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TOMO I
Fronteras simblicas: Cine, Media y Msica
TOMO I
Fronteras simblicas: Cine, Media y Msica
Yolanda Minerva Campos Garca,
Margarita Ramos Godnez y
Wilfried Raussert
(Coordinadores)
UNIVERSIDAD DE GUADALAJARA
2015
BMBF.
NDICE
INTRODUCCIN .............................................................................
19
21
Josef Raab
53
73
Vctor M. Granados
95
97
[7]
125
147
149
DE ARCHIBALDO DE LA CRUZ
171
193
195
Graciela Martnez-Zalce
215
Saskia Hertlein
237
Anne McGee
263
265
Diana Fulger
287
INTRODUCCIN
INTRODUCCIN
Una mirada hacia el presente y el pasado nos demuestra que los Estudios
Interamericanos son un campo en auge en la actualidad, con importantes
predecesores en el siglo XX. Podemos pensar en comparatistas literarios
y latinoamericanistas tales como M.J. Valds, Jos Balln, Gari
Laguardia y Lois Parkinson, por mencionar solo unos pocos; y durante
la dcada de 1990, la escuela comparativa interamericanista por crticos
tales como Djelal Kadir, Doris Sommer, Antonio Bentez Rojo y Jos
David Saldvar. Muchos de estos crticos continan nutriendo el campo
con nuevo conocimiento terico y crtico, como lo ilustra el reciente libro
de Saldvar Trans-Americanity. Subaltern Modernities, Global
Coloniality and the Cultures of Greater Mexico (2012). Como Earl Fitz
observa, En los ltimos aos, se han experimentado altibajos en el
inters sobre el proyecto interamericano; sin embargo, ahora estamos
viviendo en una poca en la que, por una variedad de razones, el inters
en las relaciones inter-americanas es como nunca antes, inminentemente ms grande y urgente (13). Esto se debe, en parte, al hecho de que
giros postnacionales y transnacionales en los Estudios Latinoamericanos
y los Estudios Americanos han reconocido la necesidad de pensar a la
nacin y al rea de forma diferente, y han entrado lentamente en
debates crticos acerca de la re-estructuracin de los estudios de rea,
debates que fueron provocados por transformaciones radicales en la
INTRODUCCIN
[11]
11
ricas. En este enfoque relacional de los Estudios Interamericanos, el investigador se propone descubrir los vnculos, los obstculos y tambin las
constelaciones de poder que determinan las interacciones entre diversos
agentes de la produccin de capital, cultura, ambiente, redes, y conocimiento. Los discursos de fronteras constituyen parte de estas estrategias
relacionales, dado que emergieron en particular en el contexto de los estudios transnacionales de las Amricas, lo que permite al investigador
interamericano explorar las intermediaciones internas as como las
superposiciones polticas, culturales, econmicas y espaciales en sus dimensiones asimtricas, que caracterizan las manifestaciones de entrelazamiento
en las Amricas. Finalmente, para estudiar movimientos y procesos dentro
del hemisferio americano, el enfoque procesual que investiga la translocacin
y el desarrollo sirve como una herramienta til para capturar los canales,
circulaciones, flujos, itinerarios e imaginarios cambiantes que han conectado entrecruzada y transversalmente a las Amricas desde las pocas
coloniales hasta el presente global. El enfoque procesual sigue al objeto y, a
la par, analiza el contexto, la progresin y la inercia en los puntos de partida,
trnsito y arribo. (69-70)
En trminos generales, los Estudios Interamericanos (EIA) o InterAmerican Studies (IAS) se interesan en los contrastes culturales,
lingsticos y polticos del mundo industrializado y de los llamados pases
en desarrollo y emergentes del continente americano, tomando en cuenta
tanto el presente como las condiciones histricas de los pases en cuestin.
De ah que se necesite un enfoque multidisciplinario para abarcar
investigaciones relacionadas con los EIA , por lo que stos pueden
abordarse desde la Literatura, los Estudios Culturales, las Ciencias de
los Medios de Comunicacin, la Lingstica, la Sociologa, las Ciencias
Polticas, la Historia Transnacional, la Antropologa; etc. Es as como
todas ellas entran en dilogos interdisciplinarios que enriquecen los
resultados de las diferentes investigaciones.
De tal forma, el ciclo de conferencias Second Bi-Annual Conference
of the International Association Of Inter-American Studies Crossing
Boundaries in the Americas: Dynamics Of Change in Politics, Culture
12
INTRODUCCIN
and Media que se llev a cabo en Guadalajara, Mxico los das 25, 26
y 27 de septiembre de 2012, nos dio la oportunidad de compartir
investigaciones relacionadas con los EIA. Se trat de una colaboracin
entre la Inter-American Studies Association, Center for Interamerican
Studies de la Universidad de Bielefeld, la Universidad Autnoma de
Mxico y la Universidad de Guadalajara.
De este foro se desprendieron los artculos que conforman dos tomos.
El tomo I Fronteras simblicas: Cine, Media, Msica, coordinado por
Yolanda Minerva Campos Garca, Margarita Ramos Godnez y Wilfried
Raussert, consta de doce artculos agrupados en cinco segmentos de
abordaje, que atraviesan los trabajos sobre Cine, Msica y Media.
El cruce de fronteras no se limita a las formas de conectar lo
interamericano en escenarios culturales y mediticos; las fronteras
simblicas interactan para evidenciar conexiones artsticas,
disciplinarias, textuales y contextuales en las Amricas. A manera de
introduccin en el primer artculo, Josef Raab aborda la necesidad de
colocar los problemas nacionales y regionales de las Amricas en un
marco hemisfrico. Debido al flujo de personas, datos, capitales e ideas,
y tomando en cuenta la desterritorializacin de comunicaciones masivas
como el internet, ya no es posible hablar de culturas nacionales. El
impacto transnacional de sucesos particulares es una muestra de que
la nacin ya no es medida de todas las cosas y, por lo tanto, el estudio de
sus fenmenos culturales exige la integracin de contextos hemisfricos.
Ya que parten de esta orientacin transnacional y de una prctica
interdisciplinaria, los trabajos recopilados en este libro se insertan en el
emergente campo de los Estudios Interamericanos.
La permeabilidad de la nacin que menciona Raab se ve ilustrada
por el flujo transnacional no slo econmico e informativo sino tambin
humano. Este tema lo aborda Alicia Vargas Amsquita cuando analiza
la representacin del migrante en el cine mexicano de la primera dcada
del siglo XXI. La autora cuenta la historia del desencanto a partir de seis
pelculas: Un da sin mexicanos (Sergio Arau, 2004), Al otro lado
(Gustavo Loza, 2005), Bienvenido paisano (Rafael Villaseor Kuri,
2005), La misma luna (Patricia Riggen, 2007), Los bastardos (Amat
13
INTRODUCCIN
INTRODUCCIN
Fuentes citadas
Fitz, Earl E. Inter-American Studies as an Emerging Field: The Future
of a Discipline. Rethinking the Americas: Crossing Borders and
Disciplines. Vanderbilt E-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies 1
(2004): 13-28. Web. 25 Jan 2012.
Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side of Western Modernity. Global Futures,
Decolonial Options. Durham: Duke UP, 2011. Print.
Raussert, Wilfried. Mobilizing America/Amrica: Toward Entangled
Americas and a Blueprint for Inter-American Area Studies FIAR
Forum For Inter-american Research (7.3 2014): 59-97. Web. 12
Marzo 2015.
Rowe, John Carlos. Areas of Concern: Area Studies and the New
American Studies. Ed. Winfried Fluck, Donald Pease, and John
Carlos Rowe. Re-Framing the Transnational Turn in American
Studies. Hanover: Dartmouth College P, 2011, 321-36. Impreso.
Saldvar, Jos David. Trans-Americanity. Subaltern Modernities, Global
Coloniality and the Cultures of Greater Mexico. Durham: Duke UP,
2012. Impreso.
17
MIGRANDO FRONTERAS
20
THE
Josef Raab
Abstract
The essay demonstrates that in the contemporary world the nation is
no longer the measure of all things. For the study of texts, cultural
phenomena, historical developments, social trends, or political issues in
the Western Hemisphere this means that we need to be open to
integrating in our research the transnational, inter-American contexts
of what we are studying. Transnational bonds, border crossers, and
the transnational impacts of particular events or actions have long
illustrated the permeability of the nation. Nowadays, because of the
flows of people, capital, goods, services, and ideas and because of the
transnational nature of mediascapes, the deterritorialization of the
Internet, and a myriad of transnational communities and alliances
national cultures are increasingly seen as artificial constructs.
Therefore our academic practice needs to abandon the container model
of the nation and place local, regional, and national issues in their larger,
hemispheric framework. While the nation remains important in terms
of politics, laws, citizenship, education, heritage, and identification, we
also need to think beyond it in our approaches to cultures, literatures,
media, societies, and histories of the Western Hemisphere. This
transnational orientation and a transdisciplinary practice are the
foundations of the emerging field of Inter-American Studies.
21
Resumen
El ensayo muestra que la nacin ha dejado de ser crucial en el estudio
de textos, fenmenos culturales, desarrollos culturales, corrientes
sociales o debates polticos en las Amricas del mundo contemporneo.
Esto significa que nuestro trabajo acadmico debe abrirse a integrar los
contextos transnacionales e interamericanos en nuestro campo de
estudio. Las conexiones transnacionales, los cruces de fronteras y los
impactos transnacionales de eventos y acciones han ilustrado por mucho
tiempo la permeabilidad de la nacin. Hoy en da, a causa del flujo de
gente, capital, servicios e ideas y a causa del carcter transnacional de
los medios, la desterritorializacin del Internet y una plenitud de
comunidades y alianzas transnacionales, parece ms y ms artificial
hablar de culturas nacionales. Por eso es necesario que nuestra prctica
acadmica abandone el modelo de contenedores nacionales y ponga los
asuntos locales, regionales y nacionales en su marco hemisfrico.
Mientras que la nacin permanece en la poltica, las leyes, la ciudadana,
la educacin, el patrimonio, y la identificacin, tambin tenemos que
pensar detrs de la nacin en nuestro estudio de culturas, literaturas,
medios, sociedades e historias de las Amricas. Esta orientacin
transnacional y una prctica transdisciplinaria son las fundaciones del
campo emergente de los estudios interamericanos.
Palabras clave: nacin, cultura nacional, transnacionalismo, flujos,
Estudios Interamericanos.
22
Introduction
A good 130 years ago, Jos Mart wrote in his essay Nuestra Amrica,
published in El Partido Liberal in Mexico in 1891: El desdn del vecino
formidable, que no la conoce, es el peligro mayor de nuestra Amrica.
Has anything changed since then, we may ask. Arent the political,
economic, and cultural leadership and the all too often isolationist
attitude of the U.S.A. still proof that The scorn of our formidable
neighbor who does not know us is Our Americas greatest danger?
Forcing the plane of Bolivian president Evo Morales to land in Vienna
on its way from Moscow to La Paz in July 2013 to make sure that
Edward Snowden was not hidden away on that plane illustrates what
the formidable U.S.A. is ready to do in the alleged interest of the nation.
Time and again, governments and organizations of the United States
have pursued their own agendas in the name of U.S. exceptionalism,
regardless of how those actions might affect their partners in the
Americas and globally. The 2013 revelations on the work of the NSA
(National Security Agency) since 9/11 are a case in point.
Yet a focus on the primacy of ones own nation at the cost of others
is hardly limited to the U.S.A., as reports of so-called ethnic cleansing
and other atrocities motivated by nationalism (sometimes misconstrued
as patriotism) have amply shown. Because nationalism or national
interests are so often used to justify violence Mario Vargas Llosa said in
his 2010 Nobel Prize acceptance speech:
I despise every form of nationalism, a provincial ideologyor rather, religion
that is short-sighted, exclusive, that cuts off the intellectual horizon and
hides in its bosom ethnic and racist prejudices, for it transforms into a
supreme value, a moral and ontological privilege, the fortuitous circumstance
of ones birthplace.
Like Jos Mart, Mario Vargas Llosa warns of the dangers of elevating
ones own nation and its concerns above all others. Nationalists take
23
the nation for granted and assume that the nation has distinct interests
which need to be defended.
At the other end of the spectrum, the nation has been seen as a
fiction orsince Benedict Andersons seminal 1983 studyas merely an
imagined community, a mental construct on the basis of shared
interests, practices, and space. In Etienne Balibars view, not only the
nation but
[e]very social community reproduced by the functioning of institutions is
imaginary, that is to say, it is based on the projection of individual existence
into the weft of a collective narrative, on the recognition of a common name
and on traditions lived as the trace of an immemorial past (even when they
have been fabricated and inculcated in the recent past). (93; italics in the
original)
24
Despite those flows, however, asymmetries remain, whether on the local, national, or
transnational level. Berndt Ostendorf adds that though there are ever new disjunctures
and spaces of flow, there are also new spatial fixities or concentrations such as global
urban nodes (3).
25
Transnational Bonds
A tension between national sovereignty and transnational cooperation
has long characterized the Americas. Almost two centuries ago, from
1819 to 1830, Simn Bolvar was president of Gran Colombia, a republic
that comprised territories in present-day Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador,
Panama, Peru, and Brazil. He dreamt of an unidad latinoamericana
and strove for a patria grande that would unite the young republics of
Hispano-America. In a letter of 1818 he had told the Supremo Director
de las Provincias Unidas del Ro de la Plata, Juan Martn de Pueyrredn
that Una sola debe ser la patria de todos los americanos, ya que todos
hemos tenido una perfecta unidad. With his famousor infamous
doctrine of 1823, U.S. president James Monroe warned the European
powers against trying to extend their influence in the Western
Hemisphere, a warning that initially met with much enthusiasm in
Hispanic America, where it triggered a hope for concerted action of the
newly created nations in the New World and thus for some form of
Pan-Americanism. But as mistrust grew, Bolvar did not invite the
United States to the Congress of Panama, which he convened in 1826,
and which aimed to create a league of American republics, with a
common military, a mutual defense pact, and a supra-national
parliamentary assembly. In Bolvars vision, individual nations were to
co-exist and collaborate in a family of Hispanic-American nations.
National and transnational orientation went hand in hand, as Bolvar
was already thinking beyond the nation.
So was the series of pan-American conferences that followed the
1826 Congress of Panama3; the ninth of those pan-American conferences
3
Pan-Americanism had started out with Simn Bolvar, Jos de San Martn, and others
as a cooperation between various republics of Latin America. It was at the International
26
took place in 1948 and saw the creation of the Organization of American
States (OAS). Since 1994 the OAS has held a total of eight so-called
Summits of the Americas with representatives from South, Central,
and North America as well as the Caribbean, except for Cuba. The
Summits of the Americas website describes these meetings as
institutionalized gatherings of the heads of state and government of
the Western Hemisphere where leaders discuss common policy issues,
affirm shared values and commit to concerted actions at the national
and regional level to address continuing and new challenges faced in
the Americas. The sovereignty of nations is upheld, but there is also a
definite acknowledgment of transnational bonds. Just as the village or
city and the region remain part of the larger entity of the nation, the
nation finds itself in the larger entity of supra-national alliances and
constellations.
U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere, one facet of the
American Century, has been increasingly challenged in recent years,
as especially presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Rafael Correa of Ecuador,
and the late Hugo Chvez of Venezuela have forged new transnational
bonds that exclude or oppose the United States, and as Brazil is entering
the ranks of economic giant. For example, in 2004 ALBA was founded,
the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra Amrica, i.e., the
Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America. The alliance
currently has eight member states and has started introducing the SUCRE
as a virtual currency, aiming to make it a hard currency for the member
states eventually. Hugo Chvez initiated this pact as an alternative to
the Free Trade Area of the Americas (or FTAA) proposed by the United
States. Its development reflects the shifts and dispersal of centers of
Conference of American States held in Washington, D.C. from 1889 to 1890 that, as
Stefan Rinke has observed, [t]he United States took over the movement redefining it
into a tool of its southward expansionism (66). Especially after WWI businessmen and
missionaries became principal agents of Pan-Americanism, while travel and cultural
exchange (in both directions) intensified between Latin America and the U.S.A. (cf.
Rinke 69).
27
Some transnational indigenous movements chose the concept of Abya Yala, which
translates as land in its full maturity or continent of life, as a name for the Americas.
This name originated with the Kuna people in Panama and is meant to promote a panindigenous, geopolitical imagination (cf. Kaltmeier 4; nativeweb.org).
28
Border Crossers
Individuals have longed to cross national borders ever since such borders
have existed; their border-crossings were bound to transform these
individuals and possibly their surroundings as well as the nations
involved in those border crossings. We may think of travellers and exiles
like the Cuban Jos Mara Heredia, a romantic poet who celebrated the
splendors of Mexico and the United States. In his Oda al Nigara or
Ode to Niagara (1824) the description of the natural spectacle of
6
Claudia Briones has pointed out how Argentinas 1994 National Constitutional Reform,
while recognizing the primacy and rights of the Mapuche, also resulted in a regional
fragmentation (which Briones calls a provincialization) of Mapuche demands starting
around 1997 (255).
29
30
In the fall of 1930, Kahlo took her first trip outside of Mexico, spending six months in
San Francisco. In 1931 she and Diego Rivera were in New York for an exhibition of
Riveras work at the Museum of Modern Art.
31
10
Kahlos full maiden name had been Carmen Frida Kahlo Caldern, which is why she
identifies herself as Carmen Rivera here.
11
Only later would their juxtaposition become a trademark of her art. This symbol,
explains her biographer Hayden Herrera, represents the unity of cosmic and terrestrial
forces, the Aztec notion of an eternal war between light and dark, the preoccupation in
Mexican culture with the idea of duality: life-death, light-dark, past-present, day-night,
male-female (152).
12
Herrera notes that Diego was forever comparing the beauty of American machines
and skyscrapers with the splendor of pre-Columbian artifacts (153).
13
32
In the foreground, on the U.S. side, instead of rooted plants we see three round machines,
two of which radiate rays of light and energy (as contrasted with the radiant Mexican
sun), and all of which have electric cords (as opposed to their counterparts, the Mexican
flowers, which have roots). Frida has cleverly depicted a cord, which extends from one
of the machines, transforming itself into the roots of one of the Mexican plants. The
machines other cord is plugged into an outlet on Fridas pedestal. 153)
While the machines and industry were also connected for Kahlo to her traumatic
accident at the age of eighteen, the loss of her unborn child, her feeling of unease in the
United States, and the absence of her husband Diego Rivera, Mexico, on the other
hand, according to Herrera, meant life, human connectedness, beauty, and she longed
to return to it (153-54).
33
34
prosperity, opportunity, and greater security for the migrants, who risk
their lives on the journey there.
Despite the hostility of the other migrants on the train against a
gang member, Sayra and Willy link up on the trek north. As they are
waiting together with countless others for an opportunity to jump on
the next train, we see an airplane overhead, pointing the direction in
which they are headed. Willy tells Sayra of having been to Texas and
having seen there an airplane factory, enormous signs, and bright lights.
For him, the United States could be a land where he might be free from
persecution by the other gang members, but he is realistic enough to
doubt whether he will be able to make it that far or whether the gang
will catch up with him before he can cross over. For Sayra, the United
States holds the promise of family and opportunity in New Jersey. But
this is a doomed promise: as she reveals, her psychic neighbor in
Honduras had told her that she would get to the United States not in
the hands of God but in those of the Devil. This remark underlines the
ambivalence of the United States for the prospective illegal immigrants:
their lives may end up being heaven or hell. Because of the situations
they find themselves in they have to think transnationally. National
borders play a significant role in their endeavors to better their lives
but at least in Sayras case those do not prevent the transnational
movementa movement which, however, as illustrated by the deaths
of Willy and of Sayras father is life-threatening.
For the migrants on the train going north in Sin Nombre, for the
traveling artist Frida Kahlo, and for the homesick exile Jos Mara
Heredia, the reality of nations and borders remains a constant assault
on their lives. Destinations and their national contexts trigger distinct
associations, which the individual border crosser relates to the world
and nation he or she is most familiar with. As the border crosser leaves
home, he or she carries mental images of home with him- or herself and
ends up comparing the new and unknown to those memories of the
nation of origin. As individuals cross national borders, the world that
they carry with them colors their perception of their destination and
imbues this destination with transnational attributes.
35
Transnational Impacts
That a nation is no closed entity, isolated from the world around it, but
instead a political construction in a web of interconnections is not only
illustrated by border crossers. Politics, economy, consumerism, and media
are just some of the areas which reveal that we cannot think of the
nation as a sealed container. Instead, the nation is constantly
experiencing the impact of phenomena, developments, or events that
originated outside of its territory.
