University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

¡Que naco! Border cinema and Mexican migrant audiences

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¡Que naco! Border cinema and Mexican migrant audiences

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Content ¡QUE NACO! BORDER CINEMA AND MEXICAN MIGRANT AUDIENCES by Adán Avalos A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (CRITICAL STUDIES) December 2012 Copyright 2012 Adán Avalos ii DEDICATION To my parents, whose journeys inspire my life iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the encouragement, support, and guidance from my committee. My deepest gratitude goes to Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Tara McPherson, Ellen Seiter, Akira Lippit, and Curtis Marez. Thanks to Amy Bouse, Susana Chavez-Silverman, Victoria Ruétalo, Dolores Tierney, Laura Hubner, Rosa-Linda Fregoso, Margarita Luna Robles, Noelia Saenz, Ayana McNair, Ilana Lapid, Linda M. Weller, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Gabriel Avalos, who read and commented on various sections of this dissertation. Thanks also goes to my professors, colleagues, and friends, Marsha Kinder, Priya Jaikumar, Laura Serna, Linda Overholt, Kim Green, Alicia Cornish, Veena Hariharan, Veronica Paredes, Ioana Uricaru, Jia Tan, Feng-Mei Heberer, Millie C. Byers, Marie Fisk, David James, Todd “Notorious Ph.D.” Boyd, Michael Renov, Jesse Lerner, William Whittington, Chon Noriega, Sergio de la Mora, Alex Lykidis, Jaime Nassar, and Robert “Bob” Keser, all who have contributed to my research in numerous ways. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Dedication ii Acknowledgments iii Abstract vi Introduction: Lo Naco del Naco: Breaking Down Mexican Cinema 1 Building a Tasteful Nation: Popular Cinema and Its Role 3 Gender and Sexuality: Female Attacks on Patriarchal Structures 8 The Naco in the Popular: Changing Definitions 10 Beyond Exploitation: Creating a Counterfactual World 16 Conclusion: Naco Resistance 22 Chapter One: El Cho Goes On: The Rise And Fall Of The Theater And Video 24 The Theater Falls 26 Migration and Segregation: Audience Building in the Valley 28 Culture Hub: Naco Heads to the Movies 33 Radio, Stars, and Aficionados: Vaudeville-Like Shows in the Movies 38 Theater Troubles: The Beginning of the End 42 Rise of Videohome: Distribution and Changing Viewing Practices 45 Contributing Political and Economic Factors 48 Conclusion: El Cho Does Go On 50 Chapter Two: Perpetual State Of Crisis: Popular Attraction In Mexican Cinema 52 The Film Crisis Begins to Materialize 54 The End of a Golden Age and the Birth of Naco Taste (1950 to 1976) 56 Light in the Darkness: Cine Nuevo and a New Openness 62 Back to U.S./Mexico Border: The Rise of Naco Cinema 65 The Naco in Mexican Film (1976 to 1989): La banda del carro rojo 67 Conclusion: The New Naco (1990 to the Present) 81 Chapter Three: Corridos And Male Fashion in “Popular” Mexican Cinema 86 The Mexican Corrido 88 The Northern Migration of the Corrido 91 The Border Hero, the Smuggler, the Revolution 94 A New Tradition 99 Revisiting the Periphery 103 The Narco in Mexican Male Fashion 106 The Beginning of a Change 108 The Southern Charro 110 The Northern Naco 113 Conclusion: La Mexcla (The Mix) 115 v Chapter Four: An Ethnographic Study: The “Good,” The “Bad,” The Naco, And The Audience 118 Setting the Stage: Made in Madera 120 Methods for Studying the Unruly Subject 122 The Corrido: From Heroic, to the Common, to the Movies 126 Reality of the Reel: Film as “Real” 128 Morality Tales: Empathy for the “Bad” Guys 133 Power to the Women: Agency in La banda del carro rojo? 140 The Capital of Taste: Current Nacos Have No Taste 142 Conclusion: The “Good” and the “Bad” 146 Epilogue: Different Times, Different Places: Popular Film Is Still “Real” 148 A Greater Border: Cinema Within Time and Space 150 Disrupting Nationalism 152 Unbroken Continuum: Naco Influences 155 Bibliography 158 Filmography 166 Appendix (Selected Interviews) 169 vi ABSTRACT This dissertation is an interdisciplinary study of Mexican immigrant film audiences under neoliberalism. The primary focus is on the popular Mexican films, which proliferated soon after the fall of the “Golden Age” in Mexican cinema. Often referred to as exploitation or border cinema, these Mexican films of the 1970s and 1980s frequently detailed the lives of recent Latina/o immigrants in the United States. Produced primarily for profit, not quality, these films have repeatedly been described as “naco,” or low class, for pandering, as assumed, to its audiences’ baser instincts of simpleminded pleasures and self-indulgences. In this study, I resemanticize naco cinema and challenge the conventional understanding of a marginal cinema that has been disavowed and derided by dominant critical discourse. I define this popular, entertaining, naco cinema as a transnational art form that has both stimulated identity creation and embodied the recent Latina/o diaspora in the United States; a group that is constantly transgressing established boundaries. Hence, while important in many ways, critical discourse on Mexican cinema has been limited to a kind of nationalist framework that has evaluated film in terms of positive nationalist representations or formal and aesthetic “qualities” in ways that have made it difficult to see popular cinemas that depart from or are even antagonistic toward a nationalist gaze. When defining Mexico, particularly in the context of today’s political and economic climate, it is important to examine all aspects of the cultural spectrum, not just the most palatable ones. Naco cinema provides migrants with critical resources for understanding class exploitation and state police power. 