The article “Imagined Boarders: Locating Chicano Cinema in America” details how Chicano cinema was highly influenced by the Chicano Movement and was an outlet for expression. The Chicano cinema started with the United Farm Workers and the Teatro Campesino and how the acts reflected the social movement that was trying to organize the Chicano community. It was mainly promoting the farm workers strike and pushing for social change while mainly reaching the oppressed minorities within a local community. As the grass roots politics gained momentum the audience shifted from small local communities to larger audiences nation wide. Luis Valdez in the Teatro Campesino and Jesus Trevino in Ahora! used cinema to discuss and critic issues impacting the Chicano Movement. Chicano Cinema aimed to help build unity within communities and to spark social change, their work “wove together current events, history, culture and entertainment”. As one can imagine their was a lot of push back from the dominant culture, Chicano Cinema was highly scrutinized, censored, underfunded and deemed incoherent and unprofessional. Eventually the Chicano Cinema was pushed for a pan-american unity and striving to empower the expression of other cultures as well.
On a side note the article referred to code switching as a way to get around the fact that the Chicano programming was highly scrutinized and censored. At first I was not really surprised by the notion, virtually anywhere you go now code switching is rather common. What did surprise me however was that a show like Ahora! was able to use code switching to say things that would have been censored out had they been said in English. This means that in those major networks like PBS no one spoke Spanish, reason why code switching worked in the first place. It is hard for me to imagine a show getting away with that now.
Hello, I see where you got your point across in your first paragraph in regards to the reading. However, I am kind of thrown off by your last sentence in your second paragraph, “It is hard for me to imagine a show getting away with that now”. Are you assuming that people no longer get away with code switching? Because in my opinion I believe that if anything code switching is being used even more in society now. Also, even the media gets away with it much more. Or is it that I just do not understand the way you phrased this concept of “code-switching”.
I know code switching is still used, what I was referring to was that fact that just speaking Spanish was enough to be considered code switching. Code switching today is much different (government policy, legal documents, even academia is a form of code switching).
Hello,
I agree that Chicana/o documentaries/films when you say that they “help build unity within communities and to spark social change” through the current, historical and culture events. However, the media often isolates the Chicana/o communities. We are often pushed back and scrutinized. Cinema can be used to tell social changes and also used for expression on social movements and justice, it can help others be aware of what is occurring on certain issues. On the contrast, media code switching often used, actually it used all the time. I do not think it is hard to get away from code switching in the media.
Thanks for giving a short summary about this weeks reading requirements. It is not surprising that the film industry is gendered. Based on the Noriega read, film started with the males at the center mirroring the patriarchy in the Chicano movement and Chicano Family structure. I am glad that Rodriguez took time to write his book and deconstruct the stereotypical films that we continue to see today. The average film portrays Chicanas as the maid, nanny, good mother or wife, while the males in films are still perceived as the typical hardcore machismo gangster criminal. Being able to deconstruct the films and “shoot the patriarchy” is something I am very happy to be a part of. So many people have not begun to decolonize their mind, so they are not even conscious of images that perpetuate harmful stereotypes in films, or the root of the problem-heteropatriarchy. Being able to use the knowledge that I have acquired in books and class lectures has helped me challenge systems of oppression at the micro/macro level of our society. We seriously need to empower our youth and family to get their education, so they too, can develop a conscious that “shoots the patriarchy.”
The comment you make about code switching reminds me of the story about the show Homeland when they hired Arabic graffiti artists to give the set “realism” and the artists painted (in Arabic) “Homeland is racist” — which got into the broadcast. Subversion. It’s definitely the place studios put themselves in when everyone who is in power is white and middle class.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/10/14/artists-got-homeland-is-racist-arabic-graffiti-into-the-latest-episode-of-homeland/
The media gets away with some crazy things since its mostly owned by really rich older white men, if your ever interested and have the time you should take media/society, or media industries with Dr. Eagle at CSUDH. I think Chicana cinema still has a bad rep unfortunately and maybe that’s why not many chicana films are being produced, were seeing a lot of white washing of films like you mentioned films being censored and the article mentions how many film makers where changing the films because the studios where pressuring to change them in order for more white viewers to go out and watch the film which i think is crazy, as an inspiring filmmaker i would be so mad if someone told me i had to change my story because it wouldn’t attract white audiences.
Thanks for finally talking about >the power of expression | The Chicano Family <Liked it!