counterpart to Male Buffoon
• Neutralizes Latina Sexuality
• Allows Hero to Reject for White Woman / Maintain
  WASP Status Quo or Equilibrium
• Sullied and Ridiculed

Lupe Vélez in Honolulu Lu (1941)
Jacqueline Obradors in Six Days, Seven Nights
(1998)
Click Here to See Scene from Honolulu Lu (1941)
Under Construction
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The Latin Lover

• Established by Valentino
• Primal Sexuality
• Sensuous but Dangerous
• Romantic Promise that Could Get Out of Control

Rudolph Valintino in The Sheik (1921)
Antonio Bandaras in The Mask of Zorro (2005)
Click Here to See Scene from The Sheik (1921)
Read More About the Latin Lover on Hispanic
Online.com
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The Dark Lady

• Counterpart to Latin Lover
• Virginal, Inscrutable, Aristocratic
• Arouse White Mans Primal Desire More than White
  Woman
• Harlot Deep Down Inside

Dolores Del Río in In Caliente (1935)
María Conchita Alonso in Colors (1988)
Click Here to See Scene from Flying Down to Rio
(1933)
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The Big Point

• Part of Hollywood Moviemaking Paradigm
• Fundamental to Storytelling Convention
• Common, Repeated, Naturalized
• Shift and Change at Denotative Level
• Connotative Level Remains Consistent
• Date Back to Early Cinema
• The Greasers Gauntlet (1908)
• Broncho Billy and the Greaser (1914)

Read Short Essay on Distorted Images from Digital
History
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Resistance is Possible
Shot from Flying Down to Rio (1933)

• Lecture 5 Part 3

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Critical Caveat

• Keep in mind that film texts are complicated, as
  are most texts found in popular culture. They
  contain contradictions. They are rarely
  monolithic. Hollywood cinema, as Ramírez Berg
  notes, is not simple, static, or ideologically
  one-sided as that.

Jennifer Lopez in Anaconda (1997)
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Ideological Conflict

• Dominant Films Contain Elements of Contradiction
  and Conflict
• Dominant Films Often Contain Progressive Elements
• Latino/a Actors Embed Irony and Subversion in
  their Performances

Suggested Supplemental Reading The Bronze
Screen by Rosa Linda Fregoso
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Five Cinematic Categories Featuring
Counter-Stereotypes

• Partly Stereotypical / Partly Progressive
• Depart from Hollywood Paradigm
• Ideologically Oppositional
• Feature Latino/a Actors Subverting Types
• Made by Latino/a Directors to Counter Hollywood
  Paradigm

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Conflicts in Flying Down to Rio (1933)

• Stereotypes (Buffoon, Dark Lady)
• Supports Whiteness as Supreme
• Yet Includes Stereotypical Reversal
• Scene on the Beach
• Ending w/ Bicultural Romance
• Julios Noble Sacrifice

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Contemporary Example Anaconda (1997)

• Jennifer Lopezs heroism undermined the Hollywood
  paradigm the ritual commemoration of WASP male
  heroism is hostile territory (and, ideologically
  and symbolically, of U.S. imperialism in the
  Third World).
• Charles Ramírez Berg

Click Here to See Scene from Anaconda (1997)
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Latino/a Playing Latinos/as

• Avoid Problem of Brown Face
• Remember Charlton Heston as Vargas
• Facilitates Greater Verisimilitude
• More Accurate Characterization

Click Here to See Scene from Touch of Evil (1958)
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Problem with that Argument

• Latinos/as are Heterogeneous
• Can Puerto Ricans Play Chicanos?
• Authenticity is Reductive
• Latinos/as Engage in Stereotyping

Jennifer Lopez in Maid in Manhattan (2002)
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Progressive Hollywood

• The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
• Salvador (1986)

Although these films do follow the WASP
adventurer in the Third World formula, they
nevertheless make some pointed critiques of U.S.
interference in the internal affairs of Latin
American nations. Charles Ramírez Berg
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End of Lecture 5

• Next Lecture
• To assimilate or not to assimilate?