Reimagining Latinidad in Mexican-American Biopics
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Date
2019-07-19
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Abstract
This study examines how Mexican-American identity has been performed in six biographical films produced by the North American film industry from the 1980s to 2015. The biographical films examined in this study include La Bamba (1987), Stand and Deliver (1988), Selena (1997), César Chávez (2014), Spare Parts (2015), and McFarland, USA (2015). The study of Mexican-American identity is facilitated through an exploration of several contours of a film, such as an imaginary perception of Mexican-Americanness, casting for the roles of the lead characters, and either incorporation of previous stereotypes or a reconfiguration of Mexican-American images. While Mexican-Americanness has been examined through the lens of stereotypical roles in biopics, this dissertation uses filmography, social and cultural history, and questions of cultural authenticity to explore the performance of Mexican-Americanness in biographical films. This study explores the site of intersection between biographical films and the portrayal of Mexican-Americans. Expanding on earlier scholarly studies of biopics as well as studies of Mexican-American identity in film, this investigation draws on the ways that Mexican-American identity reflects social and political trends of the time periods in which they are produced, filmic representations of Mexican-Americans, and interpretations of how certain scenes function as sites of identity formation. Various elements combine in order to construct the concept of Mexican-Americanness as performance in the film industry, such as Spanish language elements, a reclamation of a lost heritage, and historical distortions with the end goal of entertaining an audience.
Ultimately, this study observes that within the past few decades, the imaginary concept of Latina/o identity is shifting to accurately reflect the authentic nature of Latina/o identity while acknowledging that remnants of stereotypes persist due to the demands of popular culture. It concludes that the Mexican-American biopics produced in the 1980s and 1990s exhibit themes more closely aligned with the identity themes of the Chicano Movement while biopics produced in the 2010s reflect themes faced by Mexican-Americans in a xenophobic post-September 11 nation. The notion of Mexican-American performance in biopics echoes the complicated matrix of political and social trends of society.
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biopics, Mexican-American identity