Gabriel Garca Mrquezs Cien aos de soledad (1967), the multigenerational saga of the Buenda family, whose patriarch, Jos Arcadio
Buenda, founds the town of Macondo, the metaphorical Colombia, sheds
light on such transnational impacts in the Americas. On the one hand,
the novel depicts transnational repercussions of United States capitalism
in Colombia; on the other, it exerts an international impact itself in the
literary marketplace through its worldwide reception as one of the bestknown works of the Latin American Boom. Cien aos de soledad engages
with Colombian history and its transnational contexts by selecting key
moments from the founding of the nation to the present.14
While hunting butterflies, a Mr. Herbert eats some bananas in
Macondo and realizes the places potential to supply large quantities of
bananas for the U.S. market. He brings in the entrepreneur Mr. Jack
Brown along with a hoard of opportunist lawyers, agronomists,
hydrologists, topographers, and surveyors (214). Greed motivates the
U.S. Americans; their technology enables them to maximize economic
profit, regardless of the environmental impact:
Endowed with means that had been reserved for Divine Providence in former
times, they changed the pattern of the rains, accelerated the cycle of harvest,
and moved the river from where it had been and put it with its white stones
and icy currents on the other side of the town, behind the cemetery. (214)
14
Members of the Buenda family are involved in all those key moments that span from
the coming of the railroad via the introduction of cinema and of the automobile to the
massacre of striking workers by the military.
36
All Macondo is turned upside down under the impact of the American
Fruit CompanyGarca Mrquezs fictional version of the United Fruit
Companyand under the neo-imperialist stance of the U.S. Americans:
So many changes took place in such a short time that eight months after Mr.
Herberts visit the old inhabitants had a hard time recognizing their own town.
Look at the mess weve got ourselves into, Colonel Aureliano Buenda said at
that time, just because we invited a gringo to eat some bananas. (215)
37
38
Saldvar examines the border between the United States and Mexico as an uneven
discursive terrain whose border discourse not only produces power and reinforces it
39
40
41
Mexico or live shows from Florida. By now Univision has reached ratings
comparable to those of the U.S.s five major English-language television
networks. The second-largest provider of Spanish-language television
in the U.S. is Telemundo. Founded in Puerto Rico in 1954, the network
is part of the NBC Universal division of General Electric. And then
there is Azteca Amrica, the most recent and rapidly growing television
network marketed toward Spanish-speaking viewers in the United
States. This network is wholly owned by Mexican broadcaster TV
Azteca, from which it also receives much of its content. So which national
culture are we talking about when we look at these TV networks? They
all have transnational content and transnational audiences. The
national TV market in the United States is very heterogeneous; its niches
are not defined by the nation but by other forms of affiliation.
In view of this kind of (national as well as transnational)
segmentation, Manuel Castells states that
Instead of a global village we are moving towards mass production of
customized cottages. While there is oligopolistic concentration of multimedia
groups around the world, there is at the same time, market segmentation,
and increasing interaction by and among the individuals that break up the
uniformity of a mass audience. (129)
The groups of viewers that constitute themselves are not bound together
by a shared national culture but instead by a shared language, shared
interests, shared viewing habits, shared political orientations, or shared
economic or educational aspirations. Jess Martn Barbero points out
that in the mediascape globalization and cultural fragmentation are at
work simultaneously and contribute to the erosion of the concept of
nation as a marker of difference:
The media augur a world that doesnt fit into polar oppositions between
national and antinational. They promote contradictory movements of
globalization and cultural fragmentation through the revitalization of local
cultures. The press as well as radio and, increasingly, television are invested
42
in differentiating culture by region and age group, all the while creating links
among them through global rhythms and images. The idea of nation is not
only devalued as a result of deterritorialized economics and world culture; it
also erodes from an internal liberation of differences. (43)18
Even if the concept of a national culture has come under much attack, Susan Gillman
reminds us that we still tend to use the nation as the main category in comparative
studies: The comparative framework itself has a history as a mode of analysis that
favors the nation as both the object and the frame of study itselfan exclusive focus
apparent in the longstanding tradition of two-country pairings (329).
19
At the same time, however, we need to be careful not to homogenize. Daniel Mato, for
example, has warned against the danger of equating U.S. Latina/o identity with Latin
American or pan-Latina/o identity: Current representations of a US Latina/o identity
as well as of a Latin American identity and of an all-encompassing transnational US
Latina/oLatin American identity entail images that, according to several social actors
representations, obscure differences that are significant (598).
20
Doris Sommer remarked that cultural studies has been a topic of familiar and now
tired debate among Latin Americanists. Defenders have called cultural studies a new
label for standard interdisciplinary practices that North America recently discovered;
and detractors resent the uses of Latin American culture as mere raw material for
foreign theorists (4).
43
See Raab/Butler, Hybrid Americas: Contacts, Contrasts, and Confluences in New World
Literatures and Cultures for some illustrations of hybrid cultural practices throughout
the Americas.
44
Toni Morrison sets her novel in the early 17th century, before the establishment of
modern-day nations in the New World, and creates an intricate network of characters
from very different backgrounds, ranging from the teenage African slave, her
Portuguese-speaking mother, a Christianized Native American woman, an
Englishwoman sold into marriage by her father, two European indentured laborers,
and a free black man, to a Dutch farmer and a Portuguese plantation owner. There are
various degrees of servitude in this intricate web of individual fates before nationhood
that Toni Morrisons novel ties; slavery is differentiated and a lack of freedom also
exists with characters who are not of African descent. Moreover, the slavery-based
cultivation of sugar cane in the Caribbean is shown to be linked to farming in Virginia
through flows of slaves, goods, and capital.
23
The essays collected in Berndt Ostendorfs Transnational America follow the same
pattern; yet they do not advertise themselves as inter-American. That the America in
45
Conclusion
Inter-American Studies may seemin light of the tenuous nature of
the nation and of the inadequacy of nationally centered academic
approaches in the analysis of Western Hemisphere phenomenato be
self-evident. But that does not mean that it is easy. Earl E. Fitz, who
approaches Inter-American Studies largely as a comparative field, has
identified five of the major problems that Inter-American Studies is
facing: the language problem, the absence of Inter-American Studies
programs or departments, the vastness and diversity of areas and issues
the books title is synonymous with U.S.A., though, reveals that there is still much
room for further developing an inter-American consciousness.
24
For the field of historiography Thomas Adam and Uwe Luebken stated that Over the
last two decades or so [the] nation-centered view of history has increasingly come
under attack from a variety of angles. Postmodern analyses have deconstructed the
nations seemingly essential character . Also, newly developed fields of historical
research often employ units of analysis other than the nation-state (1). Unfortunately,
Adam and Luebken fail to credit the groundbreaking work of Herbert Eugene Bolton
in the early twentieth century in this regard.
46
47
will appear as firm land with an ever moving and expanding frontier; a
World forever in the making, always a new world. (69)
Works Cited
Adam, Thomas, and Uwe Luebken. Introduction. Beyond the Nation:
United States History in Transnational Perspective. Bulletin of the
German Historical Institute Supplement 5. Washington, D.C.:
German Historical Institute, 2008. 1-8. Print.
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin
and Spread of Nation-alism. London: Verso, 1983. Print.
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996. Print.
Balibar, Etienne. The Nation Form: History and Ideology. Race,
Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities. By Etienne Balibar and
Immanuel Wallerstein. London: Verso, 1991. 86-106. Print.
Briones, Claudia. Questioning State Geographies of Inclusion in
Argentina: The Cultural Politics of Organizations with Mapuche
Leadership and Philosophy. Cultural Agency in the Americas. Ed.
Doris Sommer. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2006. 248-78. Print.
Castells, Manuel. An Introduction to the Information Age. The
Blackwell City Reader. Ed. Gary Bridge and Sophia Watson.
Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. 125-34. Print.
Fitz, Earl E. Inter-American Studies as an Emerging Field. Rethinking
the Americas: Crossing Borders and Disciplines. Spec. issue of
Vanderbilt E-Journal of Luso-Hispanic Studies 1 (2004): 13-28.
48
50
51
52
Abstract
In the first decade of the XXI century, Mexican cinema has taken up the
issue of migrants and migration, in an attempt to renew the film
perspective on this complex, dynamic, and never definitive or defining
phenomenon. However, the actors of migration are still represented in
a double pivot axis of disappointment and motivation: the
disenchantment for the national economic failure and the possibility of
making a fortune over there, in that other side that promises wealth
and welfare; and, later, once arrived to the promised land, the
disenchantment of the migrant: submitted, abused, discriminated and
overwhelmed by the gringo. That is when migrants dream on coming
back to its sociocultural anchorage.
This paper analyzes the representations of migration, the migrants,
and their social practices in some Mexican films of the last decade, and
how they become a way of strengthening national identities against
the other.
Keywords: Mexican cinema, visual discourse, representations, migration
53
Resumen
En la primera dcada del siglo XXI, la cinematografa mexicana ha
retomado el tema de los migrantes y la migracin, en un intento por
renovar la mirada flmica sobre este fenmeno tan complejo, dinmico
y nunca definitivo ni definitorio. No obstante, los actores de la migracin
siguen siendo representados pivotando en un doble eje de desencanto y
motivacin: primero el desencanto por el fracaso econmico nacional y
la posibilidad de hacer fortuna en el all, en ese otro lado que les
promete riqueza y bienestar; y, despus, una vez llegados a esa tierra
promisoria, el desencanto del migrado: sometido, ultrajado, discriminado
y apabullado por el gringo, que ahora suea con el retorno y aora su
anclaje sociocultural.
En este trabajo analizamos las representaciones de la migracin,
del migrante y de sus prcticas sociales en algunos filmes mexicanos de
este primer decenio, y cmo aqullas se vuelven una manera de reforzar
identidades nacionales frente el otro extranjero.
Palabras clave: cine mexicano, discurso visual, representaciones,
migracin.
El discurso [] cuenta con significados ms globales, como los temas. Los temas
representan la informacin ms importante del discurso y explican de qu se trata ste
en general (Van Dijk 58-59).
A medio camino entre la semntica y la retrica se hallan los topoi (del griego topos,
lugar; en latn, locus communis). Se parecen a los temas [...], pero se han convertido en
estndares del dominio pblico, de manera que se usan como argumentos preparados
[...] Una de las implicaciones discursivas del uso de topoi es que, como argumentos
estndar, no es necesario defenderlos: son criterios bsicos de la argumentacin (Van
Dijk 68).
55
Esta pelcula est conformada por tres historias sobre migracin, de tres lugares
geogrficos diferentes: Cuba, Marruecos y Mxico. En este trabajo slo tomamos en
cuenta la que se desarrolla en Mxico.
Entendemos por cine comercial, siguiendo las reflexiones iniciadas por Astruc ya hace
ms de medio siglo, como aquel cine hecho primordialmente para el consumo de masas
y con fines meramente de espectculo. En cambio, el cine de autor implicara el uso
del lenguaje flmico como un vehculo privilegiado de reflexin sobre la condicin humana
y social. Para una revisin novedosa sobre esta discusin remitimos a Lipovetsky y
Serroy (2007).
56
se refiere al desencanto por el fracaso econmico nacional y la posibilidadmotivacin de hacer fortuna en el all, en ese otro lado que les promete
riqueza y bienestar. El segundo tema se constituye como consecuencia
de la llegada a esa tierra promisoria y el descubrimiento-desencanto de
la realidad del migrado (sometido, ultrajado, discriminado y apabullado
por el gringo; o excepcionalmente exitoso): se trata del sueo de retorno
al terruo, ahora idealizado, mientras se aferra a su anclaje sociocultural.
Estos dos significados globales son los que estructuran las narrativas
de los filmes analizados, los cuales sirven de justificacin para el
reforzamiento de un sentimiento de identidad nacional que se construye
a travs de una serie de elementos estereotpicos de lo mexicano: la
religin catlica, y en particular la imagen de la Virgen de Guadalupe;
las comidas tpicas, las celebraciones y smbolos de lo cvico-nacional,
especialmente la Bandera mexicana; la msica regional, en la cual sobre
sale el mariachi y la msica nortea; entre otras que iremos viendo.
Veamos ahora algunos elementos que identificamos como subtemas6 y
los topoi que viene a apuntalar estos dos grandes temas que articulan
las miradas estereotpicas sobre la migracin.
La tierra prometida
El primer gran tema, el del desencanto nacional, se presenta como
consecuencia de la imposibilidad de gozar de mejores condiciones de
vida, entre las clases ms desprotegidas; y es, al mismo tiempo, el que
genera la construccin del all, del otro lado, del Norte, como la
tierra prometida, como un pas de oportunidades en el que se fincan las
esperanzas de un futuro econmico exitoso.7
6
57
58
59
otro lado. [Vuelve a rer]. St ust muy chiquillo para eso, mijo, muy chiquillo. Ora que est ms hombrecito, yo le digo cmo. () Quin, quin, quin
crees que anim a tu padre pa que se fuera? Quin? [pegndose en el pecho].
El to Lupe, chingao. Yo le dije... Cabrn no se quera ir. Hijo de la chingada
no se quera ir. Le digo: Pinche Rafa, pos qu chingados te quedas a hacer
aqu? Vyase a chingarle, por los dlares, por lo verde, como su to. Y qu
pas? Qu pas? All anda el camino, el cabrn. Si yo le dije, le dije al gey
le digo: Pos as es la vida de uno. Hay que salir a chingarse, no? A chingarse.
Ah st el Apolinar [ren todos mientras lo seala] ese gey se le hizo fcil
pasar corriendo en la noche; y que me lo agarra la migra, no Pilinar?
Apolinar: S pues, hey, hey.
To Lupe: Y el pinche viejo berrinchudo de Primitivo. () se se cruzaba en
los vagones de carga. Pero eso hace muchos aos, mijo, muchos aos. Ora
est cabrn, ora est cabrn. Ah andan apareciendo asfixiados de que los
dejan abandonados en los vagones encerrados. [Bebe. Apunta a otro] Ves a
ese gey que est all? Ese gey, Aureliano, ese gey se le ocurri a travesar
caminando el desierto, el muy pendejo [Ren todos].
Aureliano: Pos ya qu? Pos as me toc la suerte.
To Lupe: Y por poco se muere. Ah lo encontraron ya redepente [sic] de pura
casualidad.
Prisciliano: Y ust cmo cruzaba?
To Lupe: Cmo? Uta madre, nadando, mijo. () Nadando, y siempre me la
persignaron los pinches gringos, hijos de su chingada madre. Ora, hay unos
que se avientan sin saber nadar, y por eso se ahogan los muy pendejos, no?
[ren otra vez todos].
Dice Paola Lagos Labb que el desplazamiento fsico generalmente desde la urbe en la
que se ha asentado (lo global), hacia el pueblo del que se ha marchado (lo local, territorio
que conserva ciertas tradiciones vinculadas a la experiencia y al etos personal)- pasa a
ser una metfora del movimiento interior, de un viaje hacia el autoconocimiento (Lagos
64
El paraso perdido
El segundo tema narrativo de las pelculas sobre migracin lo hemos
descrito como el desencanto ante la realidad del migrado, que vive
discriminado y apabullado por el gringo, y que ahora suea con el
regreso al terruo. Es precisamente aqu donde entran en funcionamiento todos los mecanismos de preservacin de la identidad nacional,
a travs de la presencia cotidiana de usos, costumbres y tradiciones
532). En el caso de Norteado, se trata de un proceso opuesto: es el auto-reconocimiento
a travs del extraamiento, el cual es representado en la prdida de rumbo, de objetivo
y de identidad.
65
66
Nos referimos a la pelcula Ni de aqu, ni de all (1988), dirigida por la misma Mara
Elena Velasco, la India Mara.
11
67
A manera de conclusin
El cine mexicano que aborda el tema de la migracin, y con ello sus
realizadores, dan cabida a una representacin de la migracin y del
migrante que apela a la solidaridad y la comprensin de sus actos, de
12
68
Bibliografa
Astruc, Alexander. Du Stylo a la camera et de la camera au stylo.
LEcran francaise, no. 144, 30 de Marzo de 1948. Web. Consultado
el 2 de enero de 2015 en http://www.cinefagos.net/index.php?
option=com_content&view=article&id=441:nacimiento-de-unanueva-vanguardia-la-lcamera-stylor&catid=30&Itemid=60
Aumont, Jacques, et al. Esttica del cine. Espacio flmico, montaje,
narracin, lenguaje. 1985. Espaa: Paids, 1996. Impreso.
Comunicacin 17 Cine.
Avia, Rafael. Una mirada inslita. Temas y gneros del cine mexicano.
Mxico: CONACULTA /Cineteca Nacional/Ocano, 2004. Impreso.
Keizman, Betina. Relecturas (cinematogrficas) de la migracin
mexicana. Alhim.revues.org. Amrique Latine Histoire et Mmoire.
Les Cahiers ALHIM, no. 23, 10 septiembre 2012. Web. Consultado
el 24 de enero de 2013 en http://alhim.revues.org/4232.
Kress, Gunther. Multimodality. A social semiotic approach to
contemporary communication. London/New York: Routledge, 2010.
Impreso.
Kress, Gunther y Theo van Leeuwen. Multimodal discourse. The modes
and media of contemporary communication. Londres: Arnold, 2001.
Impreso.
Lagos Labb, Paola. Viajes de ida y retorno entre la pertenencia y el
desarraigo. La construccin narrativa del hogar y la identidad en
los diarios cinematogrficos de David Perlov. Revistacomunicacion.
org. Revista Comunicacin, no. 10, vol. 1, pp. 531-546. 2012. Web.
Consultado el 20 de agosto de 2012 en http://www.revista
70
comunicacion.org/pdf/n10/mesa3/041.Viajes_de_ida_ y_retorno_
entre_la_pertenencia_y_el_desarraigo.La_construccion _narrativa
_del_hogar_y_la_identidad_en_los_diarios_cinemauto biograficos
_de_David_Perlov.pdf.
Lipovetsky, Gilles y Serroy, Jean. La pantalla global. Cultura meditica
y cine en la era de la hipermodena. Espaa: Anagrama, 2007.
Impreso.
Lpez, Ana Mara. Migracin y desplazamiento: representaciones de
la identidad en conflicto, Revistacomunicacion.org. Revista
Comunicacin, no. 10, vol. 1, pp. 439-452. 2012. Web. Consultado
el 20 de agosto de 2012 en http://www.revistacomunicacion.org/pdf/
n10/mesa3/035.Migracion_y_desplazamiento-Representaciones
._de_la_identidad_en_conflicto.pdf.
Paisano. Bienvenido a casa, Secretara de Gobernacin, Instituto
Nacional de Migracin, Gobierno de la Repblica Mexicana. Web.
Consultado el 2 de diciembre de 2011 en http://www.paisano.gob.mx.
Piastro, Julieta. Consideraciones epistemolgicas y tericas para una
nueva comprensin de las identidades, Retos epistemolgicos de
las migraciones transnacionales. Espaa: Anthropos, 2008. Impreso.
Ravenstein, Ernest George. The Laws of Migration. Journal of the
Statistical Society, 1885, citado por Lisbet Lpez Saavedra. Teoras
de la migracin?, un acercamiento impostergable a la realidad de la
emigracin y su presencia en el cine cubano. Eumed.net. Contribuciones a las ciencias sociales, febrero de 2012. Web. Consultado el
24 de enero de 2013 en http://www.eumed.net/rev/cccss/18/lls.html.
Ros Reyes, Mario. La migracin en el cine. Meme.phpwebhosting.com.
I Coloquio Internacional Migracin y desarrollo: transnacionalismo y nuevas perspectivas de integracin, 2003. Web. Consultado
el 2 de septiembre de 2012 en http://meme.phpwebhosting.com/
~migracion/primer_coloquio/7_4.pdf.
Rosas Mantecn, Ana. La ciudad de los migrantes. El cine y la
construccin de los imaginarios urbanos. Flacso.edu.mx. Perfiles
71
Filmografa
Al otro lado. Dir. Gustavo Loza. Act. Hctor Surez, Vanessa Bauche,
Adrin Alonso e Ignacio Guadalupe. Matatena Film, FIDECINE, 2005.
DVD .
Bienvenido paisano. Dir. Rafael Villaseor Kuri. Act. Rafael Incln,
Mara Sort, Teresa Ruiz y Giovanni Florido. Galctica Films,
FIDECINE, 2005. DVD.
La misma luna. Dir. Patricia Riggen. Act. Carlos Reyes, Kate del Castillo,
Eugenio Derbez, Maya Zapata y Carmen Salinas. Fox, Search
Light, 2007. DVD.
