Lecture 13: Latina Stars in the 1990s and Today

Lecture 13:Latina Stars in the 1990s and Today Professor Michael Green Selena (1997) Directed by Gregory Nava

Previous Lecture • Gender roles in media and society • Waiting to Exhale and Black women in the movies • Thelma and Louise and “Chick Flicks” as Feminist Texts • Constructing a Bibliography

This Lecture • Summary: Hegemonic Race and Gender Representation • Latinas in Film: A Historical Overview • Jennifer Lopez: Latina Star in an Age of Multiculturalism • J-Lo’s Butt

Summary: Hegemonic Race and Gender Representation Lecture 13: Part I Maid in Manhattan (2002) Directed by Wayne Wang

Summary of Hegemony Hegemony refers to the way that the political and social domination of the power class in capitalist society is expressed not only in ideologies but in all realms of culture and social organization. This kind of power takes the form of influence rather than domination, as well as an appearance of naturalness and inevitability that removes it from examination, criticism and challenge. 5

Summary: Hollywood and Whiteness • Hollywood cinema reifies the cultural superiority whiteness by posing it as the central screen identity. • Film scholarship has shown that white subjects (mostly men) have historically been positioned as the default identity for movie protagonists. • In this positioning, the assumption is that White bodies lack race. They become an “invisible norm.”

Reinforcing Ideology through Form • Film practices – narrative, mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound. - reinforce the status quo of the centralized position of Whiteness. • Remember Lesson 2 and Bernardi’s article on how D.W. Griffith’s filmmaking practices advocate whiteness. • Griffith’s “articulations of style and race co-constitute the filmmaker's narrative system.”

Gender as Well as Race • Representations of gender (and heterosexuality) likewise work according to this dominant power structure. • Historically, filmmakers have actively constructed the representational difference of female bodies. • Remember the Gaze, the active/passive split and the relegating of women to certain narrative spheres and genres.

A Complicated Performance “Through reiterated performance, the hierarchical systems of race and gender work to support and reify each other. Thus, whiteness may be endlessly nuanced through characterization while blackness/ non-whiteness is characterization. Whiteness remains a blank slate: the white actor can simply be the character. Instead, the nonwhite (particularly black) body is so marked by cultural signifiers that the performance becomes complicated.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

Normalcy and Difference • Hollywood has simplified complex categories of identity (race, gender, sexual identity, etc.) into polarized and formulaic narrative canvases for more convenient storytelling. • This has historically taken the form of two-dimensional representations of race – whiteness signifying normalcy and blackness signifying difference – and gender – males as protagonists and females as supporters of the male protagonists.

Legacy of Colonialism • Hollywood has thus continued a legacy of colonialism that supports what Charles Ramirez Berg identifies as a “preferred power relation.” • These types coincide with long-held myths regarding the disposition and sexuality of Others – and the hegemonic values of our society possible through acclimation and assimilation. • Remember colonialism and “The Imperial Imaginary” from lesson 3.

Summary: Latin Stereotypes • As with most ethnicities, Hollywood cinema has consistently marginalized and stereotyped Latinos and Latinas, despite a few progressive periods. • Charles Ramirez Berg has outlined six typical Hollywood Latino/a characterizations: The bandido, the male buffoon, the Latin lover, the female clown, the harlot, and the dark lady.

Latin Stereotypes (continued) • These characters feature the worse stereotypes about Latinos and Latinas: that they are smelly, dirty, lazy, violent, dishonest and morally low. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) Directed by John Huston

Latinas in Film: A Historical Overview Lecture 13: Part II Flying Down to Rio (1933) Directed by Thornton Freeland

Historical Representation • The Latina has been cast into the media spotlight at specific and intermittently historical moments while the ebb and flow of whiteness has governed national identity within the United States.

The Good Neighbor Policy • Remember the 1940s Hollywood effort to improve Latin representation after the advent of the Good Neighbor Policy. • Yet, while Hollywood largely eliminated depictions of Latin women of ill repute, insuring that Latin women exhibited ‘ladylike’ qualities onscreen, films continued to stereotype them as fiery and tempestuous (Lupe Velez and Carmen Miranda). • Latinas continued to be stereotyped, marginalized and silenced.

Racialized Casting • Mexicans and other Latin people have been generally relegated to a lower status in the U.S. racial hierarchy, including in the way they have been represented in the movies. • The roles available to non-white actors in the ‘40s were largely based on ethnicity and color of skin. Due to the system of Anglo-American racism of the time, light-skinned Hispanics moved in and out of ethnic roles more easily. The same is true today.

