The Mexican and Chicano in
Hollywood films
1910s-1970s
The Hollywood Formula, 1910s
• Hollywood monopolized film production
• Used assembly line methods of reproduction
• Invented “the formula”—good v. evil and hero v.
•
villain, white v. black (brown)
Ideological vision present: emphasis on
individualism, material success, reductionism
(issues reduced to black and white), promotion
of superiority of WASPs and WASP womenhood.
The First Mexican Depictions
• “Greaser films”—early films depicting
Mexicans as villains, treacherous,
untrustworthy, overly criminal and
suspicious,
• Gay Caballleros and Gangsters
1930s Protests by Mexicans and
Chicanos
• Mexican President Lazaro Cardenas and
others protest the depictions of Mexicans
• Chicanos throughout the Southwest
protest through newspapers, etc.
• One early example is the 1911 campaign
by La Cronica, of Texas
1910s-1940s—The Gay Caballero
• Semi-Spanish, sometimes musical,
sometimes charming and handsome
• Roles usually played by Cesar Romero,
Duncan Renaldo and Gilbert Roland
• Slightly complex characters, distinct from
greasers and redeemable
1930s-1940s—The Dark Ladies
• Usually depicted in dark dress, skin
• Erratic, illiterate, unpredictable, emotional,
overtly sexual
1930s—Gangster Films
• Untrustworthy, ugly, oily, crude,
overdressed and unromantic
1940s and the Good Neighbor
Policy
• President Rooselvelt attempted to not
offend Latin America in its films and
emphasized good relations with Latin
American nations to build a war coalition
during World War II
• Disney films: the Three Caballeros,
Treasure of the Sierra Madre
1950s—Social Problem Films
• The exposure of social, political and racial
issues
• Often presented variations on roles and
sometimes prominent female roles in films
• Lawless, The Ring, Salt of the Earth,
Bordertown, Touch of Evil, One-Eyed Jacks
1940s and 1950s “message films”
• Consistent with the good neighbor policies
• Includes such films as Juarez (1939), Viva
Zapata (1952), The Pearl (1949) , Giant
(1956)
• Westerns appear also with the return of
the Greaser characters.
1960s/1970s—The Brown Avenger
• Similar to Black superstud movies
• Rio Lobo, Valdez is Coming, Bring Me the
Head of Alfredo Garcia
• Clint Eastwood’s “spaghetti Westerns”
such as The Good, The Bad and The Ugly,
A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More
1970s—Urban Violence, Gangs and
Exploitation Films
• Chicanos as gang members, violent, racist,
anti-white, immoral, pariahs
• Boulevard Nights, Walk Proud, Streets of
Los Angeles,
1970s—The Emergence of Chicano
Film
• Films of Chicano identity, history, values
and revisionism
• I Am Joaquin , Raices de Sangre, Please
Don’t Bury Me Alive (1976), Chicana,
Agueda Martinez, Yo Soy Chicano,
Requiem 29,
Chicano Films in context
• Represent countervisions of history, identity,
•
•
•
•
social reality, resistance and aesthetics
Represent oppositional forms of knowledge
about Chicanos
Major creative and production decisions made by
Chicanos
Consideration of the function/purpose
De-emphasize biological claims to authenticity-R.
Fregoso