Los bastardos. Dir. Amat Escalante. Act. Jess Moiss Rodrguez, Rubn
Sosa y Nina Zavarin. Mantarraya, Tres Tunas, Nodream Cinema,
2008. DVD.
Ni de aqu, ni de all. Dir. Mara Elena Velasco. Act. Mara Elena
Velasco, Sergio Kleiner, Cruz Infante. Bladys Filmes, Televicine,
1988. DVD.
Norteado. Dir. Rigoberto Perezcano. Act. Harol Torres, Sonia Couch,
Alicia Laguna y Luis Crdenas. Tiburn Filmes, IMCINE, 2009. DVD.
One day with out a mexican, AKA Un da sin mexicanos. Dir. Sergio
Aru. Act. Maureen Flannigan, Eduardo Palomo, Elpidia Carrillo,
Tony Abatemarco, Yareli Arrizmendi y Jos Mendoza. FIDECINE,
Cinepolis, 2004. DVD.
72
Abstract
Travel narrative has always been an inexhaustible mine for literature.
Like other traits of literary art, cinema has addressed the theme of
travel as one of the highlights. However, this is not due solely to the
replica of an art in another, but in human nature. This is the starting
point of this article, a mans subject that has gone to the narrative art;
the text focuses on the analysis of two 2010 films (A tiro de piedra y Te
extrao), which updated the theme travel in American geography. In
73
Alice Guy naci en 1873 en Francia, estudi secretariado y trabaj para compaas
fotogrficas y productoras de cine. Migr con su marido, camargrafo de cine, a Estados
Unidos en 1907 para promocionar el equipo cinematogrfico de la compaa Gaumont;
gracias a ello dirige ms de seiscientos filmes en diversos gneros. La pelcula referida
puede pensarse que parte de su visin sobre la adaptacin de los migrantes europeos a
los Estados Unidos, como ella misma lo fue.
74
El inters por la movilidad humana se extiende por los terrenos del arte
y de la ciencia. El etngrafo James Clifford seala, por ejemplo, que su
disciplina se concibi como el estudio de la poblacin asociada a un lugar
especfico, pero que la experiencia en muchos sitios aparentemente
lejanos de la movilidad moderna, le mostraron que buena parte de la
gente comn que encontraba haba recorrido diversos lugares por necesidades laborales, situaciones militares o polticas, contingencias climticas
o simplemente por el gusto de vivir en un lugar diferente: Todos estn
en movimiento, y eso ha ocurrido durante siglos: una residencia de
viaje, se debe pensar en una imagen de la ubicacin humana, constituida tanto por el desplazamiento como por la inmovilidad (12).2
En las diversas formas de narracin ficcional, se puede decir que el
viaje es uno de los principales factores para dar la posibilidad de su heroicidad al personaje. Quiz se deba a que, en la realidad, una de las formas
2
75
76
A tiro de piedra fue rodada con un presupuesto de 8 mil dlares del bolsillo del director;
el equipo de produccin fueron tres personas que incluan al director y al actor Gabino
Rodrguez, con un guin mnimo elaborado por el Hiriart y el mismo actor; el casting se
hizo con personas contactadas durante el viaje de filmacin y no existieron sueldos.
http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2010/09/19/index.php?section=opinion&article=a07n1esp.
Las imgenes que se incluyen fueron obtenidas de la copia proporcionada por el INCIME
para la elaboracin de la ponencia presentada en el Congreso IAS 2012, de la cual se
deriva este artculo. Agradezo la amable colaboracin de la Direccin de Promocin de
Cultura Cinematogrfica.
77
78
A tiro de piedra
A tiro de piedra es la historia de Jacinto, un joven de San Luis Potos
que vive en el semidesierto del centro del pas cuidando cabras, el ganado
que mejor se puede adaptar al difcil clima de la regin. Pero si el cuerpo
de Jacinto est atado al cuidado de su rebao, su mente a travs de
flashforwards a lo largo de la cinta lo ubica adelante en el tiempo y
muy lejos en el espacio.
La primera secuencia del filme es un plano en el que Jacinto es
interrogado judicialmente; es el final de la historia, pero funciona
perfectamente para presentar los datos elementales del personaje. En
seguida un corte directo nos lleva a una imagen fuera de foco en la que
Jacinto camina en la nieve, para acto seguido mediante otra transicin
encuadrar la cara del mismo personaje dormido al aire libre. Un plano
ms abierto nos indica que la imagen nevada fue un sueo y que est
en el semidesierto rodeado por las cabras a su cargo. La accin contina
con Jacinto conversando con su padre de sus ganas de irse a otro lado
(en una escena que trae a la memoria Paso del Norte, de Juan Rulfo),
pero ste trata de persuadirlo dicindole que estando ah y trabajando
juntos se puede tener para vivir.
79
80
82
83
84
As pues, Jacinto busca cruzar la frontera para salir del medio que,
aunque lo arropaba y cobija, lo mantiene en el estancamiento. Ya en la
frontera es presa fcil de vivales tanto en Mxico como en los Estados
Unidos, slo encuentra apoyo en una prostituta que se compadece de l
cuando le roban. Paradjicamente con ella, a quien conoce al contratarla
por un rato, se establece su vnculo ms importante con un compatriota:
85
Te extrao
En el caso de Te extrao la presin del gobierno es la que de manera
directa orilla al protagonista a salir del pas. La historia se ubica en la
dictadura militar que gobern al pas entre marzo de 1976, cuando fue
derrocado el gobierno de Mara Estela Martnez de Pern y diciembre
de 1983, ltimo mes del rgimen militar finalizado por la eleccin de
86
89
90
Conclusin
Sin duda podemos afirmar que ambos directores realizan una
construccin de espacios no slo para dar a los personajes un lugar de
accin. Se busca que la dimensin espacial complemente el sentido de lo
que a ellos acontece, para que la opresin sobre los personajes, sus
perspectivas esperanzadoras o sus preocupaciones existenciales sean
percibidas sutilmente de manera visual por los espectadores en elementos
que no son parte de la actuacin.
La seleccin del encuadre (posicin de cmara y plano), el uso de
lentes angulares, el manejo de la iluminacin o de filtros son una tarea
fundamental para lograr este cometido. De hecho, los mismos escenarios
podran haberse empleado con un resultado diferente.
As pues, resulta interesante darse cuenta cmo en el caso de Hofman
no slo son los hechos los que expulsan al personaje; al igual que las
acciones, el espacio, Buenos Aires, lo hace tambin visualmente. En sentido
inverso, el espacio que lo recibe, nuestra capital, se brinda generosamente
a los ojos de Javi y del espectador, en tanto que la vista de Uruguay hace
ms cruel el exilio.
En A tiro de piedra el pueblo de Jacinto se nos muestra, con toda la
aridez del desierto, como un espacio abierto, libre, aunque el aburrimiento
del personaje impide que sea capaz de apreciar el espectculo escenogrfico
92
Bibliografa
Clifford, James. Itinerarios interculturales. Barcelona: Gedisa, 1999.
Impreso.
Colombi Nicolia, Beatriz. El viaje y su relato. Latinoamrica. Revista
de estudios latinoamericanos 43. Mxico: UNAM-CIALC, 2006: 11-36.
Impreso.
Monteleone, Jorge. El relato de viaje: de Sarmiento a Eco. Buenos Aires:
Ateneo, 1999. Impreso.
Ortega y Gasset, Jos. Viajes y pases. Madrid: Revista de Occidente,
1968. Impreso.
Rulfo, Juan. El llano en llamas. Mxico: Fondo de Cultura Econmica,
1953. Impreso.
Strothed, Edwad. The practical physician for travellers, whether by sea or
land. Giving directions how persons on voyages and journies, may
remedy the diseases incident to them, without the sorry assistances
they often meet with on the seas or roads. Eighteenth Century
Collections Online: Web. http://find.galegroup.com. pbidi.unam.
mx:8080/ecco/infomark.do?action=interpret &docType=ECCOArticles&
93
Filmografa
Guy Blanch, Alice, dir. Making an American Citizen. Solax Film Co.,
1912. Filme.
Hiriart, Sebastin, dir. A tiro de piedra. IMCINE, 2010. Filme.
Hofman, Fabin, dir. Te extrao. IMCINE-INCAA, 2010. Filme.
94
95
96
Resumen
El filme Lolo de Jean-Claude Lauzon (1992) narra la historia de Leo
Lozeau y su familia, marcados por los estigmas sociales de la locura, la
marginacin y la pobreza. A travs de los recursos de la autobiografa
cinematogrfica, el personaje de Leo recurre a las potencialidades de la
literatura y la imaginacin para reconstruir su identidad personal y
social. El presente anlisis profundiza en las representaciones de las
categoras artsticas, de las marginalidades sociales y de la identidad
por medio de la puesta en escena de los valores y rechazos que aparecen
en el tejido semntico del filme. El objetivo final es el de develar
determinados rasgos ideolgicos, los cuales forman parte del panorama
cultural de Canad en la dcada de los aos 90 y que, en un plano de
mayor amplitud, conforman al sistema capitalista occidental
contemporneo.
Palabras clave: pobreza, arte, identidad, ideologa, marginacin.
Abstract
The film Lolo by Jean-Claude Lauzon (1992) tells the story of Leo Lozeau
and his family, marked by the social stigma of insanity, marginalization
97
ser la imagen inaugural del filme, sino que se ampla por su carcter
inerte: es aqu donde se permanece, donde el tiempo, incluso el flmico,
cediera en su impacto para resguardarse, atesorarse indefinidamente
como experiencia visual fundadora y trascendente. En esta imagensntesis destaca la disposicin de sus elementos ya que la nitidez no se
encuentra en el objeto ms cercano al espectador (un brazo, mano y
cadera femenina?): son los elementos en segundo plano (una estatua
masculina, una grgola, una esfera y un cuadro) los que aparecen con
una clara definicin. La dicotoma entre el aqu y el all aparecer a lo
largo de la narracin como elemento estructural reiterativo. As, en este
pasaje, en concreto, se infiere que la demasiada cercana se convierte
en una especie de fantasma, una imposibilidad de identificacin plena,
tanto para el que mira como para el objeto de la mirada.
De este espacio interno y de privilegio se regresa a la profundidad
de los crditos subsecuentes. Como hilo conductor, la banda sonora
confirma y complementa las transiciones: es enigmtica, solemne y culta.
Tambin hay en ella una cierta carga de plegaria, de religiosidad. Las
voces cesan y las imgenes comienzan a circular. La toma es externa y
aqu aparece ya el movimiento visual. Por medio de un lento
desplazamiento descendente de la cmara, se nos muestra la humilde
fachada del edificio donde habita la familia Lozeau. Ah ubicamos por
primera ocasin al nio Leo, solo, fuera de su casa, ejecutando juegos
imaginarios donde agrede a un rival sin existencia visible para los dems,
pero siempre presente en su imaginacin. De esta manera, en el tejido
textual se inaugura el conflicto semitico entre lo interno y lo externo,
ya desde el mbito espacial como desde la psicologa de los personajes.
*****
Las coordenadas temporales nunca sern precisas, ya que no sabremos
de fechas exactas: es slo el siglo XX, en una sorprendente Canad.
Sorprendente porque las imgenes sern las de la pobreza, una pobreza
y hacinamiento no asociados al ideal extratextual que vehicula este
pas. Entonces, el programa narrativo del filme es mostrar, develar,
100
101
comunidades locales y de sus tradiciones en Nacin moderna en cuanto comunidad imaginaria. Este proceso supuso una represin a menudo cruenta
de las formas autnticas de los estilos de vida locales y/o su reinsercin en
una nueva tradicin inventada omnicomprensiva. Dicho de otro modo, la
tradicin nacional es una pantalla que esconde NO el proceso de modernizacin, sino la verdadera tradicin tnica en su insostenible factualidad. ()
Y, as, nos encontrarnos ahora ante un proceso postmoderno (aparentemente) opuesto: ante el retomo a formas de identificacin ms locales, ms
sub-nacionales. (Zizek, En defensa de la intolerancia 53)
*****
Parce que moi Je rve, Je ne le suis pas, es la frase que, durante todo
el filme, funcionar como la declaratoria contundente del personaje de
Leo: frase emblemtica y complementaria de los acontecimientos que lo
circundan; es el ser y el estar ambivalente y simultneo del idioma
francs; sirve de argumento para cuestionar, desequilibrar, huir de todo.
Soar a travs de esta frase rompe con la realidad propia y la percepcin
de los dems. Crea un ritmo en la narracin, al ser repetitiva, y una
referencia potica. La frase conjura a la realidad y suplica la reinvencin
del origen. En un plano mayor, niega, moldea y reconstruye el eje
identitario. Como afirma Slavoj Zizek, citado lneas arriba, se trata de
un retorno, slo que en Lolo el retorno no es hacia instancia ms locales
(hacia la realidad inmediata, el aqu). El movimiento se da hacia las
aoranzas lejanas (los sueos o el all) del emigrado. Es tal la urgencia
de dejar de ser Leo Lozeau que l toma la decisin de las palabras para
evidenciar su molestia y rebelda: quiere llamarse y que lo llamen Lolo
Lozone. El nombre le permite recrearse, ser otro, un idealizado nio
nacido en Sicilia, hijo de un padre annimo masturbador, quien pre
a su madre por medio de un improbable y potencializado jitomate
contaminado con su semen. Leo trata de reinventarse a travs de la
palabra y la imaginacin, trata de acceder/regresar a un nuevo/antiguo
linaje y dejar el mundo familiar de pobreza e ignorancia que lo constrie
y lo define. Es su manera de confrontar a los dems y a su circunstancia:
102
107
112
De manera general, el conjunto femenino se caracteriza por la prohibicin social, las complicidades fraternales, el placer y el amor adolescente
angustiante.
*****
Yo encuentro mis nicas felicidades verdaderas en la soledad. La soledad
es mi palacio. Es ah donde tengo mi silla, mi mesa, mi cama, mi viento
y mi sol. Cuando estoy en otra parte que no es mi soledad, estoy sentada
en el exilio, estoy sentada en un pas engaador, Leo narra estas lneas
previamente subrayadas, haciendo eco a la novela que leer constantemente durante la pelcula. Se trata de un pasaje de El valle de los
avasallados de Rjean Ducharme. Si bien el personaje principal literario
es una nia, Leo hace suyos sus reflexiones y carcter, creando una
relacin especular y un homenaje a la literatura y a la obra de Ducharme.
De hecho, en el resto de la pgina sin subrayar, la nia afirma que
debera ser capaz de asesinar a todos aquellos que pudieran comprometer su apreciada soledad. La violencia, sntoma del miedo, tambin
une a ambos personajes.
No intento recordar las cosas que ocurren en los libros, lo nico que
le pido a un libro es que me inspire energa y valor, que me diga que
hay ms vida de la que puedo abarcar, que me recuerde la urgencia de
actuar, confiesa Leo y de esta forma encuentra un aliado para remediar
y provocar su aislamiento, tomar distancia de la realidad contextual
que tanto lo angustia. Porque en el filme, las palabras, ya sean literarias
o autobiogrficas, dichas o escritas, convocan, unen, facilitan, reinventan, son el secreto; dan sentido a las urgencias corporales, son escape,
denuncia. Slo hace falta escribir tres palabras, clama Leo: Bianca,
mi amor. La escritura transcribe y reinventa su mundo; hay una fe
ciega en ella pues sirve de catarsis momentnea. No es puente hacia un
113
*****
El hacer cinematogrfico de Jean Claude Lauzon se construye sobre
un manejo de la cmara con un carcter casi voltil, areo, asimilndose
a un trazo pictrico; hay armona de la imagen, msica, voces y
murmullos envolventes. El ritmo potico es capaz de eclipsar la crudeza
y dolor de la historia narrada; los personajes, a pesar de su deformidad
o gracias a ella, no dejan de ser simpatizantes. La historia provoca la
reflexin por la complejidad de sus convicciones. En Lolo no slo se
habla del arte sino que se ejerce. En esta derivacin del campo de la
imaginacin, en esta mirada oblicua, de soslayo, a la pobreza y a la
locura, el andamiaje del arte sirve como distractor, como velo que cubre
y amplifica la realidad representada. As, queda claro que en el texto se
manifiesta un discurso del inmigrado pobre, nostlgico, anhelante de
la tierra perdida y de una cultura, por lo tanto, idealizadas. Un ser
solitario, sin races ni compromiso con los dems. Es un excluido social y
cultural; rechazado, huye constantemente: de la realidad, de su pas,
de la salud mental. En el texto, hay sueos pero no pesadillas, ya que el
horror est en el da con da: Me despierto muy temprano. Mi vuelta
del campo de los sueos es brutal al entrar en el pas de lo cotidiano,
confirma Leo, como inmigrante rechazado y en un renovada expulsin:
El exilio convierte el movimiento de indagacin, la migracin voluntaria, en
castigo y migracin forzada. Anlogamente, la expulsin del vergel del Edn
convierte el trabajo-parir-creacin (con dolor de desprendimiento y alegras
de nacimiento) en trabajo-parir-castigo (con el dolor como maldicin).
(Grinberg 7)
*****
Los aprendizajes en Lolo son todos dolorosos, de lo cual se puede
abstraer que la integracin personal, social y cultural se revela como
un ejercicio artificial y traumtico, ya sea desde el proceso de maduracin
del individuo, ya sea desde la experiencia de familias inmigrantes
sumidas en la pobreza. Las obsesiones de los personajes aparecen como
intentos desesperados para protegerse de una sociedad que emana miedo
y represin. Los sueos, profundamente ligados al arte, sirven como
paliativo para mitigar la angustia. Sin embargo, en el intento de alejarse
de la realidad social, de la exclusin y la pobreza, esos sueos y ese arte
representados, tambin sealan hacia un universo ideolgico. Leo suea
con la riqueza econmica (el tesoro en el fondo de la piscina), el amor
puro de Bianca (inalcanzable porque ella tiene un precio para entregar
su cuerpo) y la reinvencin de su identidad familiar (se avergenza de
la situacin econmica y cultural de sus orgenes). Entonces, es la
posesin de la riqueza una parte de la solucin a sus angustias
existenciales. La otra respuesta vendra desde el acercamiento al arte.
Los fundidos en negro en el filme no slo permiten la transicin de
un espacio o un tiempo a otro, se convierten en una noche profunda,
totalizadora: un espacio aparentemente vaco pero contenedor de todo
aquello que no est del todo articulado y preparado para, visualmente,
118
120
En este punto del anlisis, cabra cuestionar la construccin y sobrevaloracin narrativa alrededor de ese Yo omnipresente y su relacin
con el mbito de la belleza y el arte. Leo es un sntoma del sistema social
por la paradoja que representa: es un personaje solitario en medio de
los familiares que lo rodean. Las imgenes de su entorno nos remiten a
espacios de hacinamiento y sobrepoblacin, lo cual no lo exime de sentirse
profundamente relegado: ...uno no slo puede estar, sino que de hecho
est solo en la masa. Tanto el aislamiento individual como la inmersin
en la masa excluyen la propia intersubjetividad, el encuentro con un
otro (Zizek, Sobre la violencia. Seis reflexiones marginales 45), afirma
Slavoj Zizek, al reflexionar sobre la construccin individual en el mundo
ideolgico capitalista.
*****
En Lolo de Jean Claude Lauzon uno de los actos ms significativos es,
sin duda, la compulsin sexual, particularmente, los frecuentes actos
de masturbacin presentados en la historia. Gesto que aqu se asume
como rechazo simblico, en el que se confirma la erosin o imposibilidad
de las relaciones interpersonales. En Leo o en Lolo no hay compromiso
alguno para revertir la apremiante realidad social, slo el deseo
irrefrenable e ideolgico de huir, de refugiarse en el mbito de la soledad
egosta, la belleza sofisticada y el bienestar indiferente a la circunstancia
propia y de la de los dems. La despolitizacin de la huida se convierte
en crtica sin praxis, en gesto sin consecuencias y en la derrota de la
solidaridad. Lolo es un personaje nacido de la idealizacin y de la
urgencia egosta:
Nuestra experiencia ms elemental de subjetividad es la de la riqueza de
mi vida interior: es lo que yo realmente soy, en contraste con las determinaciones y responsabilidades simblicas que asumo en la vida pblica (...)
Sobre esto, la primera leccin del psicoanlisis es que la riqueza de la vida
interior [esa misma que tanto se admira en Leo] es fundamentalmente una
falsedad, una pantalla, una falsa distancia cuya funcin es salvar mi apa-
121
Bibliografa
Cros, Edmond. Ideosemas y morfognesis del texto. Frankfurt:
TCCL, 1992. Impreso.