Summary: Dolores del Rio • Remember the case of Dolores del Rio: • Though Del Rio’s Mexican heritage and the roles she played made her an “Other,” Hollywood represented her in terms of North American conceptions of femininity and female beauty, making her an “acceptable other” to audiences. • Such conceptions of acceptable beauty included the “naturalness” of her straight hair and her traditional conservative bearing.

The Intra-National Other “As in the case of Del Rio and Miranda, Latinas previously depicted an international Otherness; today, however, the national project of the United States is to articulate itself against an intra-national Other - nonwhite but assimilable persons operating within hegemonic US culture. This project serves to reify the racial and structural status quo while offering the illusion of diversity and inclusion.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

Intra-National Other (Continued) “Ideally, this intra-national Other works within (but never fully achieves) the dominant codes of whiteness, so as to be distinguished from so-called illegal or less assimilable immigrants. In this way, fetishized assets like the butt or actions like dance reiterate the necessary difference of the Other (even as it is being re-presented as diverse) while other bodily markers (hair, fashion, etc.) perpetuate the ideals to which beauty must strive.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

The Dancing Latina Body • The screen depiction of Latinas has traditionally centered on the body, specifically the dancing body. Hollywood’s best known Latina stars – Lupe Velez, Dolores Del Rio, Carmen Miranda, Rita Hayworth and Rita Moreno – have each become famous by dancing onto the screen.

The Latina Body “Dance has traditionally limited the Latina film performer to the realm of the body, serving as both costume and characterization; in this way, Hollywood has economically connoted racialized sexuality through one action. As a result, the conventions of dance have come to “represent a highly codified and highly mediated representation of social distinctions” – collapsing passion and lust into the stereotype of the Latina.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

Still True Today • This stereotype has persisted through to contemporary cinema and such Latina stars as, Rosie Perez (Do the Right Thing), Salma Hayek (From Dusk till Dawn) and Eva Mendes (Hitch). Pause the lecture and watch the clip from From Dusk Till Dawn From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Directed by Robert Rodriquez

Challenging the Traditional Binaries • As we mentioned above, whiteness has defined and rearticulated itself against blackness, using all Others as intermediaries in this process of defining cultural citizenship. • At the intersection of race and gender, the Latina body challenges the traditional binaries of racial representation, specifically the poles of whiteness and blackness.

Not Too Light or Too Dark • The prototypical Latina body – not too light or too dark by Hollywood standards – efficiently illustrates diversity and economizes representation: it diversifies both white and black venues – such as hip hop. “The Fly Girls” on In Living Color

Example • Notice how the brown Latina body here (Jennifer Lopez) is on the continuum between black and white. • Notice also how in this early, pre-stardom, role, more of Lopez’s Latina features (kinky hair, dark aspect) are prominent.

Contemporary Progress • Despite the reiteration of stereotypes, there have been, in the last fifteen years or so, more three-dimensional and varied depictions of Latinas in film, including: • Mi Vida Loca (1993) – directed by Allison Anders • Selena (1997) – Jennifer Lopez • Girlfight (2000) – Michelle Rodriquez • Frida (2002) – Salma Hayek (Oscar nomination) • Real Women Have Curves (2002) and Ugly Betty - America Ferrera • Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Girlfight

Director’s Agenda • Presenting the characters in Real Women Have Curves in a realistic and fair-minded manner was very important to director, Patricia Cardoso. She says she wanted to give an accurate depiction of working-class Mexican American life in Los Angeles that avoided stereotypes. • The movie represents sweatshops, working class East L.A. neighborhoods and other spaces normally avoided by Hollywood. Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Real Women Have Curves

The Persistence of Stereotypes • Yet stereotypes have persisted as well: particularly that of the Latina as fiery and tempestuous, which has characterized many of Rosie Perez’s roles. Penélope Cruz won an Oscar in 2009 for playing such a character. Vicky Christina Barcelona (2008), Directed by Woody Allen

Jennifer Lopez: Latina Star in an Age of Multiculturalism Lecture 13: Part III Shall We Dance (2004) Directed by Peter Chelsom

Contemporary Latina Star • Lopez is the first Latina star to open a film at the box office since Rita Hayworth. • And although Hayworth was required to change her name from from the Spanish “Rita Cansino” in the 1930s in order to insure her acceptance by mainstream audiences, Lopez has remained “Jennifer Lopez.” • She has been phenomenally successful as a singer, dancer, actor and business person and has had much more power than Latina stars of previous eras.

Transcending Stereotypes • Lopez is a star in areas traditionally associated with Latina artists, such as dance; however, she has also transcended historic representations, by playing, for example, an action heroine in Anaconda (1997) and a U.S. marshal in Out of Sight (1998).

A Multicultural Age • Part of her success is the result of coming on the scene in an age – the 1990s under President Clinton – during which multiculturalism was more accepted.