1 INTRODUCTION Lo Naco del Naco: Breaking Down Mexican Cinema Modern cinematic technology has become a weapon in the struggle for social justice …” Cine-Aztlán My childhood memories sometimes seem unsettling to other people. I remember helicopters hovering overhead as I labored in fields of fruit, spending the night in a sleeping bag in the hallway of a two-bedroom apartment shared by my 13 family members, storing all of my earthly belongings in a cajón (cardboard box), watching two of my sisters get caught by la migra (border patrol) as I hid in an orchard, sitting terrified in a moving vehicle after my cousin jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran into a field of corn. When asked, I always answer that I had a happy childhood. Movies, particularly Mexican cinema, provided a rich refuge for me and for my imagination. I vividly remember a family trip to a dilapidated movie theater in Fresno, California. For the price of admission, my parents got free or reduced-rate counsel from a paralegal in an upstairs office next to the projectionist. 1 While my parents and other illegal Mexican immigrants obtained assistance with the challenge of legalizing their status in the United States, we, children, were captivated by the film being screened—La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang (Rubén Galindo 1976) —a film about four Mexican men struggling to survive in the United States with limited financial, social, and cultural resources. As one of 1 It was Arturo Tirado, a retired accountant, who had his office next to the projection booth. Before retiring, he owned and operated teatro Azteca, the first Spanish language theater in the Central Valley. See chapter one on teatro Azteca. 2 eleven children from a Mexican family of migrant workers, I could well understand the desperation of these four characters that fought by all means necessary to attain the “American Dream.” Although my family did not turn to a life of crime, like the characters in La banda, this and other films, including La mafia de la frontera/Border Mafia (Jaime Fernández 1979) and Asalto en Tijuana/Armed Robbery in Tijuana (Alfredo Gurrola 1984), captured elements of our experiences on the Mexico/U.S. border experiences that make many other Americans uncomfortable. Looking back, I realize how meaningful it was for me to see film representations of my family’s journey on the big screen. My ten brothers and sisters and I eagerly consumed such Mexican films as Maldita Miseria/Damn Misery (Júlio Almada 1979), and Perro callejero/Street Dog (Gilberto Cazcón 1980), with actors such as Valentín Trujillo, Rosa Gloria Chagoyán, and Mario and Fernando Almada. Belonging to a genre referred to as Exploitation cinema, or Border cinema (a sub-section of Exploitation cinema), these Mexican action movies of the 1970s and 1980s often detailed the lives of recent Mexican immigrants in the United States and focused on the Mexico/U.S. border region. My family is just one example of the enormous audience for these films—an audience of recent immigrants, mostly from Mexico but also from other Latin American countries. These people have predominantly worked in the service industry as farm laborers, mechanics, maids, gardeners, and janitors—people often represented negatively in American popular cinema. 3 Building a Tasteful Nation: Popular Cinema and Its Role Historically, much critical work on Mexican cinema focused on the Golden Age (1935 – 1955), a period that reflected the emergence and development of a state- supported “national cinema” that participated in defining Mexican national identity (Mora; Noble; Paranaguá). Like most governments around the world that have sponsored national cinemas, Mexico’s government was invested in making sure that the cinema supported and disseminated its ideologies. Coming out of a revolutionary past, the government saw cinema as a way to build the nation to, as Andrew Higson wrote, “specify a coherence and a unity … to proclaim a unique identity and a stable set of meanings” (37). As a pedagogical tool, “Golden Age” Mexican cinema’s role, I argue, was also to create a social hierarchy where indigenous populations would occupy the lowest positions but could only aspire to escape those inferior positions through assimilation and education. That was a popular and recurring theme, well captured in, among other films, Río escondido/Hidden River (Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández 1947). Although those early films attracted the masses, are we to believe that the audience was passive, simply accepting what was presented on screen? Is it possible that their fascination with the technology was what brought them in and while there, is it possible that they were ascribing unintended meanings to the characters and their situations? There is no sure way for anyone to answer those questions since, historically, audiences’ thoughts and tastes were determined by high, box-office receipts and not by interviewing the audience members themselves. 