TKKL-
Filmografa
Lolo. Dir. Jean Claude Lauzon. Francia, Canad: Alliance Films
Corporation. 1992. Filme.
123
124
Resumen
Podra decirse que el thriller latinoamericano es un cine de reapropiacin
que ofrece resultados originales en aras de una cultura glocal, aquella
que fusiona las culturas tradicionales con las culturas trasnacionales a
travs de gneros comunes con sus particulares recursos iconogrficos,
temticos, sintcticos y semnticos de cada cultura. Un cine trasnacional
en trminos textuales e industriales que implica la interrelacin entre
lo local, lo nacional y lo global, as como el ejercicio de nuevos procesos:
modos de (co)produccin, distribucin, exhibicin, y cambios en los
patrones de consumo. Pero tambin en las nuevas tecnologas que
aportan considerablemente a la tendencia hbrida de gneros y del
leguaje materializado en otras propuestas estticas sobre ciertos
universos morales. Por tanto, me interesa realizar una cartografa del
thriller latinoamericano contemporneo, exponer sus tendencias
temticas y estilsticas que, podran pensarse, viven a la sombra del
Hollywood, pero que apelan a su propia cultura; esto con la finalidad
ofrecer un mapeo luego de localizar y establecer diferencias y
convergencias entre reas culturales que se apropian de las narrativas
globales.
Palabras clave: thriller latinoamericano, cartografa, gneros, estilos.
125
Abstract
Could be said that the Latin American thriller is a reappropriation film
that offers original results for the sake of a global culture, one that
traditional cultures get mix with multinationals through common genres
with their particular iconographic resources, thematic, and semantic of
s each culture . A transnational cinema in textual and industrial Terms
impilica the interrelationship between local, national and global, as well
as the exercise of new processes: modes of co-production, distribution,
display and change in consumption patterns, but also new technologies
significantly contributing to the trend hybrid of genres and language
materialized in other aesthetic proposals on certain moral universes.
Therefore interests me make one contemporary Latin American thriller
cartography exhibit their thematic and stylistic trends that might think,
living in the shadow of hollywood, but that appeal to their own culture,
this in order to provide a mapping then locate and establish differences
and convergences between cultural areas that appropriate global
narratives.
Key Words: Latinoamerican thriller, cartography, genre, style.
Cuyas primeras exploraciones fueron presentadas en el III Coloquio sobre cine espaol
y latinoamericano celebrado a mediados de 2012 en Valencia, Espaa. En aquella ocasin
expuse algunas notas sobre ciertas interconexiones del thriller, apelando a la categora
de intertextualidad, en una ponencia titulada Seas de intertextualidad en el thriller
latinoamericano.
126
127
Grfica 1
(Decir/no decir)
Curvas de visibilidad
Curvas de enunciacin
(Visible/no visible)
Son tensiones que hacen respetar la tradicin, violar o innovar las leyes
del gnero3 ligadas a determinada representacin sociocultural y a
narrativas que generan emociones intensas y buscan interconexiones
culturales a travs de prcticas estticas y de produccin; aunque
sabemos que no toda la produccin goza de una articulacin con su
sistema cultural. Incluso Rick Altman argumenta que si bien la pelcula
de gnero mantiene, una conexin estrecha con la cultura que la
produce, otras simplemente tienen cualidades referenciales con cierta
carga simblica (Estudios Cinematogrficos 214) De ah que el panorama
de la produccin planteado por ahora, deambule entre obras cannicas
y obras hbridas cuya produccin simplemente recupera aspectos del
3
Que a decir de Jacques Aumont remite a una institucin en el sentido jurdicoideolgico, a una industria, a una produccin significante y esttica, a un conjunto de
prcticas de consumo, p. 16.
128
129
131
Por supuesto que hacemos alusin al chilliwestern que tuvo su presencia fuerte en el
Mxico de los aos 70.
132
Neonoir
Minimalista
Melodrama
El nio de barro
El aura
Un oso rojo
Sonmbula
Operacin Fangio
La seal
Carancho
La antena
Contenido temtico
Plata quemada
Psicolgico
El gato desaparece
Estafa y atraco
Por tu culpa
Nueve reinas
Vuelve
Atraco
Rostros usurpados
Fuga
De suspenso
Corredor nocturno
Penumbra
Poltico
Sudor fro
Cargo de conciencia
El mtodo
Matar a todos
La aventura de Dios
Ertico
Ausente
Noche en la terraza
Sin retorno
Claim
Tres pjaros
Nueve reinas
Grfica 2. Cartografa
Neonoir
Melodrama
El nio de barro
El aura
Sonmbula
Carancho
La antena
Nueve reinas
El secreto de sus ojos
Plata quemada
Minimalista
Un oso rojo
133
Melodrama
La mosca en la ceniza
(Gabriela David, 2009)
Thriller melodramtico
Si bien decamos que los gustos generalizados del pblico contemporneo
tienden a la comedia y al suspenso o al thriller (recordemos que estas
ltimas categoras constantemente se toman como sinnimo), en
Latinoamrica el gnero o macrognero de ms arraigo ha sido el
melodrama sobre todo antes, durante y poco despus de llamada poca
de oro del cine mexicano que gobern la produccin y el consumo previo
a los aos sesenta no slo en Latinoamrica sino en Iberoamrica. El
pblico vio en este tipo genrico su mximo educador sentimental y
principal fuente de experiencias estticas. Varias generaciones sea
directa o indirectamente, sea por gusto o por la escasa oferta de exhibicin
y de produccin latinoamericana de hace algunas dcadas, crecieron a
la luz del melodrama que se proyectaba una y otra vez, lo cual es de
suponer que influencia a los actuales cineastas de casa que bien o
mal, en mayor o menor medida, estuvieron en contacto con ste.
134
135
en que no deje tomar las pastillas pues los dolores podran ser
insoportables.
Ms tarde los coprotagonistas se cruzan en el aeropuerto. Roberto
ejecuta un mal logrado trabajo e intenta huir en su auto disfrazado
de taxi. Casualmente Gloria sube y pide que la lleve a su casa de campo.
Tras una buena dosis de suspenso, ambos huyen de la escena del crimen
hacia nuevo rumbo: Roberto nuevamente se aleja de la prdida de la
libertad o la muerte, Gloria hacia la agona que justamente culminar
en la muerte. Roberto comienza a sangrar de la nariz, como reaccin
alrgica a esas labores que detesta. Los cruces de la condicin hbrida
se unen en esta secuencia de yuxtaposicin, en la que el suspenso y el
crimen predominan sobre la melodramtica condicin de Gloria que
protagoniza la secuencia a travs del montaje paralelo. La emocin
triunfa sobre el sentimentalismo. Las lneas de sedimentacin ahora
ceden a las lneas de creatividad.
No obstante, otra secuencia previa al punto de confrontacin ilustra
la dinmica del dispositivo, del juego entre sus lneas de sedimentacin
con las de creatividad en la trama criminal y melodramtica donde el
suspenso narrativo y su universo iconogrfico ahora se deja llevar por
ese desencuentro entre la felicidad y la tragedia cuyo tono es dirigido a
despertar el sentimentalismo.
As, la secuencia muestra la actualizacin del melodrama desde el
momento en que vemos la actriz retirada en dolly in, acompaada por
un nostlgico piano y violines. Sentada mira en la televisin escenas de
sus pelculas donde aparece una joven voluptuosa en blanco y negro.
El encuentro entre los personajes ocurre cuando Roberto entra a la
casa. Gloria pregunta despus de un par de locuciones en tono
lastimero: Le gustan las pelculas viejas? Gloria Satn. Veinte aos...
toda una vida por delante. Las imgenes continan mostrando de nuevo
a la verdadera actriz; es decir, a Isabel Sarli en sus aos mozos
alternando pelculas a color. Comienzan los planos cerrados y ella pide
a Roberto la cajita donde guarda morfina para disipar el dolor. En
montaje paralelo aparecen escenas de semidesnudos en una baera en
la que la actriz con algunas dosis de agua despoja la espuma para develar
137
138
Neonoir
Por su parte, la otra categora en que me detendr de esta corriente
sostenida entre el tono, el estilo y el gnero es el neonoir, un tipo de
mirada que a la luz de la distancia reinventa corrientes estilsticas del
pasado y le otorgan la condicin de gnero recuperando su mitologa,
sus estructuras, temas e iconografa, as como el tono que lo caracteriza.
Hablamos de una mirada que se nutre del mismo cine, regida por la
nostalgia por el pasado, pues el neonoir se define como cualquier film
realizado despus del periodo del noir clsico, que contiene los temas
noir y la sensibilidad noir a travs de una mirada retroactiva y sin la
censura de pocas pasadas como indica Mark Conrad en The philosophy
of neo-noir. Estas cintas intensifican las caractersticas del
existencialismo, recuperan el sentimiento de alienacin propia de esta
postura filosfica, seguida de la ansiedad, el pesimismo, la ambivalencia
139
142
Palabras finales
Finalmente, tras exponer lo que sugiero como una cartografa del thriller
argentino, y mostrar una de las principales rutas, al menos con dos de
sus categoras que la definen, ofrezco un boceto de cmo puedo construir
143
144
Bibliografa
Altman, Rick. De qu hablamos cuando hablamos de gneros en
Estudios cinematogrficos: Nm. 19, Mxico, UNAM, junio-octubre,
2000. 12-24. Impreso.
. Los gneros cinematogrficos: Barcelona, Paids, 2000. Impreso.
Aumont, Jacques. Esttica del cine: Barcelona, Paids, 1996. Impreso.
Bajtn, Mijal. Esttica de la creacin verbal: Mxico, Siglo
Impreso.
XXI,
1995.
145
146
147
148
Quizs estas imgenes tambin podran dividirse, principalmente, entre las asimiladas
en su etapa de su aprendizaje al lado del poeta Ramn Gmez de la Serna, las de periodo
en el movimiento Surrealista y, por supuesto, aquellas relacionadas a su convivencia
con Salvador Dal.
150
152
154
155
157
El cine del autor espaol se nos revela como un enorme tejido de smbolos
y metforas que recorre diversos caminos, que va de la herencia
surrealista del cineasta hacia nuevas formas de entrecruzar los smbolos
y cdigos, para devenir en una potica personal. Si tomramos esto
como una analoga de las pelculas de Buuel, podramos igualmente
abordar el que las estructuras de este deseo latente (lacaniano-freudiano)
edificacin que ayuda a darle cuerpo a la potica buueliana, se
encuentra presente en los mecanismos de los filmes. Dichos dispositivos
humorsticos, irnicos y subversivos han sido los artfices de una extensa
galera de imgenes poderosas como el carcajeante Cristo de Nazarn,
la vaca de LAge dr o las risas que escucha el protagonista de l en la
secuencia de la capilla, entre muchas otras.
158
Crimen y broma
Los locos del universo buueliano
bien podran haber sido psicpatas
de una trama hitchcockiana, al
estilo Norman Bates del filme
Psycho (1960). Pero Buuel, como
nos recuerda Antonio Monegal,
reserva los crmenes para las
fantasas de [sus personajes],
convirtiendo sus gestos fallidos en
un signo ms de la gratuidad de
sus actos (Monegal 187). El poeta reserva el crimen atroz para el
mundo interior; como sucede en l cuando Francisco dispara balas de
salva sobre su esposa asustada para luego disculparse aludiendo que
se trataba de un juego. Crimen y broma, al mismo tiempo, pues la broma,
lo irnico en Buuel es ese territorio donde se suscita el vnculo entre lo
literario y lo cinematogrfico, el entrecruce de fetiches a partir de las
metforas y metonimias; todas aquellas lejanas bromas que Salvador
Dal y Buuel extrajeron de diversos yacimientos simblicos pasan a
conforman en este cine un sistema que se sostiene por s mismo.
En Buuel a entrada hacia los mundos originarios, mencionados
por Deleuze, se construye a partir de la irona y los cortocircuitos
antitticos que la generan, en ciertas instancias, a raz del contraste
entre figuras retricas convertidas en imagen cinematogrfica. Una
perversa irona automtica (Foster 57-109), como extrada del
surrealismo ms aguerrido, se manifiesta todava en el cine buueliano
y en los relatos que ste abord, a partir de los objetos-fetiche,
funcionando como emisores de los juegos metonmicos y metafricos:
This is only possible when one surrenders to evocations, to metaphors, to the
rhythms of those worlds that no longer shock as logically they should, but
instead interwine, in the process clearly provoking short-circuits, but also
pleasant slippages [...] (Evans et Santaolalla 173-174).
159
Porque el placer (no tan culposo) que reciben los espectadores de este
cine, se construye de aquello que emerge del entrecruce de ciertos juegos
irnicos.
Cmo olvidar aquella otra secuencia del filme l en la que la pulsin
del personaje de Francisco queda totalmente expuesta en el mundo
derivado.3 Cuando las risas comienzan a salir de su mente para
infiltrarse en la realidad diegtica del relato. E incluso, todo el extenso
flashback con el que se construye la adaptacin del libro Ensayo de un
crimen, erigido con el fin de presentarnos los sntomas y fijaciones de
Archibaldo de la Cruz. Contemplaremos en Buuel variantes de una
antfrasis narrativa, antittica, en las que intervendr directamente la
segmentacin del filme y (tambin algunos juegos con el audio del filme)
que afectarn directamente la construccin de la cinta.
El sntoma de una pulsin recorre las efigies de muchos personajes
buuelianos. El primero, en nuestro caso, ser Francisco que es el
paranoico; el segundo, Archibaldo, ser el criminal frustrado (que en
realidad, nunca logra decidirse entre santo o criminal). Y, en un tercer
caso, podramos incluir a Nazarn, como el santo quijotesco, otra
reinvencin buueliana de lo literario. No olvidemos que locura y el
sueo sern pulsiones deleuzianas que al final se mezclan (a lo largo
de este universo flmico) hacia el deseo, son sus detonadores: El santo,
el criminal y el loco se nos presentarn como manifestaciones paralelas
de una pulsin equivalente, como modalidades de la perversin del
deseo (Deleuze 189).
El deseo nos revela al sexo, otra pulsin que en Buuel se torna
elemento irnico, al verse constantemente frustrada. Porque, as como
en nuestras peores (o mejores?) pesadillas, pocas veces se consuma el
deseo, en las cintas del aragons el acto sexual se ve constantemente
truncado por irnicas situaciones de todo tipo y sustituido por los fetiches.
Sern stos los que produzcan otro tipo de cruces entre smbolos. Buuel
traza sueos donde la muerte y la violencia deliran desde los fetiches
de sus personajes quebrados y dementes. Sueos donde se reestablece
3
160
Buuel no es pesimista sino irnico. En todo caso un cineasta ms cercano a este pesimismo sera Ingmar Bergman.
162
de una aguda irona que a su vez los absorbe. Por un lado los celos, los
oscuros deseos de grandilocuencia, una locura destructiva y esa
fascinacin por los pies femeninos de Francisco; por otro lado, el jugueteo
fetichista entre cajas de msica, muecas y navajas de Archibaldo de la
Cruz. Aparece ante nosotros la disyuntiva paradjica que se mantiene
en ambos personajes, entre convertirse en santo o criminal (para al
final no poder elegir entre ninguna de las dos opciones).5 Ese nunca
poder decidirse del todo entre la fascinacin por el fetiche musical e
infantil de una cajita, por las piernas de la niera muerta, por los zapatos
o por la mujer; por la aceptacin natural del eros o por las paranoicas y
grandilocuentes formas de su desviacin hacia el homicidio.6
Inconclusiones
En ambas cintas tambin apreciaremos la ensoacin delirante que se
debate entre el asesinato y el amor, dos caras, con sabor de anttesis, de
una irona afilada como navaja de afeitar. Tal vez tanto Buuel-autor,
como sus dos criaturas (Francisco y Archibaldo) se debaten frenticamente entre el loco, el asesino (en sentido figurado) y el santo, sin llegar
a ser completamente ninguno. Tanto autor como criaturas encajan a la
perfeccin en la siguiente definicin que Kierkegaard brinda sobre el
ironista:
[] el ironista conserva siempre su libertad potica, y tambin poetiza el
hecho de no llegar a nada tan pronto como se da cuenta de ello; este no llegar
a nada en absoluto, como se sabe, es uno de los puestos y cargos poticos que
la irona instaura en la vida, e incluso el ms distinguido de todos
(Kierkegaard 303).
164
165
Una eterna persecucin del escndalo que al Scrates griego lo llev ante la cicuta; y
que al Scrates espaol lo llev a perfeccionar, a lo largo de su etapa mexicana, una
potica del objeto.
166
Bibliografa
Bachelard, Gaston. La Potica de la ensoacin. Mxico: Fondo de
Cultura Econmica, 2011. Impreso.
Badillo, Olivia, Jess Guinto y Eduardo Peuela Caizal. Buuel y las
fronteras del Deseo, Mxico: UAM, 2004. Impreso.
Badiou, Alain. Imgenes y palabras; escritos sobre cine y teatro. Buenos
Aires: Manantial, 2005. Impreso.
Ballart, Pere. Eironeia: la figuracin irnica en el discurso literario
moderno. Barcelona: Quaderns Crema,1994. Impreso.
Ball, Jordi y Xavier Prez. Yo ya he estado aqu: ficciones de la
repeticin. Barcelona: Anagrama, 2005. Impreso.
Bataille, Georges. El Erotismo. Barcelona: Tusquets, 2005. Impreso.
Baudrillard, Jean. El crimen Perfecto, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2000.
Impreso. Impreso.
Bazin, Andre. Qu es el cine? Madrid: Ediciones Rialp,1996.
Bguin, Albert. El Alma Romntica y el Sueo. Mxico: Fondo de
Cultura Econmica,1996. Impreso.
Buuel, Luis. Mi ltimo Suspiro. Memorias. Mxico: Plaza y
Janes,1982. Impreso.
Cabrera, Julio. Cine: 100 aos de Filosofa. Una introduccin a la
filosofa a travs del anlisis de pelculas. Barcelona: Editorial
Gedisa, 2008. Impreso.
Csarman, Fernando. El ojo de Buuel: psicoanlisis desde una butaca.
Mxico: Miguel ngel Porra, 1998. Impreso.
De la Colina, Jos, y Toms Prez Turrent. Luis Buuel: Prohibido
asomarse al interior, Mxico: Joaqun Mortiz/Planeta,1987. Impreso.
Deleuze, Gilles. La imagen-movimiento: estudios sobre cine 1. Barcelona:
Paids, 1994.
___. La imagen-tiempo: estudios sobre cine 2. Barcelona: Paids, 1994.
Impreso.
167
XXI,
2008.
Pginas de Internet
Pret, Benjamn, Les odeurs de lamour, (Consultado el 15 de Octubre
de 2011), http://rue-de-la-poesie.blogspot.mx/2012/03/benjaminperet-les-odeurs-de-lamour.html. Web.
Zizek, Slavoj. The Thing from Inner Space, Internet services for the
academic community, 1999. Web.
169
Filmografa
l. Dir. Luis Buuel. Mxico. Inter. Arturo de Crdova, Delia Carcs,
Aurora Walker, Carlos Martnez Baena, Manuel Dond, Luis
Beristin. Producciones Tepeyac. 1953. DVD.
Ensayo de un crimen/LaVida Criminal de Archibaldo de la Cruz. Dir.
Luis Buuel. Mxico. Inter. Miroslava, Ernesto Alonso, Rita Macedo,
Ariadna Welter, Andrea Palma, Rodolfo Landa. Alianza
Cinematogrfica Espaola. 1955. DVD.
170
Resumen
La metodologa para analizar las adaptaciones cinematogrficas lleva
implcita la problemtica central, que es el cmo se puede comparar
dos obras como son el texto y la imagen cuando de antemano sabemos
que estamos comparando dos formatos narrativos diferentes, articulados
de acuerdo a los recursos propios de su lenguaje? En este trabajo nos
proponemos responder afirmativamente con una argumentacin bsica:
s es posible analizar comparativamente, si focalizamos la construccin
del relato. En este caso en particular, queremos analizar, con qu
recursos cinematogrficos Emilio Indio Fernndez interpret y realiz
La perla? De la misma manera que nos proponemos indagar acerca de
un posible dilogo entre el escritor norteamericano y el director mexicano,
partiendo de la premisa que la adaptacin cinematogrfica de la que
hoy nos ocupamos, es un ejemplo de cmo se logr reconstruir una
historia original, dada por el texto literario de Steinbeck y dotarla de
un ideario personal sin transformar la esencia de la historia original.
Palabras clave: Emilio Indio Fernndez, adaptacin cinematogrfica,
John Steinbeck, La perla, cine mexicano.
