Staging the Ends of the Nation in Latin American Classical Cinemas: Notes Towards an Alternative Methodology

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1 In conflating nationalism and racism I am using and echoing Julio Cortázar Cortázar, Julio. 1967. “Carta a Roberto Fernández Retamar (Sobre ‘situación del intelectual latinoamericano’)”. In Julio Cortázar: Obra crítica Edited by: Sosnowski, S. Buenos Aires, Alfaguara [Google Scholar], who in his letter to Roberto Fernández Retamar (10 May 1967) proclaims their identity, a point also made by Roger Bartra (1987 Bartra, Roger. 1987. La jaula de la melancolía: Identidad y metamorfosis del mexicano, Mexico City: Grijalbo. [Google Scholar]) and Benedict Anderson (1987), among others. 2 Throughout this essay, I will follow López's lead in putting ‘classical’ in quotation marks precisely to question its narrativization as an originary moment. 3 In this regard, it is telling that an analysis of the film is, to the best of my knowledge, all but absent from the critical corpus. 4 Bartra, 1987 Bartra, Roger. 1987. La jaula de la melancolía: Identidad y metamorfosis del mexicano, Mexico City: Grijalbo. [Google Scholar]: 230. We might wonder what Bartra has in mind here when he speaks of a ‘national culture’ and even question his usage of the term. However, I leave that discussion for future conversations, as it is somewhat beyond the scope of this essay and an important subject in it own right. 5 By separating ‘difference’ from differentiation, I do not wish to produce a redundant and ugly phrase. Nor do I wish to imply that there are ontological differences somehow hiding behind their ‘becoming’ or historical contructedness. Rather, I separate them in order to highlight that differences are not erased in the field of inter-nationalism. Do they, however, acquire a different function, as I am attempting to show. 6 Again, this is not to deny specificities to the Mexican and US ‘national’ contexts. For an interesting, and provocative, account of collaboration and continuity during the period, despite such specificities, see Julio Moreno, Yankee don't go home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920–1950 (Moreno, 2003 Moreno, Julio. 2003. Yankee Don't Go Home! Mexican Nationalism, American Business Culture, and the Shaping of Modern Mexico, 1920–1950, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. [Google Scholar]). 7 Information on Yolanda Montes can readily be found in such internet sites as imdb.com and wikipedia.com, from where I have, copiously, ‘borrowed.’ 8 It may be objected here that insofar as we are made to temporarily identify with Marcelo, a former lover of Tongolele who tries to win her back through dubious means, that the spectator is de-idealized. However, we must remember that Marcelo ultimately redeems himself when he acknowledges defeat: he is the one that can ‘objectively’ see that Carlos really does love Tongolele unconditionally, thus restoring the spectator to an (morally) authoritative position. 9 For two examples among a plethora that trace parts of this history, see Marez (2004 Marez, Curtis. 2004. Drug Wars: The Political Economy of Narcotics, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]) and Fox (1999 Fox, Claire. 1999. The Fence and the River: Culture and Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. [Google Scholar]). 10 See Chande (1997 Chande, Roberto Ham. 1997. “La migración china hacia México a través del Registro Nacional de Extranjeros”. In Destino México: Un estudio de las migraciones asiáticas a México, siglos XIX y XX, Edited by: Ota Mishima, María Elena. Mexico City: El Colegio de México. [Google Scholar]) for a statistical analysis of migratory patterns by Chinese immigrants to Mexico from the establishment of the ‘National Registry of Foreigners’ in 1926 to its functional death in 1950. 11 The crude sexual joke is justified if we think of the suggestive scenes in which the film plays with visually de-clothing Tongolele. ‘Plays’ is the exact verb because, once again, sexuality is sublimated in the production of the woman-ideal. Tongolele is and is not, of course, sexual, distant yet available. 12 I am thinking, here, for example, of the devastating consequences to the Amazonian ecology of the positivist slogan found in the Brazilian flag, ‘Ordem e Progresso,’ which has been variously used to destroy precious resources as well as to displace and eradicate existing human cultures. 13 Although we are not told what ‘sex’ the animal may be, we are told that its name means ‘witch’ [hechicera] in some ‘Sudanese dialect,’ making Mogli not only female, but also ‘African.’ 14 Not to be confused with Clara, of whom we know absolutely nothing.