Author Archives: mmasouris

Girlfight (2000)

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girlfightThis film, Girlfight is about a young woman’s struggle to fit in the mold of what society a woman should be in Brooklyn, New York. It is written and directed by Karen Kusama. It stars Michelle Rodriguez as the main character Diana Guzman. Its a coming of age film that exposes the main character’s deep and trouble feelings about her life’s struggles with dominating men like her father, Sandro Guzman played by Paul Calderon. Her mother committed suicide, and Diana thinks it was because she was trying to get away from her physically and verbally abusive father. Diana is on a road to self destruction by having a bad attitude, lack of self-discipline and getting into fights in school, getting close to being expelled from school. Her younger brother Tiny is forced to go to boxer training by their father Sandro because it will make him be more of a man and protect himself. One day when Sandro asks Diana to go pay for Tiny’s boxing lessons , she herself became interested in the sport but her father would never allow her to train. Diana takes it upon herself to steal money from her father to train. Her trainer Hector is reluctant to train her and tells her she can have better things to do time. Diana is insistent and he agrees to train her. He realizes that Diana has real talent and powerful punches and takes her training seriously. Boxing started to give Diana an outlet for her anger and rage, it also started to help her develop some  self-discipline.

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The other trainers were against female boxers fighting in the ring, but her coach believed in her and put her to fight in the ring anyway, she even fought males and beat them. This encouragement and development of her self-esteem enabled her to start caring for other people and get into relationships with other boxers. Her father found out about her fighting and told her she was not allowed to box and she was no good at it. She physically fought her father and moved out of her home but not before confronting him about what he had did in the past to her mother. She returns to the ring and fights her boyfriend and fellow boxer, Adrian Sturgis. He did not want to fight her at first, but then realized he had to and when he did, she won him and this built more respect between them as fighters.

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The adversity Diana had to overcome in the male dominated wold of boxing was commendable. She took on a challenge she believed she can beat, One of the first signs at the boxing gym she saw was “Boxing is Brain Over Brawn” . This was a sign to her that she would be able to fight these young men in the ring, and although she may not win them all, she was still a challenge and not a “wussy” girl. In Girlfight, Diana is a rebellious teenage girl, but she is also strong, both physically and mentally. She just needed positive role models in her life to bring out all the good qualities she had to offer and this film shows us that not all Latino women are poor, helpless victims. Latino women commonly have been in films as either weak victims or over sexualized vixens and it is very nice to see a woman be portrayed as strong physically as a man and be able to kick their ass and at the same time still show her softer side when she was with her boyfriend. In the reading Towards a Latinidad Feminista:The Multiplicities of Latinidad and Feminism in Contemporary Cinema, Baez describes that this film was compared to the male dominated film series, Rocky(pg 117). I do see some similarities in both films, however this story line is stronger and more powerful because no one expects a woman, especially a Latina to beat a man in the boxing ring. We think of women being the weaker species, but its not always the case as it is shown in Girlfight.

 

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Towards a Latinidad Feminista:The Multiplicities of Latinidad and Feminism in Contemporary Cinema (2007)  Jillian Baez

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005)

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This movie is very interesting and complex. It runs through a gamut of humanitarian issues. I though at first this movie was comical but it turns out to be a serious plot with funny aspects. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada is about a friendship between an immigrant cowboy named Melquiades (Mel) Estrada and Pete Perkins, a white ranch foreman  in Odessa ,Texas, who hires Melquiades as a ranch hand. Their friendship grew so strong that Melquiades made Pete promise him that if he were to die in Texas, Pete would bury him in his hometown in Jimenez, Mexico. When an arrogant and abusive newly hired border patrol Mike Norton kills Melquiades at the ranch he buries him in the desert so no one would know he killed him. Two men find his body while they are hunting coyotes and they discovery the coyote was eating Melquiades’ body. The county sheriff Frank Belmont of Cibolo, Texas refuses to release the body to Pete because he is not a relative and buries Melquiades in the town cemetery, since the sheriff did not know Mel’s last name , he decides to name him Mel Mexico on his tombstone.  This angers Pete and his journey begins to find out who killed him and take Mel’s body back to Mexico. Pete does find out it was the border patrol Mike Norton and he kidnaps him in order to assist Pete in taking Mel’s decaying body back to Jimenez.

Mike Norton and the sheriff Belmont were racist and discriminatory against Mexican immigrants and treated them with disrespect. In a scene where a group of Mexican immigrants were crossing the desert into Texas illegally border patrol Mike hit a woman for running away and trying to protect her brother. The film showed Mexicans trying to better their lives by looking for work opportunities in Texas and were mistreated by authorities and looked down on. The story of a white man honoring his Mexican friend was very touching and it showed that not all white Americans are brutal and racist. As the film played on and the observer seen the commitment Pete had to Mel and why it was so important to keep his promise. For Mike, although a tough journey he found his redemption in the end and realized that he needed to change with the help of Pete threatening to kill him if he did not say sorry to Mel for killing him. They had traveled through Texas desert on horseback and into Mexico’s mountainous area and found out that the town of Jimenez did not exist and that Melquiades story of a wife and kids were not true. In the end, Pete did find an area that Mel had described as Jimenez and Pete and Mike buried him there.

In Mexico, the natives looked poor and had clothes on that were worn out and the area was desolate, dry and no real farming areas. One can imagine why Mexican’s would make the horrible trip to the United States and risk their lives in the process, it is because if they stayed they would have nothing anyway. They did have a small cantina, a few homes, and old cars that were not working. Poverty there was much more dire there than poverty in the US. This film makes one think about the courage the immigrants have to risk getting brutally beat up by the border patrol or die of thirst because of the treacherous terrains of the desert. When they can make it safely to the city, they are mistreated by people because of the way they look or speak and the stereotypes people in the US have of Mexicans. If the stereotypes are true to an extent, we as a society should think why are they there? Maybe they drink because they have no other coping skills, maybe they are portrayed as lazy because of the heat they do not work mid-day. We need to be more compassionate to other people’s struggles as this film shows Pete being compassionate to Melquiades by offering him a job and forming a friendship.

 

 

Introducing Maggie

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I am so excited to learn about the Chicano/a representations in films. This is also my second semester here at CSUDH and its been definitely been a huge transition for me. The last time attending school was back in  2006 and I stopped because of my children being so young. I am blesses to have the opportunity to return and it has been a welcoming challenge. Looking forward to learning how to blog.