171
Abstract
The methodology for analyzing film adaptations implies a central
problem which is: how can the text and the image be compared to each
other when it is known beforehand that these two different narrative
formats were created accordingly to their specific rules and standards?
In this paper the main objective is to answer affirmatively to this
question with a basic argument: Indeed, it is possible to make a
comparative analysis if the focus relies on the construction of the plot.
The analysis made, in this particular case, answers the question: What
were the film resources employed by Emilio Indio Fernndez in the
interpretation and making of La Perla? At the same time, another
purpose is to inquire deeper about a possible dialogue between the
American writer and the Mexican director starting from the premise
that this film adaptation is an example of the successful reconstruction
of the original story based on the literary work of Steinbeck, created
with a personal style and without transforming the very essence of the
original narrative.
Keywords: Emilio Indio Fernndez , film adaptation , John Steinbeck ,
La Perla, mexican cinema.
Es en este sentido que autores como Sergio Wolfe (2001), Jos Luis
Snchez Noriega (2000) y Robert Stam (2009) han puesto nfasis en
las problemticas generales. Sealando aspectos que se deben tomar
en cuenta para el anlisis comparativo, intentando ir ms all, que slo
reconocer supresiones y aadidos. Al invitar a establecer un dilogo
entre el autor del argumento original y el realizador que interpreta tal
argumento. En aras de visualizar lo que el director puede y quiz
debemos decir debe aportar con su talento, un ideario personal que
lleve a la reconfiguracin de un nuevo relato. Desde nuestra
perspectiva, siempre nos resultar de mayor inters, las adaptaciones
que se permitan mostrar una interpretacin personal y no se limiten
slo a ser una construccin apegada al argumento original.
Sobre este punto, Snchez Noriega establece una tipologa para
clasificar diferentes tipos de adaptacin, condicionada por el grado de
fidelidad hacia el texto original: ilustracin, transposicin, interpretacin
y adaptacin libre (Snchez 63-65). La tipologa resulta de mucha
utilidad para adentrarnos en el estudio de las adaptaciones y reconocer
con ello que el director que se proponga trabajar a partir de un texto
literario puede decidir el grado de fidelidad o no hacia l; rebasando con
ello el parmetro con que sola medirse la legitimidad de una adaptacin,
al considerar que la fidelidad es lo que legitima y garantiza una
adaptacin cinematogrfica; es decir, mientras la pelcula sea una
ilustracin del texto literario nos complacer y ser considerada exitosa,
porque como espectadores-lectores no nos sentiremos defraudados.
Tanto Sergio Wolfe como Jos Luis Snchez Noriega, en sus textos
correspondientes nos previenen de varios prejuicios que limitan la
posibilidad de equiparar la construccin de los dos lenguajes, en primer
lugar desprendernos de todo juicio de jerarqua; es decir, si no dejamos
de lado la concepcin de mirar al cine como el eterno intruso, la
superioridad que posee la literatura por su longevidad, jams ser
alcanzada por el cine y en el ejercicio comparativo siempre estar en
desventaja (Wolfe 29). Asimismo, es importante tomar en cuenta que
un texto considerado un betseller no es garanta para suponer que puede
realizarse una exitosa versin cinematogrfica, y tambin lo contrario,
173
174
175
Las adaptaciones que se han realizado de su obra: The grapes of Wrath (John Ford,
1940); The forgotten village (Herbert Kline y Alexander Hammid, 1941); Tortilla flat
(Victor Fleming, 1942) La perla (Emilio Fernndez, 1945); A Medal for Benny (Irving
Pichel, 1945); Viva Zapata! (Elia Kazan, 1952); The Waywars bus (Victor Vicas, 1952)
y Of mice an men (Traducida como La fuerza bruta (Lewis Milston, 1939) y otra versin
contempornea (Gary Sinise, 1992). Vase (Garca, 1987: 85).
176
177
La perla, la novela
La novela La perla narra la historia de una familia de pescadores, que
vive de la recoleccin y venta de perlas. El hallazgo de una perla de un
tamao mayor al acostumbrado ser, el leiv motiv sobre el cual se
desarrolla la historia. Kino, Juana y su hijo, a quien nombran
cariosamente Coyotito, ven alterada su vida de manera dramtica a
partir del hallazgo, lo que inicialmente es celebrado emotivamente por
la comunidad, como un bien para la familia, al suponerlo un medio
para adquirir bienes materiales en un ambiente de pobreza, termina
siendo el comienzo de una serie de desventuras que culminarn con la
muerte del hijo.
4
Cabe llamar la atencin en que el director Emilio Fernndez realiz una versin en
ingls y una en espaol con el mismo reparto. Vase (Garca: 1987: 85-92).
178
180
La playa era de arena amarilla pero, en el borde del agua, la arena era
sustituida por restos de conchas y de algas. Cangrejos violinistas hacan
burbujas y escupan en sus agujeros en la arena, y, en los bajos pequeas
langostas entraban y salan constantemente de sus estrechos hogares entre
la arena y el canto rodado. El fondo del mar era rico en cosas que se arrastraban y nadaban y crecan. Las algas marrones ondeaban en las leves corrientes,
y la verde hierba anguila oscilaba, y los caballitos de mar se adheran a sus
tallos (Steinbeck 21).
181
La adaptacin cinematogrfica
La adaptacin que realiz Emilio Fernndez de La perla, nos parece
que es un ejemplo de adaptacin por transposicin, Snchez Noriega
define as la categora:
A medio camino entre la adaptacin fiel y la interpretacin, la transposicin
converge con la primera en la voluntad de servir al autor literario, reconociendo
los valores de su obra y con la segunda en poner en un pie un texto flmico que
tenga entidad por s mismo, y por tanto sea autnomo respecto al literario. La
adaptacin como transposicin traslacin, traduccin o adaptacin activa
implica la bsqueda de medios especficamente cinematogrficos en la construccin de un autntico texto flmico que quiere ser fiel al fondo y a la forma
literaria. Se traslada al lenguaje flmico y a la esttica cinematogrfica el
mundo del autor en esa obra literaria con sus mismas o similares cualidades estticas, culturales o ideolgicas. ( 64)
182
El paisaje
La recreacin de sus historias en paisajes naturales fue una constante
en la filmografa de Emilio Fernndez, y probablemente, es el primer
elemento a destacar, cuando se profundiza en el anlisis de sus pelculas.
Durante la primera etapa productiva ms creativa (1942-1952), las
pelculas del Indio Fernndez se dieron a conocer en Mxico y el
extranjero por la belleza de sus imgenes, la estrecha colaboracin con
el prestigiado fotgrafo Gabriel Figueroa, en Flor Silvestre, pero sobre
todo en Mara Candelaria signific tambin un redescubrimiento del
paisaje mexicano, porque su propuesta cinematogrfica se nutri de
diferentes influencias estticas, que apelaron a reconocer en su cine
una puesta en escena ms compleja, pues la narracin regularmente
quedaba supeditada a la imagen.
Charles Ramrez Berg, en su inspirador ensayo Los cielos de
Figueroa y la perspectiva oblicua. Notas sobre el desarrollo del estilo del
cine mexicano clsico analiza el estilo flmico de las pelculas de
Fernndez y Figueroa, e identifica influencias y antecedentes en el
esttica creada por la pareja y explica de manera lcida los elementos
que lo conforman. En primer lugar destaca la influencia e inspiracin
de pintores y grabadores mexicanos de la poca, como Diego Rivera,
Dr. Atl, Jos Guadalupe Posada y Leopoldo Mndez. Asimismo explora
la esttica del director sovitico Sergei Einsenstein en la filmacin de
Qu viva Mxico! (Ramrez, 1997: 17-22) y la fotografa de Paul Strand,
en la pelcula Redes (Fred Zinnerman, Emilio Gmez Muriel, 1934).
La propuesta de Ramrez Berg no se limita a identificar los elementos
tomados por Figueroa y Fernndez de los artistas plsticos, fotgrafos y
de directores como Orson Welles y John Ford, sino que expone una
tesis en la que clarifica la compleja configuracin de su puesta en escena6:
6
Para Ramrez Berg, estos son los elementos que configuran la puesta en escena: 1) La
fotografa de ngulo bajo de Eduard Tiss (colaborador de Einsenstein). 2) La profundidad
de campo en la fotografa combinada con una combinacin dramtica de las figuras en
primer plano (En Qu viva Mxico! A menudo es el rostro de un indio o un maguey. 3)
El uso de lneas diagonales para producir un diseo pictrico dinmico. 4) Una dialctica
183
184
185
188
La resolucin moral
Al inicio de la novela, un epgrafe nos alerta a la adscripcin genrica
del relato, al mencionar la historia como una parbola:
Y como todas las historias que se narran muchas veces y estn en los
corazones de las gentes, slo tienen cosas buenas y malas, y cosas negras y
blancas y cosas virtuosas y malignas, y nada intermedio. Si esta historia es
una parbola, tal vez cada uno le atribuya un sentido particular y lea en ella
su propia vida. En cualquier caso, dicen en el pueblo (dem 7)
189
accidente. Saba que los dioses se vengan del hombre cuando ste triunfa por
su propio esfuerzo. (dem 36)
Palabras finales
El proceso de escritura de la adaptacin, en la cual el autor y el director
trabajaron en conjunto, debi significar una apuesta interesante, porque
ambos contaban con un prestigio y afinidades a temas muy definidos.
El director mexicano ya haba tenido la oportunidad de mostrar en sus
pelculas anteriores a La perla, un ideario personal en donde estaban
implcitos algunos de los elementos antes mencionados, por lo que al
analizar la adaptacin encontramos que Emilio Fernndez interpret
la obra literaria de manera muy cercana a las ideas del autor debido a
que haba una compatibilidad ideolgica y estilstica, demostrada cada
uno en su oficio; y aunque La perla cinematogrfica no tenga un
desapego mayor al ya sealado con el tema de la representacin del
personaje femenino de la novela, adquiri cierta autonoma y se logr
realizar una adaptacin creativa en donde se muestra un equilibrio en
donde un autor no borra al otro. La prctica comparativa de la obra
literaria y la audiovisual lleva a la creacin de un modelo de anlisis y
visualizacin de la narrativa que equilibra las diferencias y pone en
evidencia la capacidad creativa del director, llevar esta prctica al saln
190
Bibliografa
Campos Garca, Yolanda Minerva. La construccin trasnacional del
cine mexicano. Un estudio de caso, el cine de Emilio Indio Fernndez
en Espaa, prensa y censura. El ojo que piensa. 1 Febrero 2012:
n. page. Web. 16 marzo 2013. Web.
Dauwen Zabel, Morton. Historia de la Literatura Norteamericana, 1,
Buenos Aires: Losada, 1950. Impreso.
Garca Riera, Emilio, Emilio Fernndez 1904-1986, 1. Guadalajara:
Universidad de Guadalajara, Cineteca Nacional, 1987. Impreso.
Gunn, D. Wayne, Escritores norteamericanos y britnicos en Mxico
1556-1976, Mxico, FCE, 1977. Impreso.
Ramrez Berg, Charles. Los cielos de Figueroa y la perspectiva oblicua:
Notas sobre el desarrollo del estilo mexicano clsico en Estudios
cinematogrficos 8 mayo-junio 1997: 14-26. Impreso.
Snchez Noriega, Jos Luis. De la literatura al cine. Teora y anlisis
de la adaptacin 1, Barcelona: Paids, 2000 Impreso.
Stam, Robert. Teora y prctica de la adaptacin. Mxico:
SEPANCINE, 2009. Impreso.
UNAM ,
191
Filmografa
Flor Silvestre, Emilio Fernndez, Mxico, 94 min. Filme.
La malquerida, Emilio Fernndez, 90 min. Filme.
Mara Candelaria, Emilio Fernndez, Mxico, 101 min. Filme.
La perla, Emilio Fernndez, Mxico, 82 min. Filme.
Qu viva Mxico!, Sergei Einsenstein, 90 min. Filme.
Redes, Fred Zinneman y Emilio Gmez Muriel, 65 min. Filme.
Ro escondido, Emilio Fernndez, 110 min. Filme.
192
DINMICAS DE LO MEDITICO
193
194
Resumen
Este artculo analiza dos series de la televisin pblica canadiense que
abordan el tema de la inmigracin: Human Cargo (2004) y The Border
(2008). A partir del concepto de multicultifobia, acuado por Phil Ryan,
se sealan los estereotipos de ficcin que han permeado en la
representacin de grupos determinados de la poblacin. Acordes con
una sociedad ciertamente multicultural, los productores de las series
pretenden mostrar de manera desprejuiciada el fenmeno de la
inmigracin en Canad; sin embargo, involuntariamente repiten
estereotipos consolidados luego del 11 de septiembre de 2001. El artculo
tambin analiza las repercusiones de la multicultifobia manifiesta en
ambos productos televisivos.
Palabras clave: multicultifobia, multiculturalismo, inmigracin, perfiles
raciales, televisin canadiense.
La presente es una versin corregida del texto previo La situacin de los migrantes
ilegales en Canad, una lectura televisiva ambigua. Intiinmigrant Sentiments, Actions
and Policies/Sentimientos, acciones y polticas antiinmigrantes. Ed. Mnica Vera.
Mxico: UNAM-CISAN, 2012. 311-329. La autora desea agradecer a scar Badillo y Csar
Hernndez por su paciente edicin del artculo.
195
Abstract
This article examines two series from Canadian public television that
show the issue of immigration: Human Cargo (2004) and The Border
(2008). From the multicultiphobia, a concept coined by Phil Ryan,
fictional stereotypes that have permeated the representation of certain
groups of the population are indicated. Consistent with a multicultural
society, the producers of the series intended to show, an unbiased way,
the phenomenon of immigration in Canada, however, there are
inadvertently repeated stereotypes consolidated after September 11,
2001. The article also discusses the impact of multicultiphobia manifest
in both television products.
Keywords: multicultiphobia, multiculturalism, immigration, racial
profiling, Canadian television.
196
Aunque ste no siempre ha sido el caso, como sealan PottieSherman y Wilkes. Segn estas autoras, los cambios en los patrones y
las polticas en la inmigracin producen reacciones pblicas evidentes
que varan de la aceptacin con diferentes matices al abierto rechazo.
En su recorrido histrico nos dan a conocer cmo casi durante toda la
primera mitad del siglo XX se vea con buenos ojos tan slo lo que ellas
llaman la inmigracin blanca y se intentaba detener cualquier otra, en
gamas tan amplias que incluan a los chinos y japoneses, los indios, los
refugiados judos que huan del nazismo, o los morenos y pobres italianos
del sur (275-289).
La creacin del sistema de puntos, en la dcada de los sesenta,
afirman, permiti al pblico comprender que la migracin calificada
sera un apoyo para la economa nacional. Tanto ellas como Reitz sealan
que la poltica oficial del multiculturalismo, instaurada en la dcada de
los setenta, ha provocado un sentimiento positivo frente a la inmigracin.
Con base en la encuesta de Environics del 2010, Reitz hace notar que
el multiculturalismo es considerado por los canadienses smbolo
fundamental de su identidad, situado slo despus del sistema universal
de salud y de la bandera (293).
Ahora bien, en ambos artculos se seala que recientemente ha
habido un renacimiento del sentimiento antiinmigrante en Canad.
Neil Bissoondath aporta una posible razn. De acuerdo con l, las
polticas del multiculturalismo han actuado en detrimento de la cohesin
social y del establecimiento de una identidad canadiense identificable,
pues asumen que los inmigrantes recin llegados a Canad no deben
cambiar su forma de ser ni su visin de mundo (43).
Lo anterior puede observarse en lo que Pottie-Sherman y Wilkes
denominan pnicos morales, propagados por las elites y los medios de
comunicacin, los cuales hacen ver la llegada de inmigrantes ilegales a
Canad como una invasin que pone en peligro la seguridad canadiense.
Esta amenaza se relaciona con la generosidad que Canad ha mostrado
frente a los asilados, generosidad de la cual abusan algunos de los que
quieren saltarse la fila.
197
Esta es la tesis en que se basa el excelente y detallado anlisis de esta zona realizado por
Victor Konrad y Heather N. Nicol (2008).
Me parece importante sealar en este momento que, salvo los que estoy llevando a cabo
en el proyecto Instrucciones para vivir en el limbo, no existen estudios acadmicos
sobre esta serie de documentales para la televisin canadiense; en el caso de las series
de ficcin, hay reseas y tan slo un artculo sobre Human Cargo del que hablar
posteriormente. En contraste, adems de las reseas sobre las series de Natgeo TV,
existen blogs, diarios de produccin y muchos otros recursos accesibles en la red para su
investigacin.
199
200
McAllister seala que los hilos de la accin a los que se les da mayor
peso narrativo son dos: el primero es el de Nina Wade, poltica
conservadora de derecha que pierde una eleccin intermedia en
Columbia Britnica y que, al culpar a los inmigrantes, de su derrota,
recibe como castigo un puesto en la Junta de Refugiados. El personaje
de Nina pudo estar basado en el poltico quebequense Jacques Parizeau.
En 1995 y con menos de un punto porcentual, su partido perdi el
Referndum de independencia de Quebec. En su discurso culp de la
derrota al voto tnico refirindose a las minoras raciales que habitaban
la provincia en ese momento.6 Al da siguiente renunci a su puesto
como dirigente del partido Qubcois. Peridicos no soberanistas como
La Presse y Le Soleil asociaron la renuncia con sus comentarios
(Thivierge 2012). Tanto la actitud de Parizeau como el proceder del
personaje de Nina han dado pie a la multicultifobia porque parten de
una idea de pureza nacional, la cual pasa por encima de los derechos
de los ciudadanos canadienses, independientemente del idioma que
hablen y de su apariencia fsica.
201
Lo cual, por cierto, parece muchas veces un exceso, puesto que la hija, por ejemplo, es
una fuente de problemas en tanto se asocia con grupos radicales antiestadounidenses,
o una de las mltiples amantes una agente-espa internacional. Todos estos enredos
sexuales, hasta cierto punto telenovelescos, hacen que el inters dramtico de asuntos
fronterizos disminuya y se enrede innecesariamente.
205
206
207
Un mnimo eplogo
Con un dejo de sentido del humor, el documentalista y productor de la
serie The Border,9 Peter Raymont dijo que no hay tal cosa como una
mala resea, aunque sta llegue demasiado tarde,10 en referencia a los
9
210
211
Fuentes citadas
Bahdi, Reem. No exit: Racial Profiling and Canadas War against
Terrorism. Osgoode Hall Law Journale 41.2-3. 293-316. 8 de
septiembre de 2013. Web. 2003.
Bissoondath, Neil. Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in
Canada. Toronto: Penguin Books, 1994. Impreso.
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Quebec referendum reaction. CBC
Digital Archives. 14 de octubre de 2013. Web. 1995.
Canadian Council for Refugees. Anti-terrorism Act Review. Brief to the
House of Commons Subcommittee on Public Safety and National
Security of the Standing Committee on Justice, Human Rights, Public
Safety and Emergency Preparedness. 8 de septiembre de 2013. Web.
2005.
Department of Justice. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Primera parte de la Constitucin Act. 8 de septiembre de 2013. Web.
1982.
Konrad,Victor y Heather N. Nicol. Beyond Walls: Re-inventing the CanadaUnited States Borderlands. Londres: Ashgate (Serie Border Regions),
2008. Impreso.
Martnez-Zalce, Graciela. Nadie sabe para quin trabaja. El crimen
transfronterizo segn la CBC. Aprehendiendo al delincuente. Crimen
y medios en Amrica del Norte. Eds. Graciela Martnez-Zalce, Will
Straw y Susana Vargas Cervantes. Mxico: CISAN-Media@McGill.
2011. 127-142. Impreso.
.La situacin de los migrantes ilegales en Canad, una lectura
televisiva ambigua. Intiinmigrant Sentiments, Actions and Policies/
Sentimientos, acciones y polticas antiinmigrantes. Ed. Mnica Vera.
Mxico: UNAM-CISAN, 2012. 311-329. Impreso.
McAllister, Kirsten. Human Cargo: Bridging the Geopolitical Divide at
home in Canada. Programming Reality: Perspectives on English
212
214
Saskia Hertlein
Resumen
Este artculo analiza cmo se cruzan, en la novela Into the Beautiful
North/Rumbo al hermoso norte de Luis Alberto Urrea, una variedad
de fronteras del siglo XXI en los niveles de la presentacin y del contenido,
que son resultado de los cambios en el entorno poltico, econmico y
social, y que revelan los desafos contemporneos de la dinmica y de
las tensiones en las Amricas, especialmente en el Amrica del Norte.
