Glamour in the Andes: Indigenous Women in Peruvian Cinema

Abstract

This study analyzes racist cultural representations in two purportedly pro-indigenous Peruvian films directed by non-indigenous filmmakers during and after the Peruvian civil war in which 70,000 people, mostly Quechua-speakers, were killed (1980–2000). I contend that in the films Gregorio (1984, dir. Grupo Chaski) and Madeinusa (2006 , dir. Claudia Llosa), the positive image of indigenous Peruvian women as migrant subjects with agency is weakened by the dominance of a ‘foreign’ and exoticizing gaze over the marginalized ‘other.’ Even though the films of Chaski and Llosa may intend to reject the stereotyped representation of indigenous women, they nevertheless end up by reinforcing a negative image. By denying self-representation or distorting traditional Andean values, these two films participate in the recurrent media practice of cultural violence against the indigenous peoples of the Americas.