Latinx and Chicanx Film and Television

In addition to his close analysis of Rodriguez's work, Frederick Luis Aldama presents an original interview with the filmmaker, in which they discuss his career and his relationship to the film industry. This entertaining and much-needed scholarly overview of Rodriguez's work shines new light on several key topics, including the filmmaker's creative, low-cost, efficient approach to filmmaking; the acceptance of Latino films and filmmakers in mainstream cinema; and the consumption and reception of film in the twenty-first century.

This groundbreaking volume is the first to examine the range of Latino media arts, from independent feature production to documentary to experimental video. The essays explore the work of Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban American, and Latino film and video artists and address avant-garde practices, queer media, and performance art, as well as more conventional film and video representations.

Today's Latinx motion pictures are built on the struggles--and victories--of prior decades. Earlier filmmakers threw open doors and cleared new paths for those of the twenty-first century to willfully reconstruct Latinx epics as well as the daily tragedies and triumphs of Latinx lives. Twenty-first-century Latinx film offers much to celebrate, but as noted pop culture critic Frederick Luis Aldama writes, there's still room to be purposefully critical. In Latinx Ciné in the Twenty-First Century contributors offer groundbreaking scholarship that does both, bringing together a comprehensive presentation of contemporary film and filmmakers from all corners of Latinx culture.

This book documents the barriers to success encountered by U.S. Latino films over the past three decades, as their proponents sought to secure distribution deals and prove the films' worth as commodities. The book includes interviews with marketers, publicists, and producers, and secondary research material from trade publications, newspaper articles, and websites, centering on marketing strategies, release dates, and box office figures.

The book examines the career trajectories of the directors and presents a detailed analysis of their most significant films. All three have worked in diverse industrial contexts, and between them they have made key films that have changed the nature of filmmaking in Mexico, Hollywood blockbusters, US independent films, 'European' art films, and films that defy easy classification.

Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes is a comparative study of the literary and cinematic representation of Mexican American masculine identity from early twentieth-century adventure stories and movie Westerns through contemporary self-representations by Chicano/a writers and filmmakers. Furthermore, Alonzo reassesses Chicano/a self-representation in literature and film, and argues that the Chicano/a expression of identity is characterized less by essentialism than by an acknowledgment of the contingent status of present-day identity formations.

The Cisco Kid adds a Hispanic sensibility to the history of the character in United States film. Despite the Cisco Kid's initial creation outside the Hispanic world by such mainstream writers and filmmakers as O. Henry and Webster Cullison, by 1929 with the first Cisco sound film, In Old Arizona, the character was endowed with a Latino persona that it has retained in Hispanic as well as mainstream American culture.

Dance and the Hollywood Latina asks why every Latina star in Hollywood history, from Dolores Del Rio in the 1920s to Jennifer Lopez in the 2000s, began as a dancer or danced onscreen. While cinematic depictions of women and minorities have seemingly improved, a century of representing brown women as natural dancers has popularized the notion that Latinas are inherently passionate and promiscuous. Yet some Latina actresses became stars by embracing and manipulating these stereotypical fantasies. Introducing the concepts of ""inbetween-ness"" and ""racial mobility"" to further illuminate how racialized sexuality and the dancing female body operate in film. Dance and the Hollywood Latina helps readers better understand how the United States grapples with race, gender, and sexuality through dancing bodies on screen.

In the summer of 2016, Disney introduced its first Latina princess, Elena of Avalor. Princesa of the Periphery explores this Disney property using multiple case studies to understand its approach to girlhood and Latinidad.

From the exuberant excesses of Carmen Miranda in the "tutti frutti hat" to the curvaceous posterior of Jennifer Lopez, the Latina body has long been a signifier of Latina/o identity in U.S. popular culture. But how does this stereotype of the exotic, erotic Latina "bombshell" relate, if at all, to real Latina women who represent a wide spectrum of ethnicities, national origins, cultures, and physical appearances? How are ideas about "Latinidad" imagined, challenged, and inscribed on Latina bodies? What racial, class, and other markers of identity do representations of the Latina body signal or reject? In this broadly interdisciplinary book, experts from the fields of Latina/o studies, media studies, communication, comparative literature, women's studies, and sociology come together to offer the first wide-ranging look at the construction and representation of Latina identity in U.S. popular culture.

