Lecture 6: To assimilate or not to assimilate?

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Lecture 6 To assimilate or not to assimilate?

• Professor Daniel Bernardi /
• Professor Michelle Martinez

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In the last lecture

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

Dolores Del Rio
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In this lecture

• Genre the Social Problem Film
• Bordertown (1933) Assimilation Narrative
• Salt of the Earth (1954) Resistance

You can pause the lecture at any point, click on
one of the hyperlinks (text that is underlined)
to visit a site or view a clip , and then return
to the same point in the lecture when youre
ready.
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Genre the Social Problem Film

• Lecture 6 Part 1

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Remember The Six Types

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

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Remember Key Concepts

• Denotative Features Change
• Connotative Feature Remain Consistent Across
  Hollywood Film History
• Visual Formula
• Narrative Formula

Leo Carrillo in The Cisco Kid (1950)
Alfonso Arau in Three Amigos! (1986)
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Stereotypes

• Specific Representations
• 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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What is genre?

• Collection of Visual Features
• Motifs
• Chronotopes
• Iconography
• Recreation of Narrative Elements
• Setting
• Time and Space
• Facilitate Audience Expectations

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Basic Definition
Stated simply, genre movies are those commercial
feature films which, through repetition and
variation, tell familiar stories with familiar
characters in familiar situations. They also
encourage expectations and experiences similar to
those of similar films we have already seen. -
Berry Keith Grant
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Sampling of Hollywood Genres

• Key Genres We Consider
• Western
• Science Fiction
• Chicano/a Film
• Key Questions to Ask
• What are the visual features/motifs?
• What are the narrative features/discourses?
• What are audience expectations
• How are they triangled?

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Social Problem

• Combines Social Analyses
• Prejudice
• Anti-Semitism
• Alcoholism
• Drug Addiction
• War
• Labor Unions
• Dramatic Conflict
• Heroes and Villains
• Families and Nations

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Chicano/a Social Problem

• Bordertown (1935)
• Right Cross (1950)
• The Lawless (1950)
• My Man and I (1952)
• The Ring (1952)
• Salt of the Earth (1954)
• Trial (1955)
• Giant (1956)

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The Problem

• Chicano Faces Poverty
• Chicano Confronts Discrimination
• Chicano Rejects Family to Fight for Rights
• Chicano Stumbles in the Fight
• Whites Help Chicano
• Chicano Returns to Barrio
• Family is More Important than Assimilation
• Chicano Cannot Assimilate, but Whites Shouldnt
  Discriminate

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Thesis

• More often than not they endorse the very system
  they set out to criticize. Their obligatory
  happy ending metaphorically or actually sends the
  Chicano back to the barrio where he began,
  leaving him to cope with the negligible
  opportunity that exists for him there. In an
  alternative ending, the Chicano overcomes the
  barriers to assimilation and mainstream success
  only after he purges himself of the (from the
  patriarchal WASP point of view) more problematic
  aspects of his character.
• Charles Ramírez Berg.

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Bordertown (1933) Assimilation Narrative
John Ramirez (Paul Muni) in Bordertown (1935)

• Lecture 6 Part 2

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Credits

• Released in 1935
• Directed by Archie Mayo
• Stars Paul Muni Bette Davis
• Set on the Border

Shot from Bordertown (1935)
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Plot Summary

• Bordertown follows the standard
  rags-to-riches-to-rags assimilation narrative.
  Johnny Ramírez, a tough kid from East Los
  Angeles, matures into a responsible adult and
  acquires ambition and dedication when, as the
  judge who delivers his school commencement
  address puts it, he realized his opportunities
  and duties as an American citizen. He is
  betrayed by a white woman, eventually using the
  money he has earned to endow a law school in the
  barrio, and returns, in his words, back where I
  belong with my own people.

This film is difficult to secure for screening.
Review Ramírez Bergs synopsis (pg. 117-118).
Whats important is that you understand his
argument about the film and the evidence from the
film that supports that argument.
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Evidence

• Stereotypical Inversion
• Undiminished Stereotyping
• Male Chicano Protagonist
• Overprotective Mama
• Absent Father
• Absent Chicana
• Alluring but Flawed Anglo Woman
• Reductive Definition of Success

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Stereotypical Inversion

• Boost Ethnics by Denigrating Anglos
• Oversexed Blondes / Materialistic Socialites
• Harsh and Inflexible Authority Figures
• Conflict Bases of Narrative
• White Hero (Paternal) / Hero Mediates

Naturally the Chicano protagonist makes the
sound ethical choice when he recoils from such a
thoroughly venal Anglo universe and retires to
the moral haven of the barrio. Charles
Ramírez Berg
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Undiminished Stereotyping

• Complicated Ethnic Type Mediated by Simplistic
  Stereotype of Other Ethnics
• Rationalizes Oppression Despite Sympathetic
  Plight of Ethnic Assimilation
• Dances with Wolves (1990)
• Sioux
• Pawnee
• Bordertown
• Chinese Servant
• Mexican Defense Lawyer

Shot from Dances with Wolves (1990)
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Male Chicano Protagonist

• Palatable to Mainstream Audiences
• Male Lead (Salt of the Earth is an exception)
• Casting Anglo in Role (Touch of Evil)
• Giving Character Upper-Class Status

