1. Lecture 6: To assimilate or not to assimilate?
Professor Daniel Bernardi /
Professor Michelle Martinez

2. In the last lecture… Stereotypes & Story Six Latino Stereotypes
Resistance is Possible
Progressive Images
Latinos Playing Latinos
Dolores Del Rio

3. 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 you’re ready.

4. Genre & the Social Problem Film
Lecture 6: Part 1

5. El Bandido Harlot Male Buffoon Female Clown Latin Lover Dark Lady
Remember The Six Types
El Bandido
Harlot
Male Buffoon
Female Clown
Latin Lover
Dark Lady

6. 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)

7. 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

8. What is genre? Collection of Visual Features
Motifs
Chronotopes
Iconography
Recreation of Narrative Elements
Setting
Time and Space
Facilitate Audience Expectations

9. 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

10. 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?

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

12. 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)

13. 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 Shouldn’t Discriminate

14. 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.

15. Bordertown (1933) & Assimilation Narrative
John Ramirez (Paul Muni) in Bordertown (1935)
Lecture 6: Part 2

16. Shot from Bordertown (1935)
Credits
Released in 1935
Directed by Archie Mayo
Stars Paul Muni & Bette Davis
Set on the Border
Shot from Bordertown (1935)

17. 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 Berg’s synopsis (pg ). What’s important is that you understand his argument about the film and the evidence from the film that supports that argument.

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

19. 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

20. 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)

21. 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.

22. 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)

23. 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

24. 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)

25. Alluring but Flawed Anglo Woman
Chicano Male’s 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

26. Reductive Definition of Success
“Hollywood’s 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

27. 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

28. Salt of the Earth (1954) & Resistance
Ramon Quintero (Juan Chacón) in Salt of the Earth (1954)
Lecture 6: Part 3

29. Credits Released in 1954 Directed by Herbert Biberman
Stars Rosaura Revueltas
Set in New Mexico

30. 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.”

31. 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 Zinc’s ‘policy of hiring only Mexican-Americans for underground work’. The film was scripted and shot on location in Bayard within months of the strike’s settlement. Workers and wives who had walked the picket lines took prominent roles in the movie and helped to shape Michael Wilson’s screenplay.”
- Bob Wake

32. 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

33. 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 Revueltas’s Visa Revoked

34. 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)

35. 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)

36. 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

37. Why? Political Film Engages Complexity of Political Situation
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

38. Next Lecture: How are Latinos/as Represented in the Western?
End of Lecture 6
Next Lecture:
How are Latinos/as Represented in the Western?