Introduction -- Silents: Golden Age or tarnished? The thirties: glamour & grit. The forties: good neighbors? The fifties: myths & machismo. The sixties: alien nation? The seventies: ethnic The eighties: strength in numbers?

Beginning with the images and stereotypes that were promulgated in the era of silent films–the “Greaser” and the Latinas as the“women of the conquest,” Pettit reviews portrayals of Mexicans and other Latinos in American cinema to 1976. Particularly enlightening is his review of the portrayal of Mexicans in popular fiction and how this impacted cinematic renderings. A valuable asset for anyone interested in the portrayal of Latinos in cinema and popular fiction.

This book brings together a selection of the most analytically sophisticated writing on how Latinos have been portrayed in movies, television, and other U.S. media since the early years of the twentieth century and how images have changed over time in response to social and political change.

In this diverse set of essays, Angharad N. Valdivia breaks theoretical and methodological boundaries by exploring the relationship of the media to various audiences. Throughout A Latina in the Land of Hollywood we are challenged to think differently about the media messages we often unconsciously consume, such as the popular representations of certain Latina cultural icons.

Latinos have been part of the Hollywood film industry for more than 100 years, yet beyond the remarkable success of a few, their visibility and clout have generally not reflected their significance in American society. Worse, the Latino image has suffered from widespread stereotyping in film, and performers face unjustified constraints in the kinds of roles available to them. Decade by decade from 1960 onward, this book analyzes important films made by or about Latinos, details the careers of Latino performers and filmmakers of the time, and analyzes how film portrayals of Latino characters and subjects connect with political and social trends of each decade. It discusses the role of gender, social class, and ethnicity in film portrayals and provides an overview of the diverse and dynamic Latino community in the United States, while celebrating a substantial and enduring contribution to Hollywood film history.

In this book, Charles Ramírez Berg develops an innovative theory of stereotyping that accounts for the persistence of such images in U.S. popular culture. He also explores how Latino actors and filmmakers have actively subverted and resisted such stereotyping. In the second part, he analyzes Hollywood's portrayal of Latinos in three genres: social problem films, John Ford westerns, and science fiction films. In the concluding section, Berg looks at Latino self-representation and anti-stereotyping in Mexican American border documentaries and in the feature films of Robert Rodríguez. He also presents an exclusive interview in which Rodríguez talks about his entire career, from Bedhead to Spy Kids, and comments on the role of a Latino filmmaker in Hollywood and how he tries to subvert the system.

This book explores the role film and television stardom has played in establishing, reinforcing, and challenging popular ethnic notions of Latina/os in the United States since the silent film era of the 1920s. In addition to documenting the importance of Latina and Latino stars to American film and television history, Mary C. Beltrán focuses on key moments in the construction of "Hollywood Latinidad" by analyzing the public images of these stars as promoted by Hollywood film studios, television networks, producers, and the performers themselves. Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes also addresses the impact of the rise in Latina and Latino media producers and the current status of Latina/o stardom.

Latinx representation in the popular imagination has infuriated and befuddled the Latinx community for decades. Not seeing real Latinxs on TV and film reels as kids inspired the authors to dive deep into the world of mainstream television and film to uncover examples of representation, good and bad. The result: a riveting ride through televisual and celluloid reels that make up mainstream culture. Stereotypes such as drug lords, petty criminals, buffoons, and sexed-up lovers have filled both small and silver screens--and the minds of the public. In this grand sleuthing sweep of Latinx representation in mainstream TV and film that continues to shape the imagination of U.S. society, these two Latinx pop culture authorities call us all to scholarly action.