4 Even recent critical approaches to the history of Mexican cinema have circumvented working-class audiences’ thoughts, focusing instead on what the academy has deemed valuable and worthy of study, the historical significance of a particular film to its country, time, or filmmaker/auteur. It comes as no surprise, then, that the dominant historiography of Mexican film elevates, that which has been sanctioned or promoted by the State, not just domestically, but internationally. Thus, the 1960s marked a clear, contrasting shift to popular forms that, in part because they were not State-sanctioned, like Golden Age films, have been criticized by critics as a cinema of mass consumption. Mexico’s elite often call popular or border cinema “naco,” a derogatory term signifying “low class,” “tasteless,” “backward,” and “primitive.” In this way, by championing a history of Mexican cinema that omits those films after the Golden Age and those from Mexico’s three other successful “new waves” (1970 – 1976, 1989 – 1994, and 1999 – 2004), Mexico’s cultural custodians have written-off a “true” national cinema that continues to thrive. Generally, national cinema is defined by the production side. The concept of national cinema is often used “prescriptively rather than descriptively,” based on what the elite consider appropriate national cinema, excluding what popular audiences are actually consuming (Higson 37). Andrew Syder and Dolores Tierney, writing on the subject of popular Mexican films, argued that “by neglecting horror, wrestling, and churro/action films on grounds of taste, critical accounts of Latin American cinema risk being guilty of precisely that, placing sole focus only on those genres they think the national cinema ought to be …” (36). In other words, by selectively excluding popular genres, critics are engaging in a “prescriptive” definition of 5 national cinema. By contrast, I agree with Andrew Higson, in that, “national cinema needs to be explored not only in relation to production, but also in relation to the questions of distribution and exhibition, audiences and consumption, within each nation- state … audiences need to be taken seriously” (42). It is crucial to look at the “popular” audiences of a particular nation: who is watching that cinema and what meanings are they deriving from their viewing? More specifically, in the case of this study, I am analyzing a kind of national cinema in “diaspora,” where migrants reproduce popular forms of Mexican nationalism in the U.S. Although national Mexican film scholarship has frowned upon popular film audiences for their viewing choices, I will open up a new discussion that will seek to reevaluate what has been written concerning popular Mexican films. Unlike early Mexican Golden Age films, where we can only speculate as to what an audience was thinking or what kinds of meanings they found in their viewing, that is not the case with popular border cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, since those films are recent history for their living audience. Some of the highly-cited criticism of popular film comes from film scholar David Maciel, who has done extensive research on Mexican cinema. Maciel has rightfully pointed out that producers of border cinema were profit motivated, “with little regard for creativity, aesthetics, or even professional standards” (29). Confirming Maciel’s assessment of border cinema is cultural critic and film scholar, Norma Iglesias, who has maintained that popular films tend “to standardize forms of representation, thus avoiding the complex cultural, social, and political realities of the border region (211- 212). While I agree with such criticisms, I am more interested in evaluating popular 6 films’ worth not from the producers’ perspectives but from critical perspectives of those who selectively chose to watch popular films. Instead of applying our nationalistic criteria to gauge the value of border representations, I argue for an evaluation of our own perceptions of what we see as “real” rather than judging the audience’s view of their “reality.” Contemporary film scholarship, thus, often remains limited by formalist and nationalist notions of value or “worth” in ways that render popular audiences invisible. In writing about Mexican popular cinema, Maricruz Castro Ricalde brought up the issue of “worthiness” —noting that most westerners reserve the word “art” for what is considered the “best” and “most worthy” (195-196). Ricalde addressed the inherent hierarchy of culture, one in which exploitation films occupy a low position. In her discussion of Maria Elena Velasco’s (La India Maria) films 2 , which she used as a case study of exploitation films of the 1970s and 1980s, she noted the manner in which public taste takes a back seat to media reception; it is the critics, she argued, who have determined a film’s aesthetic “worthiness,” not the box office records (196-197). Exploitation films, she argued, have been equally disdained by the privileged