En la narracin, los protagonistas se enfrentan a una multitud de
ejemplos de pasos fronterizos. Desde una visin de la adultez
emergente (Jeffrey Jensen Arnett) se proporciona una mirada ms
atenta a las fronteras y no slo la perspectiva desde los marginados.
Adems, en su viaje fsico y de desarrollo, los protagonistas desafan
conceptos como la raza, la etnicidad, el sexo y la nacin en tanto que
parecen entender las fronteras como zonas de contacto (Mary Louise
Pratt) y dar voz a los temas de ambos lados de la frontera entre EE.UU.
y Mxico. A travs de su experiencia, contribuyen a una redefinicin
de un Child of the Americas (Aurora Levins Morales) del siglo XXI y
del concepto general de Amrica del Norte.
Por lo tanto, el concepto de adultez emergente de la psicologa del
desarrollo, aplicado a Into the Beautiful North/Rumbo al hermoso norte,
y conectado con otros discursos, es compatible con una perspectiva de
215
Abstract
This paper focuses on a 21st century crossing of a variety of boundaries
in Luis Alberto Urreas Into the Beautiful North. The text crosses borders
in mode of presentation and content. These latter boundaries result
from the changing political, economical, and social environment and
reveal contemporary challenges of dynamics and tensions in the
Americas, especially in North America.
In the story, the protagonists are confronted with a multitude of
examples for border crossings. Through the lens of their age background,
emerging adulthood (Jeffrey Jensen Arnett), a closer look at those
borders is possible without looking at them only from the ascribed
marginalized perspective. In addition, on their physical and
developmental journey, the protagonists challenge concepts like race,
ethnicity, gender, and that of the nation in the light of many peoples
daily lives. They seem to understand borders for example as contact
zones (Mary Louise Pratt), and they give a voice to issues on the US as
well as the Mexican side of the border that challenge readers from
both sides and beyond. Through their experience, they contribute to a
redefinition of a 21st century Child of the Americas (Aurora Levins
Morales) and the concept of North America.
Therefore, the concept of emerging adulthood from developmental
psychology, applied to Urreas Into the Beautiful North and connected
with other discourses, supports a literary and cultural studies perspective
on crossing boundaries in the Americas today.
Key Words: Luis Alberto Urrea, borders, emerging adulthood, Mexican
American Literature, 21st Century.
216
In the 1990s, Richard Rodriguez asked: Has anyone ever met a North
American? in his essay Go North, Young Man.
We all speak of North America. But has anyone ever actually met a North
American? Oh, there are Mexicans. And there are Canadians. And there are
so-called Americans. But a North American?
I know one. (Rodriguez n. pag.)
The description refers to Letter III in Hector St. John de Crvecoeurs Letters from an
American Farmer, which is concerned with the question What is an American?
217
By the end of the first decade of the 21st century, Luis Alberto Urrea
has taken up the challenge again and confronts his protagonists on
their way [i]nto the Beautiful North (2009)2 with a multitude of North
Americans with a great variety of affiliations and each in their specific
circumstances. Thereby, Urreas text mirrors how mass migration,
accelerated urbanization, and the processes of transnational economic
integration are profoundly challenging the social and cultural
constitution of the Americas in the New Millennium (Call for Papers
without page). The beginning of the novel even openly places the story
in this framework of contemporary changes, using ironic descriptions
of the protagonists Mexican home village such as it being contemporarily
unguarded ... when so many things had already changed. And
everything that remained was about to change forever. Nobody in the
village liked change (Urrea 3) preceding the description of how it had
taken a visionary mayor, Garca-Garca the First, to see the potential
in electric power (ibd.) as markers for the contemporary political and
social context, both in the village and beyond. At the beginning of the
21st century, another external influence changes the village:
Nobody had heard of the term immigration. Migration, to them, was when
the tuna and the whales cruised up the coast ... Traditionalists voted to
revoke electricity, but it was far too late for that ... So the men started to go
to el norte. Nobody knew what to say. Nobody knew what to do. The modern
era had somehow passed Tres Camarones by, but this new storm had found
a way to siphon its men away, out of their beds and into the next century, into
a land far away (Urrea 4).
Some of the textual examples as well as excerpts of interviews with Urrea have been
included in a different article as well (full reference in the list of Works Cited). However,
while the focus there was, as the title Old Stories, Young Perspectives in Luis Alberto
Urreas Into the Beautiful North suggests, the combination of well known and new
topics into the discussion of Chicano literature and an inter-American approach to
literature, here the focus is on crossing age and other borders. Therefore, even though
both papers deal with Urreas Into the Beautiful North, they differ significantly.
218
219
adult world, insiders of a childhood world that can no longer hold them
within its boundaries. They tread carefully between the two worlds, their
growing consciousness demanding answers, while all around them there are
mysterious barriers to their natural curiosity, and to their need to put their
world in order. To these three young protagonists, the common burden of
transition from childhood to adulthood is marked by the added burden of
multiple barriers resulting from the socio-political circumstances of their
particular group (Valiela 3).
The three young protagonists from Valielas analysis share this transition
marked by their specific environment with the protagonists in Into the
Beautiful North. Having to face certain responsibilities and interacting
under the current worlds circumstances alongside the chance to still
explore a multitude of options leaves the emerging adult as a potential
example of what border-crossing in the 21st century is all about.
Therefore, I propose to widen the scope of Valielas assertion that [a]s
adolescents, they are a bridge between the past and the future, and
they embody this temporal path (Valiela 3).
Looking at the text, the protagonists in Into the Beautiful North
are older than the ones Valiela focused on. Nonetheless one could argue
that their age group is still, despite being legally adult, in the border
crossing process described above, taking into account the main features
that Arnett ascribes to the period of emerging adulthood in
developmental psychology:
It is the age of identity explorations, of trying out various possibilities,
especially in love and work.
It is the age of instability.
It is the most self-focused age of life.
It is the age of feeling in-between, in transition, neither adolescent nor
adult.
It is the age of possibilities, when hopes flourish, when people have
unparalleled opportunity to transform their lives (Arnett 8).
220
of the transcultural idea from Jos Marti and Fernando Ortiz to the
beginning of the 21st century, emphasizing that while multiculturalism
reinforces borders, transculturalism contributes to breaking them down
(8-9).
The references to various kinds of such labels could open up a
discussion about potential labels for an identity resulting from being
in-between, but it seems appropriate for the point and scope of this
paper to return to the question of border crossings with regard to the
text rather than focusing on potential preferences for terms such as
hybridity or transculturality. Alongside the aspects mentioned above
and recognizing the multiperspectivity and plurality already present
in the novel itself, a focus on a strategy of beyond which refers to
negotiating rather than essentializing (Toro 23) which has been at
the core of for example Bhabhas ideas, will be followed. This negotiation,
in literature, becomes visible for example through shifting perspectives,
giving the reader a variety of points of identification that confirm, but
also challenge some of their preconceived ideas. Similarly, the characters
are presented with some ambivalence.
In addition, they all represent a wider group, as Valiela points out
saying that [w]hen an individual child crosses the boundary between
childhood and adulthood, he or she does so, not only in an individual
sense, but also as a member of a collective identity (Valiela 1). A
representation of such a collective identity of a different American as
one might expect could be Aurora Levins Morales Child of the
Americas that reflects both the dynamics and tensions of growing up
between various points of reference in the Americas. Similar to
Rodriguez North American, this child that, judging from the reflections,
is in the process or has already grown up, is made up of those many
different parts, but still is somehow one, neither essentializing the border
crossings nor the wholeness. While Rodriguez labels this identity North
American, Morales rather ascribes an even larger framework of
reference by using the Americas, but the effect is similar.
The protagonists in Into the Beautiful North however are not
characterized mainly by consciously growing up between those worlds
222
Also, the protagonists are disillusioned after their first steps in the United
States, therefore even Yolos idea of staying with Matt (Urrea 312)
rather stems from a dream world of a young person that has a crush on
another person than from a realistic life plan or from the necessity
potentially typical Mexican immigrants may feel. Therefore, the
protagonists represent their age group with typical features, here the
desire to try themselves out in love, which is a characteristic element of
emerging adulthood.
A collective, here emerging adulthood, identity such as Valiela
mentioned is shown in Into the Beautiful North as well, but it is important
for the study of this text to notice the ambivalence in the characters:
While they do resemble their age group and their socio-economic
background, and by their representation also challenge potential
stereotypical images of that group, Urrea does point out that the
individual development is important for him as well, staging protagonist
Nayeli not only as a member of her social and cultural group, but also
as an individual hero, crossing even more borders:
Nayeli is from a family that is ashamed of all this, and she has this heroic
strain in her, and she wants to save her village, not necessarily herself,
which is what is interesting to me [Urrea, S.H.] and I think thats what
makes heroes, its people who move out of self interest into interest for the
common good (Urrea Interview 1).
224
But even though a real chameleon may look like the green foilage it imitates,
it never really becomes a leaf, and I could never fully transform myself into
what I imagined a real African American to be, or into the authentic
African of my minds eye. In the end, I am both African and African American
and therefore neither. I envy others their hometowns and unconflicted
patriotism, but no longer would I exchange them for my freedom to seek
multiple homes and nations and to forge my own (Wamba 169).
Even though Wamba may envy some aspects of belonging, being part
of a group, the definition of emerging adulthood which covers people
from a variety of backgrounds suggests that finding ones individual
identity may pose difficulties even to people of whom one may not expect
that. In addition, the effects of globalization, whether wanted or not,
may put far more people in a situation of having to seek multiple
homes than one might expect. The Tres Camarones group is just one
example of how people can be dragged into this situation without having
asked for it.
The influence of changing political and social developments on
peoples belonging to a group is also visible in the references to migrants
from other Latin American countries to Mexico and the U.S.A.. Into the
Beautiful North there refers first and foremost to Mexico, and there
the immigrants from the south are faced with xenophobia (Urrea 36,
71, and 77) similar to some reactions that the Tres Camarones group
receives in the United States, both by U.S. Americans (Urrea 246-48,
296) and legal Mexicans (Urrea 278-281). The similarity of incidents
on both sides of the border does not only contribute to the questioning
of stereotypes, revealing questionable behavior that is not connected to
one nationality, but points also to the transnational, in this case interAmerican perspective of such questions.
In this following example, mentioned briefly above in the context of
language border crossings, another example of the transnational North
American background may be revealed, namely by the legal Mexican
immigrants in the USA whose restaurant Nayeli and Tacho visit in on
their way to Nayelis father. Even though the surroundings make them
228
feel at home they are rejected because of their illegal migration (Urrea
278-281). This incident offers a variety of potential border crossings.
While the similar, but not equal background of their identity is
highlighted and presented as therefore completely different, the feeling
of home is subverted similarly to the incident in Northern Mexico when
the group ended up not feeling safe within their own country (Urrea
78-83).
While the group experiences multiple marginalizations, uses and
abuses of power, and danger, they also experience people becoming
heroes, stepping out of the potentially expected ordinary. One example
including heroes that crosses a multitude of boundaries is the incident
at the Tijuana garbage dump. With regard to the text, both
autobiographical elements and fiction are combined. Urrea explains
about that, referring to being asked by a pastor whom he knows to
accompany the pastor to the garbage dump:
People who write books dont live in these paper shacks, man. You [Urrea,
S.H.] live with these people, you help them dig garbage out, you eat garbage
with them no ones ever written about them, you should do it! (Urrea
Interview 1).
Therefore, the description results from him crossing borders, both going
there and including the incident in the book, thereby giving the people
there a voice. Through the depiction of the variety of people living at
the garbage dump, Urrea challenges the reader to question the effects
of contemporary economical, political, and social circumstances and to
cross boundaries by developing empathy as well as learning about people
who are different from oneself.
A similar example is that of the friendly people of Kankakee. Nayeli
and Tacho, after all their experiences along the way, do not expect
such a friendly and supportive treatment, meeting people who mirror
their border crossing from the other side. There, the sides of the
border crossings could be interpreted as reverse to the protagonists
expectations since they expect a warm welcome by Nayelis father and
229
231
Works Cited
Arnett, Jeffrey J. Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late
Teens through the Twenties. Oxford [u.a.]: Oxford Univ. Press, 2004.
Print.
Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London; New York: Routledge,
2004. Print.
Call for Papers: Crossing Boundaries in the Americas: Dynamics of
Change in Politics, Culture, and Media. Web. 10 Sep. 2012.
Cuccioletta, David. Multiculturalism or Transculturalism: Towards a
Cosmopolitan Citizenship. London Journal of Canadian Studies LCCS
LJCS 17 (2001). 1-12. Web. 20 Aug. 2012.
Danquhah, Meri N.-A. Life as an Alien. Half and Half: Writers on
Growing Up Biracial and Bicultural. Ed. Claudine OHearn. New
York: Random House, 1998. 99-111. Print.
Hertlein, Saskia. Old Stories, Young Perspectives in Luis Alberto Urreas
Into the Beautiful North. Ed. Philip Coleman and Stephen Matterson.
Forever Young? The Changing Images of America. Heidelberg:
Universittsverlag Winter, 2012 (European Views of the United States;
4). 231-240. Print.
Kuortti, Joel, and Jopi Nyman. Introduction: Hybridity Today.
Reconstructing Hybridity. Post-colonial Studies in Transition. Ed.
Joel Kuortti and Jopi Nyman. Amsterdam et al: Rodopi, 2007. 1-18.
Print.
Morales, Aurora L. Child of the Americas. The Heath Anthology of
American Literature: Contemporary Period 1945 to Present. Ed. Paul
234
Lauter and Richard Yarborough. 5th ed. A-E. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Co., 2006. 3027-28. Print.
Phinney, Jean S. Ethnic Identity Exploration in Emerging Adulthood.
Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century. Ed.
Jeffrey J. Arnett and Jennifer L. Tanner. 1st. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association, 2006. 25-36. Print.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Arts of the Contact Zone. Profession 91
(1991), pp. 33-40. Web. 04 April 2009.
Rodriguez, Richard. Go North, Young Man: We all speak of North
America. But has anyone ever actually met a North American? I know
one, 1995. Mother Jones 07/1995. Web. 4 Aug. 2012.
Toro, Alfonso de. Jenseits von Postmoderne und Postkolonialitt:
Materialien zu einem Modell der Hybriditt und des Krpers als
transrelationalem, transversalem und transmedialem
Wissenschaftskonzept. Rume der Hybriditt: Postkoloniale Konzepte
in Theorie und Literatur. Ed. Christof Hamann and Cornelia Sieber.
Hildesheim et al.: Olms, 2002. 1552. Print.
Urrea, Luis Alberto: Interview by BookVideos.tv, April 17, 2009. Available
via YouTube and embedded on Urreas homepage <http://
www.luisurrea.com/home.php>. Web. 30 Mar. 2010. Transcript by
Saskia Hertlein. [Interview 1].
. Interview by KeplersBooks, June 10, 2009. Available via YouTube:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsqKWgwhI-M>. Web. 30 Mar.
2010. Transcript by Saskia Hertlein. [Interview 2].
. Into the Beautiful North. A Novel. New York et al.: Little, Brown
and Company, 2009. Print.
Valiela, Isabel. Coming of Age in the Borderlands. Latin American Studies
Association, 2003. Web. 15 Jul. 2008.
Wamba, Philippe. A Middle Passage. Half and Half: Writers on Growing
Up Biracial and Bicultural. Ed. Claudine OHearn. New York:
Random House, 1998. 150-69. Print.
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236
Anne McGee
Resumen
En 2011, la telenovela La reina del sur, estren en la cadena Telemundo
en los EE.UU. Esta narconovela, que est basada en la novela de Arturo
Prez-Reverte y que incorpora el narcocorrido de Los Tigres del Norte
(todos del mismo ttulo), cuenta la historia ficcional de Teresa Mendoza, la
novia de un contrabandista en Culiacn, Mxico que llega a ser la reina
del narcotrfico entre el sur de Espaa y el norte de frica. Mientras esta
historia revela la realidad transnacional del narcotrfico, tambin es un
producto de este mercado, consumido por lectores, espectadores y oyentes
que desean estas exticas historias clandestinas y violentas. De esta
manera, La reina del sur es a la vez un sntoma y un promotor de la
globalizacin de la narcocultura, como la historia de Teresa Mendoza en
todas sus formas (novela, corrido y telenovela) representa y exporta la
narcocultura del norte de Mxico a una audiencia global. De esta manera,
la narrativa de Teresa Mendoza, que originalmente fue escrita por un
espaol para una audiencia espaola y que luego inspir un narcocorrido
de los Tigres del Norte (2002) y que por fin se convirti en telenovela,
representa y refleja la complejidad de la narcocultura que es a la vez un
fenmeno regional y global. Por medio de un anlisis de La reina del sur,
este artculo examina la globalizacin de la narcocultura y su
representacin problemtica.
237
Abstract
In 2011, the telenovela La reina del sur debuted on the Telemundo
network in the U.S. This narconovela, which is based on the novel of the
same name by Arturo Prez-Reverte and whose theme song is a
narcocorrido originally recorded by Los Tigres del Norte, tells the fictional
story of Teresa Mendoza, the girlfriend of a drug smuggler in Culiacn,
Mexico who eventually becomes the queenpin of drug smuggling in
Southern Spain and North Africa. While this story reveals the transnational
nature of drug trafficking as a global enterprise, it is also a product of this
market, as it is consumed by readers, viewers, and listeners hungry for
tales of exotic locales and violent, clandestine enterprises. Thus, La reina
del sur is both a symptom and a promoter of the globalization of
narcocultura, as the story of Teresa Mendoza in all its forms (novel, corrido,
and telenovela) represents and exports the narcocultura of Northern
Mexico to a global audience. In this way, the narrative of Teresa Mendoza,
which was first produced as a novel by a Spanish author for a largely
Spanish audience, which subsequently inspired a narcocorrido by Los
Tigres del Norte (2002), and which finally took the form of a telenovela,
both represents and reflects the complexity of narcocultura which is
simultaneously both regional and global. Through an analysis of La reina
del sur, this article examines the globalization of narcocultura and its
problematic representation.
Keywords: La reina del sur, Arturo Prez-Reverte, narconovela,
narcocultura, narcocorrido.
238
On February 28, 2011, the telenovela La reina del sur debuted on the
Telemundo television network in the U.S., and quickly became one of
the most successful programs in the companys history. With a production
budget of ten million dollars, the larger-than-life series, which was filmed
on three continents, attracted record audiences for a Spanish language
program in the U.S., and its final episode had 4.2 million viewers,
becoming the most viewed program, regardless of language, in its time
slot among adults aged 18-34 in the U.S. Due to its popularity, this
narconovela has become an international phenomenon, having aired
in over fourteen countries across Latin American, Europe, and the
Middle East. The series, which is based on the novel of the same title by
Spanish writer Arturo Prez-Reverte and whose theme song is a
narcocorrido inspired by Prez-Revertes work, tells the fictional story
of Teresa Mendoza, a Mexican girl of humble origins who first enters
the drug world as the girlfriend of a narco-trafficking pilot in Culiacn,
Mexico, and who eventually becomes la reina del sur, that is to say,
the queenpin of drug smuggling in Southern Spain and North Africa.
In addition to the dramatic scenes and love affairs that are typical of
this visual genre, the series, which was produced by Telemundo in
conjunction with the Atena 3 network (Spain) and RTI Producciones
(Colombia), reveals the transnational nature of narco-trafficking as a
global enterprise, whose violence and economic interests continuously
cross the limits of national borders and identities, in order to meet the
first worlds demand for illicit drugs.1 Ironically, however, while La reina
del sur, in all its forms (novel, corrido, and telenovela) attempts to
represent the global nature of narco-trafficking, it is simultaneously a
product of this market, consumed by readers, viewers, and listeners
hungry for tales of exotic locales, clandestine enterprises, and the
dramatic violence associated with the international drug trade. In this
way, La reina del sur is both a symptom and a promoter of the
1
Although RTI Producciones was involved in the production of the telenovela, La reina del
sur was initially produced for the U.S. Latino market. This is notable as most narconovelas
are produced in Colombia. The intertextual relationship of La reina del sur and
Colombian narconovelas is an area that merits further investigation.