Accepting the Other • Ovalle argues that Lopez was accepted as a racial Other because she was born in the U.S. (unlike previous Latina stars, such as del Rio) and because her success – rising from perceived working class origins, even though her family was middle class, to the pinnacle of fame, wealth and artistic achievement – fit the cherished American myth of rags to riches • Lopez’s story also fit ideologies of racial hierarchy and assimilation.

Taking Advantage of a Shift “Because of Lopez’s fiscal accomplishments – particularly her triumph as the first Latina to earn over $1 million per picture – her persona ultimately bears the symbolic weight of a country invested in perpetuating itself as the land of opportunity. In other words, as a Latina performer Lopez presents the most marketable components of both polarized representations to reap the greatest rewards during a period of multiculturalism and a shift in popular culture practices.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

Crossover Success • Lopez’s capturing of the title role in Selena (1997), after a national search that brought her much attention, provided a launching pad for her mega-stardom. • The narrative of Selena’s crossover success paralleled the public narrative of Lopez’s life.

Assimilating through Aesthetics • Despite her success in a more multicultural era, Lopez, like Latina stars of the past, has still had to dance, as well as alter her hair body and face in order to conform to idealized beauty, while remaining an exoticized difference – in this way, she has appealed to whites, blacks and Latino/as. • Lightening skin and straightening hair has long been a means of accessing the artificial hierarchy of whiteness, an attempt to assimilate through aesthetic identity.

Race and the Close-up • Discussing the way in which Lopez has been filmed, Ovalla discusses how film techniques are used to cultivate Latina stereotypes. • She argues that the close-up and – its star making power – have historically been associated with whiteness and that the fiery Latina type – relegated to character actor or supporting role – has typically been neglected by the full cultural weight of the close-up.

Straighter Hair Over Time “Since the beginning of Lopez’s career, audiences have witnessed the transformation from her true hair in films like Money Train towards lightened and straightened hair in films like Angel Eyes (2001) or Monster-in-Law (2005). Lopez’s transformation has opened many doors, making her marketable beyond the ghetto of marginalized audiences. Curiously, as Lopez’s hair moved from curly to straight, her star power in mainstream film increased.” Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

White Male Co-Stars • Evidence of this transition to the mainstream exists in Lopez’s leading men. • Since Anaconda, Lopez’s romantic leads have consistently been white (or white ethnic) males: George Clooney (Out of Sight), an animated Woody Allen (Antz), Matthew McConaughey (The Wedding Planner), Ralph Fiennes (Maid in Manhattan) and Richard Gere (Shall We Dance). Pause the lecture and watch the clip from The Wedding Planner

Maid in Manhattan • In Maid in Manhattan, Lopez’s character’s assimilation agenda is signaled not only by her hair, but by a white suit that, one she puts it on, suddenly makes her attractive to the film’s white male lead. Pause the lecture and watch the clip from Maid in Manhattan

J-Lo’s Butt • Since she became a star in the late 1990s, with Selena, Lopez’s body – and especially her rear end – has become a site of public fascination. • Jennifer Lopez’s close identification with Selena seemed not only based on their parallel crossover successes, but on a common experience of having a similar build, a body generally considered abject by American standards of beauty and propriety.

The Asset Shot “This image represents the general framing for media depictions of Lopez . . . [her] difference is reiterated by the framing of her body. Her body performs – even when she does not – in the pages of magazine or tabloid articles, exposés, news clips and music video screens. If Jennifer Lopez were never to dance another step, exotic sexuality – like her ethnicity – would always already be inscribed on her body.” • Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

Examples

A Triple Sign “Jennifer’s display was (at least) a triple sign: “showing ass” as a sign of identity and pride, “kiss my ass” as a form of revenge against a hostile cultural gaze, and “I’m going to kick your ass” vis a vis the economic exploitation implicated in racism. In Lopez’s case, this third rear victory is evident in her current status as Hollywood’s highest-paid Latina actress. No wonder she says, “I have a curvaceous Latin body. . . . I like to accentuate that.” • “Jennifer’s Butt” Frances Negrón-Muntaner

Author’s Final Point “The rise of a Latina star like Lopez confirmed that . . . minority members of the nation could prosper with a little hard work. Lopez symbolized the work ethic necessary to achieve the American Dream and was rewarded with a successful screen, music and fashion career. But despite the access it provides, the complications of in-between-ness are vast. Lopez’s figure (as an actor and body) has presented contradictory messages throughout its career. Priscilla Peña Ovalle, “Framing Jennifer Lopez”

End of Lecture 13 Next Lecture: The New Terrorizing Other

Lecture 13: Latina Stars in the 1990s and Today