Chicano Images

Refiguring Ethnicity in Mainstream Film

Christine List

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317928751
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Providing textual analysis of 12 feature films written and directed by filmmakers who explore aspects of the Chicano cultural movement, this book discusses films including Cheech and Chong's Still Smokin' (1983), El Norte (1985), and Break of Dawn (1988). The text analyzes the portrayal of Chicano, or Mexican American, identity in films by chicanos. Part historiography, part film analysis, part ethnography, this book offers a compelling story of how Chicanos challenge, subvert and create their own popular portrayals of Chicanismo.

Historical stereotypical images in Hollywood films are discussed alongside contemporary images portrayed by Hollywood studios and independent Chicano filmmakers. The author examines the way in which newer films "construct new representations of Chicano culture" and present a greater variety of images of Chicanos for mainstream audiences. Originally published in 1996, this authoritative volume provides a full history of the Chicano cultural movement beginning in the 1960s as well as information on the development of Mexican American film production.

INDEX

… and the earth did not swallow him, 11, 13

A Medal for Benny, 123

Abarca, Onofre Antonio: on Tex Mex music, 117n

Acción Chicano, 10

Actos, 41, 42

African American: cinema 17, 18; ethnic humor, 38–40, 51; influences on Chicanos, 6, 7; and Chicano liberation, 92; spectatorship, 157; stereotypes, 46; zoot suiters 43

Agency: in Break of Dawn, 95; in Marin’s films, 151; in Only Once in a Lifetime, 128, 130, 151

Agringado: joking tradition, 39, 149, 150

Alarcón, Norma, 140

American Dream, 37, 71, 76, 79, 94

American Indian Movement, 7

American Me, 13

Anglos: version of conquest, 29; in Break of Dawn, 94; and culture, 51; and derogatory joking, 37; and immigration, 4, 30, 34, 117n; and riots, 62; stereotypes of 37, 53, 151; and social problem films, 125

Anzaldúa, Gloria, 90, 94, 140

Apte, Mahadev, 27, 37

Artenstein, Isaac, 86–88, 90, 94, 95, 152

Assault on Precinct, 13, 33

Assimilation: as American ideology, 94; in Change, 143; in La Bamba, 74, 81n; and lo popular, 19; in Marin’s films, 52; by Mexican American middleclass 124; as negative trait, 39, 40; and pachuco identity 44; in social problem films, 125, 126, 128, 133;

Audience: and Chicano art, 8, 84; and Chicano cinema, 62, 72, 88, 93, 108, 111, 114, 126; and genre reception, 20–22; and Teatro Campesino, 41, 42, 59

Authenticity, 15, 16; and the border, 85; and nationalism, 155, 156; and nativism, 114;

Avalos, Da...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• I INTRODUCTION: CONTEXTS OF CHICANO FEATURE FILMMAKING
• II DESTABILIZING ETHNIC STEREOTYPES: THE EARLY COMEDIES OF CHEECH MARIN
• III MYTHIC PROPORTIONS: CREATING RAZA HEROS IN ZOOT SUIT AND LA BAMBA
• VI BORDER DISCOURSE: STRUCTURING ETHNICITY IN FOUR CHICANO FILMS
• V GENDER AND GENRE IN ONLY ONCE IN A LIFETIME
• VI TRANS-CREATIVE STRATEGIES OF CHICANO MAINSTREAM CINEMA
• SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
• INDEX