239
...son, por tanto, productos de empresas mediticas transnacionales dirigidas al consumo masivo de espectadores/lectores del primer mundo. Las obras
tendran en consecuencia una funcin doble: por un lado, econmica...por el
otro, pedaggica. (294-295)
In this manner, despite its literary quality, the novel (like the telenovela
it inspired) is a product, not unlike the Morrocan hashish and Colombian
cocaine Teresa Mendoza transports across the Straits of Gibraltar,
manufactured out of raw materials from the Third World, to meet the
desires of a First World consumer. Just as in the novel Teresa Mendoza
establishes a shell company, Transer Naga, which is responsible for the
transport of drugs across national borders, La reina del surs publisher,
Alfaguara, and its associated companies facilitate the global distribution
and availability of the work. While I agree with Gonzlez that the novel
is a product that serves a clear economic purpose, she fails to question
and/or problematize the works supposed pedagogical function, as she finds
the story of Teresa Mendoza to be a relatively realistic representation of
immigrants and immigration in modern day Spain:
...es transmitida... como una ficcin muy ligada a la realidad (incluso en el
plano lingstico), en la que se redefinen los estereotipos asociados a los
inmigrantes para educar al lector espaol sobre la Espaa de nuestros das,
determinada por el fenmeno de la migracin. (295)
outs of smuggling hashish across the Straits of Gibraltar. Even the few
affluent Spaniards involved in Teresas criminal organization, such as
her half-Spanish, bisexual former supermodel-turned-cocaine-fiend
business partner, Patricia OFarrell, or her money-laundering
Andalucian lawyer and married lover, Teo Aljarafe, take a passive role
in the enterprise and come from the margins of Spanish society. Thus,
while the novel does portray crooked Spanish officials and politicians
whose are complicit in the drug trade, it does little to redefine stereotypes,
especially those related to immigrants. If the work does serve a
pedagogical function it is problematic one, as it reinforces traditional
stereotypes of immigrants and draws attention to the colonial tensions,
which underscore the narrative. Clearly, this problematizes the novels
representation of narcocultura, as ultimately it is a work produced by
and for the First World, about the Third. In this way, the literary
version of La reina del sur is not much different than the telenovela,
which as a production of Telemundo, whose parent company is
NBCUniversal, is a product of the U.S. media, made and mass marketed
to a domestic audience, and later exported abroad. Thus, while Spain
and the United States spend millions of dollars each year to protect
their borders from the illegal importation of narcotics, their major media
outlets produce and export narratives, which sensationalize and profit
from the globalization of narcocultura.
Despite this, many critics praise Prez-Revertes novel for its
supposedly realistic representation of the narcocultura of Northern
Mexico, often citing the rigor with which the author investigated the
subject matter and the great deal of time which he dedicated to traveling
in the region, specifically Culiacn, Sinaloa, in order to interview
informants from the area and to research the cultural practices of those
involved in the drug trade. In his article, La reina del sur: el lenguaje
de una aventura, Pedro Guerrero Ruz explains that the author
realistically recreates the dialect and vocabulary of Northern Mexico:
Segn mis investigaciones la integracin del lxico en relacin con la
historia, en sus distintas etapas y espacios, es tan real que no hay
apariencia de ficcin (148). Similarly, Roco Ocn Garrido describes
242
how the novel captures the reality of Mexico: Mientras que para el
espaol pinta un mundo que no conoces, para el mexicano, lo recrea
con su vocabulario y sus dichos, adems de su msica (65). While in
the space of this article, I will not enter into a debate on the impossibility
of any project, which would claim to reproduce reality, it is surprising
that a number of studies focus on this aspect of the work, and which
praise the accuracy of the novels portrayal of the narcocultura of
Northern Mexico. Apart from ignoring the colonial tensions that underlie
Prez-Revertes narrative, such studies fail to acknowledge the basic
fact that literature most often does mimic reality, in order to add
verisimilitude to its narrative and to gain the interest and trust of the
reader. By incorporating Mexican music, such as narcocorridos,
reproducing the vernacular of Northern Mexico, and including
numerous cultural references into his text, Prez-Reverte is meeting
the expectations of his readers, by providing them with a somewhat
believable, and yet still exotic adventure story set in the intriguingly
violent world of the international drug trade. Why then, do a number
of literary critics find it notable that a work with Mexican characters,
and whose protagonist is from Sinaloa, would include vocabulary,
expressions, music, and cultural references from the region in question?
After all, it would be stranger if instead of narcocorridos and Mexican
slang, Teresa and her bodyguard el Pote listened to flamenco and
spoke with Castillian accents. Why is the mexican-ness of PrezRevertes discourse so notable to critics?
One possibility resides in Prez-Revertes effective promotion of his
product, and in the texts interesting use of narrative voice, which
mirrors that of the author. As both a journalist and novelist, PrezReverte is undoubtedly well versed in the power of the media, and in
the importance of capturing the interest and imagination of potential
readers/consumers. One only needs to google the authors name or search
for it on YouTube to find dozens of interviews, images, and articles
where this seemingly handsome author passionately talks about his
work. In numerous interviews promoting La reina del sur, the author
repeatedly makes essentialist comments that present Mexico as a
243
In anecdotes such as this, the author paints him self as an expert, who
immersed in all things Mexican, is the ideal storyteller to write the tale
of Teresa Mendoza.2 While the promotion of the texts, and consequently
the authors, mexican-ness is not surprising, in a curious article by
2
In interviews printed in Spanish media outlets Prez-Reverte claims that he was inspired
by the iconic corrido Contrabando y traicin by Los Tigres del Norte in his invention of
Teresa Mendoza, while in several interviews in Mexico he refers to Teresa Mendoza as
a real person whose life story he investigated.
244
Mexican and as Sinaloan as Teresa Mendoza, that is to say PrezReverte is as Mexican as the fictional character he created and marketed.
In this way, the author and the texts mexican-ness is purely discursive.
Without a doubt, the novel La reina del sur has benefited from an
effective marketing campaign, not unlike those used to advertise
television programs. In fact, the published articles discussed here, and
the stereotypical vision of Mexico that they present, remind one of the
dramatic trailers and commercials used by the Telemundo network to
promote the telenovela based on Prez-Revertes work. While it is
understandable that many readers, and even some critics may be lulled
into believing the authenticity of this discourse, one must remember
that interviews are typically part of the marketing and promotion of a
work. In fact, all but one of the articles that I have cited, appeared in
the Spanish newspaper El Pas, which as a part of the PRISA media
conglomerate, has a vested interest in the success of La reina del sur.
Although they lack the melodramatic announcer and the exaggerated
sound effects of an actual commercial, such articles and interviews
similarly capture the imagination of a public intrigued by the world of
narco-trafficking. Interestingly, the voice of Prez-Reverte in such
interviews is strikingly similar to that employed by the nameless reporter
who serves as the narrator of La reina del sur, giving the impression
that the author appropriates the voice of his work (or vice versa) in
order to effectively promote it and interject its voice into the Spanish
imaginary. But, who exactly is this narrator who like the author, is
also a reporter inspired by the narcocorridos of Northern Mexico in his
narration of the story of Teresa Mendoza?
Although the narrator never tells us his name, through his narration
he reveals that he is a Spanish journalist who over the course of eight
months has researched, and attempted to piece together the last twelve
years of Teresa Medozas life in order to produce a book manuscript,
specifically a work of literary journalism. Like the composer of a
narcocorrido, the narrator wishes to tell the alternative history behind
the myth of Teresa Mendoza, La reina del sur. His investigative
techniques, however, are largely journalistic, as he draws upon a variety
246
247
For both the narrator and the reader, the true Teresa Mendoza is not
the real woman, but rather a mythical figure, pieced together and created
through a discourse, which will always be incomplete and imperfect,
that is to say, an inexact copy of the original. In this way, the work also
questions its problematic representation of Mexico and narcocultura,
as the exotic, violent world of drug trafficking presented within the
texts pages is revealed as nothing more than a discursive imperfect
copy, created by an outside observer. Yet, it is this incomplete,
constructed facsimile of Mexico and narcocultura that is accepted as
true or verdadera by the reader (and by more than a few literary
critics), in the same manner that the journalist-narrator substitutes
the actual Teresa Mendoza with one of his own creation. In this way,
the process of writing makes the violent reality of the drug world
248
Through this closing scene, the narrator admits the limitations of his
corrido de papel impreso, while simultaneously inscribing his discourse,
249
This is the same narcocorrido that Prez-Reverte claims inspired him to write La reina
del sur, and which is credited with starting the narcocorrido craze of the 1970s. The
song was largely responsible for the rise in popularity of Los Tigres del Norte on both
sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. Contrabando y traicin inspired additional corridos,
and a series of movies in the 1970s.
250
While all of the men in her life aspire to being immortalized by the
lyrics of a corrido, Teresa does not, as she recognizes the high price one
4
Given the ease of recording and releasing musical tracks with todays technology it is
impossible to know the exact number of these compositions. A quick search on Youtube
reveals a number of recent narcocorridos inspired by the story of La reina del sur.
251
Although they are considered an influential Mexican regional music group, as they
specialize in norteo music, Los Tigres del Norte are actually based in San Jos, California
and are equally popular on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. Thus, the corrido is
also intended for the U.S. Spanish-speaking audience.
252
Los lazos que unen los narcocorridos de Los Tigres del Norte como
inspiradores de la novela La reina del sur, y sta a su vez, como fuente
temtica del corrido titulado del mismo modo, que da del nombre al disco
que se public en 2002, demuestran el crculo de creacin, de hibridez, de
enriquecimiento cultural que las mezclas creativas hacen posible. (94)
255
reina del sur whose music slowly lures the frightened Spaniards out of
hiding. Soon, the Spanish subjects are dancing alongside Los Tigres
del Norte, who move in an out of a variety of Spanish locales. Intermixed
with this are scenes featuring Teresa as she leaves Mexico and enjoys
the good life in Spain. While the signification of the first scene is clear,
the Mexican tiger displaces the Spanish bull, represented by a childs
toy, and like Teresa, the band slowly wins over the people, the verses
cited earlier (36-47) are particularly important, as this is the only part
of the song that is spoken, not sung by the lead singer. As the leader of
the band explains Teresas fidelity to norteo fashions, we see images
of Teresa wearing her boots, jacket, and belt. These images reinforce
the importance of not abandoning ones identity when in a foreign land.
Thus, in the corrido narco-fashion and narco-trafficking take on a much
different meaning than in the novel. In fact, they become signifiers of
regional pride and identity.
Commercially speaking, it comes as no surprise that the popular
corrido would later be appropriated as the theme song of the telenovela,
La reina del Sur, which debuted in 2011 on the Telemundo network in
the U.S. After all, Los Tigres album entitled La reina del sur was the
groups third number one hit on Billboards chart of top Latin albums
and it received a Grammy nomination for best Mexican/MexicanAmerican album. What is surprising, however, is that the telenovela
did not include a performance by Los Tigres, but rather presented a rerecorded version of the narcocorrido by Los Cuates de Sinaloa. Perhaps
the decision to feature Los Cuates, was related to the groups previous
work with the hit show Breaking Bad, produced by the A&E network.
In 2009, Los Cuates recorded an original narcocorrido,Negro y Azul,
which was featured in an episode of the same name during the second
season of Breaking Bad. Thus, unlike Los Tigres, Los Cuates had
previously collaborated on a television series, which represents the drug
trade for the U.S. market. This, however, is not the only difference, as
the official music video for the series demonstrates. While the Los Tigres
video shows the band in Pamplona, winning over the hearts of a Spanish
audience, Los Cuates are shown performing in front of a hacienda in
257
260
Works Cited
Benavides, O. Hugo. Drugs, Thugs, and Divas: Telenovelas and NarcoDramas in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.
Print
Castilla, Amelia. Prez-Reverte abre las pginas de La reina del sur
bajo los acordes de un narcocorrido. El Pas, 7 June 2002: n. pag.
Web. 23 Sept. 2012.
Gaca-Alvite, Dosinda. De la frontera de los EEUU-Mxico al estrecho
de Gibraltar de vuelta: Procesos de transculturacin en La reina
del sur de Prez-Reverte. Cincinnati Romance Review 25 (2006):
81-98. Web. 1 Sept. 2012.
Gallo, Isabel. El mundo del narcotrfico, segn Arturo Prez-Reverte.
El Pas 10 Apr. 2010: n. pag. Web. 23 Sept. 2012.
Gmez Lpez-Quiones, Antonio. La reinvencin de Mxico en La
reina del sur de Arturo Prez Reverte: Violencia y agrafismo en la
otra orilla. Revista de literatura mexicana contempornea 30.12
(2006): 33-55. Print.
Gonzlez Flores, Francisca. Mujer y pacto fustico en el narcomundo:
Representaciones literarias y cinematogrficas en La vendedora de
rosas de Vctor Gaviria, Mara llena eres de gracia de Joshua
Marston y La reina del sur de Arturo Prez Reverte. Romance
Quarterly 57 (2010): 286-299. Print.
Gemes, Csar. Amagan a Prez-Reverte; con mi patria no te metas,
le dice un desconocido. La Jornada, 8 Sept. 2002: n. pag. Web. 12
Mar. 2013.
Guerrero Ruz, Pedro. La reina del sur: el lenguaje de una aventura.
Sobre hroes y libros: la obra narrativa y periodstica de Arturo
Prez-Reverte. Eds. Jos Belmonte Serrano and Jos Manuel Lpez
de Abiada. Murcia: Nausca, 2003. 129-162. Print.
Itzkoff, Dave. Los Tigres del Norte Banned in Mexican City. The New
York Times 13 Mar. 2012: n. pag. Web. 30 Mar. 2013.
261
262
263
264
INVENTOS
CUBAN RAP IN A TRANSNATIONAL, DIASPORIC CONTEXT
Diana Fulger
Abstract
Cuban rap moves in between convergent spheres, at the crossroads of
Afro-Cuban tradition and a Diasporic African culture in the Americas.
As the 2005 award winning documentary Inventos directed by
independent U.S.-American film maker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi records,
the African heritage and black Diaspora solidarity reflected in the
contemporary Cuban hip hop culture are to be celebrated as signs of
authenticity. A true rapper, in the portrayal of Inventos, does not need
symbolic markers, such as expensive clothing, fancy cars and golden
necklaces in order to represent hip hop culture. On the contrary, a true
rapper consciously and proudly rejects such a commercial image, along
with the products it promotes, which seems to have gained the upper
hand in the United States entertainment industry. Witty lyrics
protesting against social injustice and racial discrimination are required
instead. From Orishas to Annimo Consejo and Dead Prez, the
documentary features a series of performances, interviews and
improvised jamming sessions in Havana and New York. Rap music
becomes a way of life, a bridge between different generations, and a
dialogue between two countries which share an extremely tensioned
history of embargo policies, Cold War stigmas and interrupted diplomatic
265
Resumen
El rap cubano circula en espacios convergentes, entre la tradicin
afrocubana y la cultura diasprica africana en las Amricas. El documental
Inventos, producido por el cineasta estadounidense Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi
celebra la herencia africana y la solidaridad de la Dispora africana
reflejadas por la cultura contempornea cubana de hip hop como signos
de autenticidad. Segn Inventos, el verdadero rapero no necesita smbolos
como ropa cara, autos de marca o collares dorados para representar la
cultura hip hop. Al contrario, un verdadero rapero rechaza consciente y
orgullosamente este tipo de imagen comercial que se ha impuesto en la
industria del espectculo estadounidense, junto con los productos que esta
industria promueva. Lo que se requiere son textos denunciando la injusticia
social y la discriminacin racial. El documental figura grupos como Orishas,
Annimo Consejo y Dead Prez, varios conciertos, entrevistas e
improvisaciones musicales en La Habana y Nueva York. El rap se convierte
en un estilo de vida, en un puente entre varias generaciones y en un
dilogo entre dos pases que comparten una historia extremamente
tensionada por el embargo, los estigmas de la Guerra Fra y las relaciones
diplomticas interrumpidas. Sin embargo, aunque el documental intente
de relacionar el rap cubano con el rap estadounidense como msica de
protesta con un fuerte enfoque racial, la falta de una explicacin detallada
de las diferencias entre el desarrollo y la expresin de una conciencia racial
266
As John Miller Jones stated at the conference on Music and Politics which
took place in Bielefeld, Germany, in May 2012, music in itself is a flow, a
temporal progression, which crosses temporal and geographical borders
and bridges gaps, transcending time and space. Contemporary Cuban
rap emerged within the framework of such a global cultural flow, as the
result of a transnational exchange between the United States and the
Afro-Cuban community.1 As the recent award winning documentary film
Inventos directed by independent film maker Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi records,
Cuban rap moves in between convergent spheres, at the crossroads of
Afro-Cuban tradition and a Diasporic African culture in the Americas.
The documentary aims at accomplishing several functions: to celebrate
the African heritage and black Diaspora solidarity in Cuban hip hop as a
sign of authenticity, to criticize the commercial aspect of contemporary
rap as straying away from the original ideology of the hip hop culture,
and to provide Cuban artists with a launch platform enabling them to
enroll within international music projects. However, the socio-political
context into which this particular movement developed is not to be neglected
when discussing the style of expression and thematic of Cuban rap as
compared to its U.S.-American neighbor. It seems to me that while Eli
1
267
According to cultural critic and rap music promoter Ariel Fernndez Daz the roots of
Cuban rap can be traced as far back as to the 1920s, when jazz music first came to Cuba;
Fernndez 1999: 4.
During the decade of the 90s Cuba went into a severe economic depression,
euphemistically called The Special Period in Times of Peace, caused by the fall of the
Soviet Block. Most of the socialist allies of the Castro rgime were gone; the Cuban
268
culture of the United States, Cuban rap was rejected by the authorities
at first, as the music of the enemy to the North, and had to undergo a
transition towards local originality, in both style and message, in order
to gain national support.5 Being a new direction in the musical field of
the island, it needed a certain period of sedimentation before evolving
into an autochthonous product, a period during which imitation
prevailed over originality. Indeed, the first generation of Cuban rappers
was very much oriented towards their U.S.-American peers. The initial
stages revolved around private gatherings called bonches, where young
Cubans would come together and listen to the latest rap tapes smuggled
in from the United States. With time, the bonches became moas,
meaning public gatherings for listening to rap music.6 Gradually some
of those frequenting the bonches started writing and recording tracks
of their own, by sampling the beat off U.S.-American tapes, to which
they rapped their lyrics in Spanish and then later began synthesizing
hip hop beats with Afro-Cuban rhythms. With this second generation
(Orishas, Los Aldeanos, etc.), Cuban rappers found their own style,
integrating Afro-Cuban beats and rhythms, and adapting their music
to the social and political problematic of the country, so as to later reinscribe itself in the international music scene. The outcome is that
Cuban rap developed a double function: to address ardent contemporary
economy found itself on the verge of collapse. According to Nadine Fernndez, after
1989, there was a 73% drop in imports and scarcely any oil on the island, which paralyzed
the local economy (Fernndez 2010: 25). Cuba needed to implement capitalist strategies
in order to keep the economy of the country afloat, a situation which slowly gave way
to old racial and class divisions confined to peoples heads only during the years up to
the Special Period (Fuente 2001:19). Socialism was failing not only on an economic
scale, but also on an ideological one, which was slowly but surely leading to a crisis of
the very Cuban identity that had grown to incorporate socialist principles.
5
See Fernndez 1999: 7. Rap is a genre of protest music which developed in the 1970s in
the United States together with DJing, break dancing and graffiti spraying as part of a
so called hip hop culture. See Menrath 2001: 52. In contemporary media the terms rap
and hip hop are often used interchangeably.
Bonche is the term for a private gathering for listening to rap music; moa is defined as
a public rap gathering; see Pacini-Hernndez 1999: 23.
269
issues, such as race in Cuba, the social injustice tourism creates, or the
lack of morals and principles, and to reflect an identity which goes beyond
national borders, by creating a refuge for the African Diasporic
experience, an alternative to express cultural roots through style and
sound.7
In the early 2000s, U.S.-American independent film maker Eli
Jacobs-Fantauzzi traveled to Cuba in search for the story behind Cuban
rap. The fifty minute documentary is a collage consisting of a series of
performances and interviews, among others, with members of Cuban
rap groups such as Annimo Consejo and EPG&B, Junior Clan, as well
as Cuban rap promoter Ariel Fernndez. By following rap artists into
their homes and around the city to their gathering sites, jamming
sessions and local improvised performances, Jacobs-Fantauzzi records
a wide range of the manifestations of Cuban rap in the artists daily
existence. Hip hop is a way of life, a whole universe, confesses Ledis,
one of the female protagonists in the film.8 Wherever the camera follows,
hip hop is the main topic of conversation. The Vedado neighborhood in
Havana resonates with live rap sessions on the roof tops and in the
artists bedrooms. The film encompasses and bridges the gap among
different generations, with children free-styling in the streets about
strawberry ice cream and fourteen year old Sandra rapping along with
adult artists at hip hop festivals. All in all, we witness a monopoly of
rap over the daily life in Havana, with a varied succession of interviews
in which each artist attempts to define the meaning of hip hop for him/
her, interspaced with recorded performances, including some by U.S.American hip hop group Dead Prez. The film makes use of direct-tocamera address, there is no voiceover whatsoever, nor does it provide
us with a direct account on the directors behalf versus his personal
stance on the subject. However, in several other interviews Eli JacobsFantauzzi does define himself as an activist, whose aim is to create
awareness of the social injustice around the world. For Jacobs-Fantauzzi,
7
Jacobs-Fantauzzi 2005.