Since in Hollywood films, an ethnic woman can be
only an overprotective matriarch, the other
woman, or a harlot, this practice automatically
relegates Chicanas to stereotypical roles.
Charles Ramírez Berg.
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Overprotective Mama Absent Father

• Naïve, Good-Natured, Long-Suffering Mom
• The Jazz Singer (1927)
• The Godfather (1972)
• Anglo Family Complete/Ethnic Family Dysfunctional
  Often due to Absent Dad
• Bordertown
• La Bamba (1987)

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Absent Father as Catalytic

• From the patriarchal perspective, the missing
  father is indicative of abnormal Oedipal
  development. Never able to identify fully with
  the father, the Chicano male cannot symbolically
  become like him, nor can he take his productive,
  masculine place in society. This interrupted
  transition for pleasure principle to reality
  principle, from the familial order to the social
  one, helps explain his antisocial behavior.
• Charles Ramírez Berg

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Absent Chicana

• Except for Mother, Chicana is Almost Non-Existent
  (she is background color)
• Note Chicano Love Interest
• When Present, Chicana is a Helper
• Often a Love Interest of Anglo Male (remnants of
  the Dark Lady stereotype)

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Alluring but Flawed Anglo Woman

• Chicano Males Only Option for Romance
• As Love Interest, Anglo Woman Must Be Flawed
• Emotional Problems
• Psychological Problems
• Moral Problems

By the use of an insidiously controlled
self-preserving logic, Anglo patriarchy maintains
its genetic purity in part by negatively
stereotyping Anglo women as childish miscreants.
Charles Ramírez Berg
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Reductive Definition of Success
Hollywoods providing Mexican American
protagonists in the Chicano-centered social
problem film (save for Salt of the Earth) does
not really improve the situation. A principle
reason is that the heroes in these movies do not
enjoy the sort of unbridled success available to
Anglo protagonists. They get greatly scaled-down
versions of Anglo success or they get failure.
Charles Ramírez Berg
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The Big Point
Given the constraints of the ideological
patterns just described, it is obvious that the
deck is stacked in significant ways against
Chicanos in these films. Add to this the
structure of the Hollywood formula, which demands
that an accessible hero find a happy resolution
to the conflicts animated by these narratives,
and we can appreciate why many of these social
problem films deprecate the group they mean to
celebrate. Charles Ramírez Berg
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Salt of the Earth (1954) Resistance
Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón) in Salt of the Earth
(1954)

• Lecture 6 Part 3

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Credits

• Released in 1954
• Directed by Herbert Biberman
• Stars Rosaura Revueltas
• Set in New Mexico

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Plot Summary

• Against a backdrop of social injustice, a
  riveting family drama is played out by the
  characters of Ramon and Esperanza Quintero, a
  Mexican-American miner and his wife. In the
  course of the strike, Ramon and Esperanza find
  their roles reversed an injunction against the
  male strikers moves the women to take over the
  picket line, leaving the men to domestic duties.
  The women evolve from men's subordinates into
  their allies and equals.

http//www.organa.com/salt.html
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Real Story

• The Salt project was born when the filmmakers
  were told of a strike by Mexican-American mine
  workers against the Empire Zinc Corporation in
  Bayard, New Mexico. The issues at stake included
  racist "dual wage rates" that allotted higher pay
  to Anglo workers over Mexican-Americans, and
  Empire Zincs policy of hiring only
  Mexican-Americans for underground work. The film
  was scripted and shot on location in Bayard
  within months of the strikes settlement. Workers
  and wives who had walked the picket lines took
  prominent roles in the movie and helped to shape
  Michael Wilsons screenplay.
• - Bob Wake

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Conditions of Production

• Written, Directed and Produced by Members of the
  Hollywood Ten
• Declined to Testify Before the House Un-American
  Activities Committee
• Biberman Spent 6 Months in Jail
• Worked Independently to Beat the Blacklist
• Cast Included Actors and Real Folks
• Mexican Star, Rosaura Revueltas
• Miners and Wives

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Harassment Censorship

• Hollywood Reporter Commie Film
• International Alliance of Theatrical Employees
  Made it Difficult to Hire Union Crews (one
  reported to be FBI Informant)
• Labs Refused to Process Film
• Exhibitors Refused to Screen It
• Rosaura Revueltass Visa Revoked

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Confluence of Oppression

• Oppression of Workers
• Oppression of Mexicans and Chicanos
• Chicano Oppression of Women

Click Here to See Scene from Salt of the Earth
(1954)
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Reinforces Solidarity

• Rich and Poor
• White and Brown
• Men and Women
• Female Heroine Played by Mexican Actress
• Chicano Lead Played by Real Miner

Click Here to See Scene from Salt of the Earth
(1954)
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Thesis

• Chicano Chicana Protagonists
• No Stereotypical Inversion
• No Undiminished Stereotyping
• No Overprotective Mama
• Father is Present
• Chicana is Present
• No Alluring but Flawed Anglo Woman
• No Reductive Definition of Success

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Why?

• Political Film
• Directed to Entertain
• Directed to Make Viewer Think Critically
• Engages Complexity of Political Situation
• Critique of Red Scare Ideology
• Class Warfare (strike)
• Race Oppression (Chicanos)
• Gender Oppression (lead is a woman)
• Explanations Are NOT Reductive
• Whites are Not Stereotyped
• Men are Not Stereotyped

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End of Lecture 6

• Next Lecture
• How are Latinos/as Represented in the Western?