Schizopolis

Abstract

The films Star Maps and El Norte reveal the real political, socioeconomic, and psychic costs of divided cities by bringing the simulated realities of mass media to their logical end, thereby sacrificing each character to the disorder of the city. In Star Maps, Carlos dreams of becoming the next major Latino star, but this dream is rendered delusional by the racist ideology of the corporate studio system. Moreover, his only shot at landing a role requires that he traffic in a fetishizing racial fantasy about Mexican men. The protagonists of El Norte aspire to the free upward mobility promised by the media-induced mythos of el norte, yet the reality they find is one of stark division and stasis: they live in the peripheral zones of the city and work in the iconic and cinematic Los Angeles. The borderizing psyche of the United States is as relentless as it is enduring: there is no fantasy, no dream, no image beyond its colonizing reach. The border is part of an “American” lived experience, but it is also part of a wide range of fantasies and ideas about U.S. national identity that destroy and divide psyches.