270
Cuban hip hop is genuine and pure, implying that such qualities have
been lost to much of our contemporary rap music. He is a member of
the Clenched Fist Productions, an organization which functions as a
gathering point for hip hop artists with a political message and the
releaser of the documentary.9 Inventos thus does have an agenda, one
which aims at bringing back the 1970s flavor of rap music, a time when
it addressed social, racial and political issues exclusively.
According to a short interview Reelblack TV conducted with film director Eli JacobsFantauzzi in 2007.
271
Hip hop developed in the mid-70s in Bronx, New York. () That was
where new DJ-ing techniques and street culture rhyming fused together; DJs
together with MCs organized block parties on the streets and in public places;
the
DJ
played on each of the two turntables the same part of two identical
discs and thus created a repetitive rhythm by rubbing the discs back and
forth. The MCs comments and rhymes called on the audience to dance.10
Thus it was in the streets of New York that rap grew to become one of
the most popular music genres of the 20th century. Artists organizing
block parties aimed at reaching the community with spare means. The
message which took shape was rooted in the political disappointment,
social inequalities and racial discrimination governing the U.S.-American
society in those decades, when ethnic groups, in particular AfricanAmerican citizens, were at the bottom of the social hierarchies.11 It was
indeed mainly the racial component that played a crucial role in rap
music, a great number of its representative artists being AfricanAmericans, while their lyrics focused on redefining black identity and
consolidating an African-American consciousness in the aftermath of
the Civil Rights Movement.
Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi confesses to hold great respect for the
awareness of the original hip hop movement in the United States.
Inventos reflects the celebration of that racial consciousness as a sign of
authenticity, to which several film elements testify. The Cuban hip hop
generation of 2000s grew up under the influence of 99 Jams and 1040
am U.S.-American radio stations, whose playlists focused on R&B and
hip hop, as Ariel Fernndez states, inferring that rap music is black
music, in the sense that it reflects the problematic issues of people of
color (Jacobs-Fantauzzi 2005).12 Although rap music and the hip hop
movement arrived to Cuba somewhat later and sinuously due to the
10
My translation.
11
African-Americans stayed at the bottom of social hierarchies well into the late 20th
century, according to Berlin 2010: 202.
12
272
Inventos stresses the fact that black Cubans see rap as a possibility of
expression and of identification at a global level with the black Diaspora,
a discourse confirmed by cultural critic Roberto Zurbano as part of a
conciencia transnacional, diasprica, descolonizadora y emancipatoria,
13
14
273
16
As an example for the amount of tension governing the Cuban population (of all ethnic
backgrounds) in the 1990s, according to historian Louis A. Prez Jr., various dissident
groups emerged in Havana during the periodo especial, whose voices of protest spurred
the rest of the population to a series of violent demonstrations and street riots in 1993
and 1994; see Prez 2011: 314.
274
This is the real invento, to refer back to the title of the documentary,
not so much the toothpaste that Cubans use to stick their posters of
U.S.-American rappers on the wall, or the recording studios improvised
17
275
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, black Cubans were not allowed to group
themselves in political parties. When attempted, such as with the creation of the Partido
276
277
According to the official website Freemumia.com, Mumia Abu-Jamal is an AfricanAmerican writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and
articles, who has spent the last 29 years on Pennsylvanias death row (). In 1982
Mumia Abu-Jamal was tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of
Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner (). Philadelphia prosecutors argued, and
still claim, that Mumia, while driving a taxi in downtown Philadelphia, came across his
brother who had been stopped by Officer Faulkner. Prosecutors further argued that,
motivated by a longstanding hatred of the police from his days as a Panther () Mumia
ran to Faulkner and shot him in the back (www.freemumia.com).
21
The Black Panther Party was an African-American revolutionary group, which initially
militated for the protection of African-Americans from police brutality. Various media
278
Afro-Cuban religions combined African practices with Catholicism, thus bearing new
systems of faith, with Santera as one of the leading syncretic practices, known not only
in Cuba, but also in the United States and meanwhile also in Europe. Santera developed
throughout centuries of slavery, during which hundreds of thousands of slaves were
279
24
See Hagedorn 2001: 78 for further information on the format, size and role of the three
different bat drums.
280
There is one particular scene in the documentary where Aguanil, a popular song
dedicated to Oggn, the orisha of iron, is performed on a roof top in Vedado, together
with members of the EPG&B group; Jacobs-Fantauzzi 2005.
281
Cuba at the time the documentary was produced. Before June 1995,
when the first festival of rap was organized in Cuba, in Alamar, one of
the poorest neighborhoods in Havana, rappers had to rely on meager
material for production. After the success of the Alamar festival, Cuban
rappers slowly gained the support they needed for recordings,
distribution and international diffusion of their music, such as access
to professional material, no longer having to completely improvise on
tape recorders in sleeping rooms insulated with egg trays. Moreover,
the Agencia Cubana de Rap was created and became the national
organization managing and promoting the autochthonous groups of
artists. With the support of national institutions and of Clenched Fist
Productions, the cooperation between the U.S. and Cuba as mediated
by Inventos closes the circle of transnational cultural flow between the
two countries and opens new perspectives for Cuban rap artists. In
that sense, Jacobs-Fantauzzis documentary takes a significant step in
the direction of open dialogue between two countries which share an
extremely tensioned history of embargo policies, Cold War stigmas and
interrupted diplomatic relations, by appealing to the unifying force of
music.
Conclusion
Regardless of the divergent politics which the two neighboring states
exercise, the hip hop cultures North and South of the Florida Straits share
common elements, such as the struggle for racial equality, fair
representation and a transnational, black Diaspora consciousness. JacobsFantauzzis message sometimes gets lost amid incomplete background
information and oversimplified/overstretched representations of
authenticity. Inventos partly accomplishes its task, by testifying to the
importance of Cuban hip hop as a key element in the construction of a
transnational African identity in the Americas. Still, Cuban rap has a lot
more to say through the lens of international media, at best with the
proper contextualization and a sharper critical stance.
283
Works Cited
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of
Globalization Vol.1. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Print.
Bardach, Ann Louise. Cuba Confidential: Love and Vengeance in Miami
and Havana. New York: Random House, 2002. Print.
Barnet, Miguel. Afro-Cuban Religions. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers,
2001. Print.
Bascom, William. The Yoruba of Southwestern Nigeria. New York: Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1969. Print.
Berlin, Ira. The Making of African America. New York: Penguin Books,
2010. Print.
Birkenmaier, Anke & Esther Whitfield (eds.) Havana: Beyond the Ruins.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. Print.
Chomsky, Aviva. A History of the Cuban Revolution. Chichester: WileyBlackwell, 2011. Print.
Easley Morris, Andrea. Afro-Cuban Identity in Postrevolutionary Novel
and Film. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press, 2012. Print.
Fernndez, Ariel. Rap Cubano: poesa urbana? O la nueva trova de los
aos noventa in El Caiman Barbudo no. 296. 1999. Print.
Fernndez, Nadine T. Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in
Contemporary Cuba. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2010.
Print.
Fernndez Robaina, Toms. Identidad afrocubana, cultura y
nacionalidad. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente, 2009. Print.
Fuente, Alejandro de la. A Nation For All: Race, Inequality and Politics
in Twentieth-Century Cuba. Chapel Hill: the University of North
Carolina Press, 2001. Print.
Hagedorn, Katherine. Divine Utterances: the Performance of Afro-Cuban
Santera. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001. Print.
284
285
XXI.
Habana:
Web Sources
Reelblack Tv, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZmHjojatVs.
Web. 9 Aug. 2012.
Freedom for Mumia Abu Jamal. http://www.freemumia.com/. Web. 1
March 2013.
Britannica Academic Edition. http://www.britannica.com/. Web. 1
March 2013.
286
Abstract
This article addresses transnational flows of music within a political
context. Using a distinction between sonic cosmopolitics from above and
from below the author investigates the similarities and differences in
agency, music, and politicization between U.S. government-sponsored
programs such as The Jazz Ambassadors and The Rhythm Road and
recent grassroots musical movements such as Fandango Sin Fronteras
and The Pleasant Revolution Tour.
Key terms: jazz ambassadors, sonic cosmopolitics, grassroots movements,
transnational flows, fandango.
Resumen
El artculo da fe de una profunda investigacin acerca del poder y el
uso de la msica para traspasar fronteras y construir comunidades
globales. El Jazz y sus maestros en los aos cincuenta del siglo pasado,
y recientemente grupos de msicos estadounidenses y latinoamericanos,
tejen redes que rompen los casilleros de naciones e incluso regiones
geopolticas. El objetivo del artculo es establecer una comparacin entre
287
Introduction
As Peter Wicke comments with reference to Chuck Berrys Roll Over
Beethoven, popular music appears for the first time within a cultural
system of reference which allows it to become a fundamental experience
(11). Rock n Roll more successfully than the historical avant-garde
dissolves barriers between the formerly separate spheres of art and
everyday life (11). Wickes claim suggests that popular music is not
only capable of traversing various musical genres but also of penetrating
public and political spheres as a powerful agent. The border crossing
that Wicke refers to is only but one in a series of noticeable iconoclastic
moves in the development of popular music in the 20th and 21st century.
Repeatedly, we encounter moments when high and low culture meet,
in which barriers between genres, schools, and attitudes dissolve. Robert
Miklitsch provides us with lasting examples:
Although the performance of Gershwins Rhapsody in Blue at Whitemans
Experiment in Modern Music is an especially rich example of the fission
produced when high and low culture meet, there are other moments of
288
291
Goodman and his band who traveled to East Asia in 1958 and the
Dave Brubeck Quartet that toured Eastern Europe, the Middle East,
and South Asia; Louis Armstrong and the All Stars hit the front pages
of newspapers around the world playing numerous concerts in Africa
in 1960 and 1961, and Armstrong was celebrated as black cultural and
political voice by African communities and politicians alike; two years
later in 1963 the Duke Ellington Orchestra crisscrossed the Middle East
and South Asiaa tour that marked the beginning of a decade of
journeys for one of the most influential jazz composers and bandleaders
of the twentieth century. These mobile and musical forms of cultural
diplomacy initiatives continued under the direction of the State
Department until 1978, and numerous jazz musicians, including Miles
Davis, Clark Terry, and Sarah Vaughan performed on a global scale as
cultural ambassadors and musicians alike.
What was the political context and what were the politics of liberation
at stake during the emergence of the Jazz ambassador tours? Black
freedom struggle had moved to the center of American domestic and
international politics, and the global appeal of jazz music as an art
form manifested in the success of Dizzy Gillespie, Louis Armstrong,
and others had put African American musicians in the spotlight of
attention. The global appeal of jazz was due on the one hand to the
individual talent and presence of Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie,
but jazz had also already established itself as syncretic art form
emerging out of multicultural cross-overs and continued to do so (e.g.
Dizzy Gillespies fusion of Latin American rhythms with earlier jazz
forms or Miles Davis fusions of jazz and rock). Hence, jazz as musical
expression sonically embodied the continuous process of crossing,
bridging, and negotiating cultures.
While government officials, cultural workers, and the press may
not have been aware of jazzs multicultural complexity, the success of
jazz tours by Armstrong, Ellington, and Gillespie in Europe had provided
sufficient evidence that the music had the ingredients to cross national
boundaries. So, in 1956, Dizzy Gillespie, rebellious, bebop jazz musician,
somewhat ironically embarked on the first government-sponsored jazz
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tour of the Middle East with the aid of the Presidents Emergency Fund
(Eschen 1). Looking at Louis Armstrongs involvement in the Jazz
Ambassadors as a case study helps us shed more light on the complexity
behind the politics of liberation. Historically, the struggle for civil rights
in the U.S. coincides with African colonial independence movements in
the 1950 and 1960s. And Armstrongs involvement is multifaceted since
he consistently repositioned himself as New-Orleans based black
musician, African American spokesperson, critical commentator, and
apolitical entertainer that led to divergent views on Armstrong from
musical genius to African celebrity to Uncle Tom entertainer. As Daniel
Stein reminds us:
In the mid-1950s, Armstrong became known as Ambassador Satchmo, a
public figure that afforded him a new political platform. The primary function
of jazz ambassadors was to present themselves and their music on
international tours sponsored by the State Department with the objective of
exporting a democratic image of America into regions of the world in which
the Soviet Union sought political influence. (231)
The Real Ambassador revue at the Monterey jazz festival took place
during the most turbulent period of the Civil Rights movement in the
early 1960s and managed to express the often very complex and
contradictory politics of the State Department tours at the intersection
of the Cold War, African and Asian nation-building, and the U.S. civil
rights struggle (79). The tours were further complicated by shifting
alliances and tensions between the cultural workers of the foreign-service
personnel and the musicians on tour such as Dizzy Gillespie, the
Brubecks, and Louis Armstrong; while some cultural workers shared
the musicians mission of music as a form of bridging cultures, nations,
and races, others shared the racial views of President Eisenhower and
his segregationist allies (cf. Eschen 80). For Armstrong, it remained a
constant repositioning of himself as a political agent from public to
private. As Daniel Stein rightly points out:
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the communal contact such as dancing at the border, crossing the latter
on foot or, in the case of the Ginger Ninjas, traveling from the U.S.
across Mexico by bike to promote alternative-archaic forms of
transportation, energy production, and performance. Both projects unite
music with political concern and both work through local as well as
virtual networks based on horizontal actor network strategies. Music
by the Ginger Ninjas or by music groups from Fandango Sin Fronteras
like Quetzal can primarily be accessed through internet, youtube, local
radio and occasionally on CD. Quetzal also established its own record
label recently demonstrating that these movements look for independent
forms of fundraising, music-making, and community-building. They
embody crossovers of music, musical heritage awareness as well as local
and translocal community politics that arise out of the midst of grassroots
movements and aim at creating and spreading new alternative forms
of community building. They appropriate sections of the mass media
for their communal uses to spread music, message, and information. As
Martn-Barbero points out:
The efficacy and social significance of mass media do not lie primarily in the
industrial organization and the ideological content, but rather in the way
the popular masses have appropriated the mass media and the way the
masses have recognized their identity in the mass media. (qtd. in AvantMier 1)
The Ginger Ninjas The Pleasant Revolution Tour belongs to the many
growing local grassroots movements that have recently become
transnational actors. That grassroots movements as contemporary
manifestation of Appadurais flows have finally achieved global presence
has become visible in the worldwide media coverage of the Occupy Wall
Street/Occupy Oakland/Occupy Frankfurt protests against laissez-faire
capitalism in metropolises around the globe. While this protest movement
responds to the global crisis of money and market systems that seem to
have lost all aspects of transparency and control, others grassroots
movement with diverse social concerns but less media attention have
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When the rock fusion band Ginger Ninjas traveled from California to
Palenque, Mexico in one of their tours as part of a larger ecopolitical
project called The Pleasant Revolution Tour, the fact that they
transported all instruments and amplifiers by bike set their form of
traveling succinctly apart from exclusively elite or aesthetic notions of
touring the world, often characterized by class privilege and the ability
to travel and consume the cultures of the world. In a youtube clip the
Ginger Ninjas mockingly compare the use and costs of energy during
their global music journey by bike with the costs of the Rolling Stones
tour in 2007. While certainly getting to know Mexican people and
Mexican culture(s) is on the bands agenda as well, their major
conceptual frame is the synthesis of alternative forms of mobility with
music and audience interaction to promote new translocal communities
and networks. During their gigs in Chapala, Guadalajara, Morelia,
and other locations, they set out to connect California-style ecological
awareness with the rapidly growing Mexican movement of ciclismo in
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300
(Raussert, 08/06/2013)
The film celebrated its dbut during the Guadalajara Festival de Cine
in March 2012. Together with a camera team Sergio Morin accompanied
The Ginger Ninjas on their 2004 bicycle adventure tour from the U.S.
to Mexico to create a road and music documentary that chronicles the
journey through mapping and road scenes interspersed with camera
close-ups of the band members and film clips from various performances
on tour. What the film narrates is the intersection of private journey
and political mission frequently acoustically expressed in the song lyrics
and visually in the clips of conversations between the band members
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b.
Fandango Sin Fronteras
Another recent grassroots movement in the Americas of the New
Millennium is the Fandango Sin Fronteras Project. Communal as well
as musical in its orientation, it transports the idea of border crossings
rhythmically as well as geopolitically. The movement links musical
agents and performances in cities such as Veracruz, Los Angeles, Seattle,
and Vancouver and demonstrates a continuous presence at the U.S.Mexican border overcoming the fence literally through music and dance.
By creating new diaspora links it contributes to the makings of a
transnational civil society. What we can frequently see and hear are
people joining in a musical interaction on both sides of the fence,
celebrating a transborder communal spirit simultaneously protesting
against and mocking the attempts by U.S. border control agencies.
Fandango events at the border remind us that in the words of Martin
Munro:
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304
(Raussert, 05/13/2010)
While the link between music, market, and politics in neoliberal capitalist
society is generally undeniable, this grassroots musical movement is an
attempt to open up new venues of distributing music and ideas of
community. Fandango Sin Fronteras contains this particular element
of connecting the individual and the local with the transnational. Both,
aesthetically as well as spatially, Fandango Sin Fronteras locates itself
in the border zone between ethnic, racial, and national identities. While
the Fandango project and the musical activities of related groups such
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306
307
Conclusion
As a closer comparison of sonic cosmopolitics from above and below
shows, actor constellations are different and the selection of music and
its strategic use show differences as well. The Jazz Ambassador Program
could build on jazz musics popular standing on a global scale to turn it
into a strategic tool for spreading the U.S. American gospel of freedom
and democracy. Likewise, the musicians invited and sometimes more
than obliged by forces of the music industry to participate in the Jazz
Ambassador tours, had reached stardom long before they toured. While
many of jazz tunes presented had already hit the charts, the musicians
involvement in the tours certainly enhanced their record companies
sales. Music as cultural capital lent itself successfully to a promotion
track of U.S. American cultural achievement. A synthesis of political
impact and market success characterizes the top-down program while
tensions with respect to public relations between the jazz musicians as
artist and dissident individual spokesperson, the government officials
and the civil right mediators should not be ignored; Louis Armstrongs
critique of domestic racial policy as sharp contrast to the global gospel
of freedom being just one example. The official political mission then
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the distributors of their music using new media accesses, and the double
role of artist and public spokesperson is less conflicted since the musicians
of Fandango Sin Fronteras and The Pleasant Revolution Tour share a
self-willed political mission and rhetoric of resistance. Not only do these
grassroots open venues for composer and musicians to reach new
audiences through new channels, locally, regionally, nationally, and
transnationally, they also introduce changes of agency and power in
the production and control over culture by emphasizing the notion of
participatory culture. While their music has not hit the charts, it
cherishes a good standing in translocally-connected communities.
Movements such as the Fandango Sin Fronteras and The Pleasant
Revolution Tour represent sonic cosmopolitics from the people for the
people and are vital part of grassroots movements within the Americas
that function multidirectional and transversal, thus different from the
unilateral Jazz Ambassador approach. As the comparison reveals, global
flows move in different directions and global circuits are by no means
ideologically unified in times of globalization.
Clearly, Fandango Sin Fronteras as well as the Pleasant Revolution
Tour aim at creating transnational diaspora communities or
transnational ecological communities respectively from grassroots
agendas whereas musicians involved in The Jazz Ambassadors and
The Rhythm Road never have lost touch with U.S. cultural diplomacy
interests completely (even if the individual artists and musicians may
hold dissident views themselves). The Fandango Sin Fronteras
movement goes beyond what is considered classical resistance in colonial
and postcolonial discourse. While it feeds on the utopian spirit of the
African American sound of freedom of earlier decades, its participants
choose a distinct transnational diasporic paradigm of identity politics.
A similar utopian spirit propels the enterprises of the Ginger Ninjas
ecological politics. Still, we do not want to fall into the trap of overtly
idealizing the political power of music. Certainly, I share Josh Kuns
warning that we should not romanticize popular music as a safe-house
for revolution and resistance (17) and I also agree with him that:
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Popular music is one of our most valuable tools for understanding the impact
of nationalism and citizenship on the formation of our individual identities.
And second, it is also one of our most valuable sites for witnessing the
performance of racial and ethnic difference against the grain of national
citizenships that work to silence and erase those differences. (11)
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