classes and the academic elite, who have constructed their own “mediating imagery,” which have excluded the popular class (Ricalde 210). Ricalde’s concerns have shared a point of contact with Higson’s work on national cinemas as I discussed above. It is, thus, a serious mistake for critics to lose sight 2 Originally developed for television in the early 70s, María Elena Velasco’s character quickly became a sensation and the subject of more than twenty films. Some of her film titles are Tonta, tonta pero no tanto/Dumb, dumb but not that dumb, 1972; El coyote emplumado/The Plumed Coyote, 1983; Ni de aquí, ni de allá/Neither from Here nor from There, 1988. The character is portrayed as a typical southwestern Mexican Indian who dresses in traditional costume consisting of ribbons on her braided hair and colorful native blouse and skirt. Her films are socially conscious, slapstick comedies about a woman out of her element. 7 of the popular audience, and to misread the importance of popular genres, such as exploitation cinema. This study of border cinema audiences suggests that they find great artistic, cultural, and social value in such films, and that they have supported border residents’ critical engagement with their reality. 3 While different in certain ways, the critical reception of the current New Wave Mexican films recalls the earlier Golden Age context, where films were celebrated in nationalist terms. Hence, while important in many ways, critical discourse on Mexican cinema has been limited to a kind of nationalist framework that evaluates film in terms of positive nationalist representations or formal and aesthetic “quality” in ways that make it harder to see popular cinemas that depart from or are even antagonistic to a nationalist gaze. The kinds of questions that we should be asking need to depart from a nationalist approach to what I would call a theoretical socialist one, where values of film production, distribution, and audience reception are determined, regulated, and evaluated by the community. Which is to say that foregrounding the critical perspectives of popular films from below, where the audience exists, rather than institutional norms or box-office returns, will break the chains of nationalist views that are dictated by a few. Previewing part of my argument in chapter three is that reading current Mexican popular films from below suggests that national control of culture is slowly eroding since the diasporic Mexican audience is shifting the national imagery northward. 3 In my experience, these border films spoke to me and to my brothers and sisters. Instead of “stifling” us, they engaged us because they conveyed our experiences and concerns as a working-class migrant family dealing with issues of displacement in a foreign country. Unlike other films available for our consumption, they told stories from the perspective of people we could relate to—the undocumented, the marginalized, and the disenfranchised. 8 Gender and Sexuality: Female Attacks on Patriarchal Structures Critics writing on the subject of women in popular films (e.g., Mora; Maciel; de la Vega Alfaro; Iglesias) have argued that female characters normally take on insignificant, polarized roles, of either the suffering mother/virgin in need of patriarchal protection, or the tragic victim whore who can only be redeemed through marriage or death. While most popular films do not stray far from easily digestible binaries, especially when it comes to female characters, there are a number of films that have departed from those norms in significant ways. One of those notable female characters is the famous Camelia “La Tejana,” who is presented as just as tough, cruel, and heroic as her male counterparts. However, as I will show in the qualitative ethnography found in chapter four, both female and male audience members ascribe more complex-gendered meanings into the female characters than suggested by the dismissive readings of critics. In other words, while both male and female film characters are limited by poorly written scripts that tend to reduce them to simple dichotomies of good and evil, it has not prevented the audience from gleaning subtle, sometimes unintended alternative meanings. Even when characters are reduced to easily digestible beings, they still resonate with migrant experiences of displacement and exploitation, both in Mexico and in the United States. While the young Mexican film auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky’s two great 1972 high art film releases, Fando y Lis and La montaña sagrada/Holy Mountain were gaining critical acclaim and becoming international cult films, back home it was Mexico’s notorious sex symbol, Isela Vega’s lowbrow lesbian/horror, fichera/prostitute films like El festín de la loba/The She Wolf’s Orgy (Francisco del Villar 1972) that were causing a 9 domestic sensation, making her films highly profitable, box-office successes. By the 1970s, fichera films with Isela Vega, Lyn May, Ana Luisa Peluffo, Sasha Montenegro, Irma Serrano, and Carmen Salinas, were among some of the most popular films, attracting male and female audiences alike. Simply disregarded by Mexico’s glitterati who have long championed Mexico’s cine de calidad (quality cinema), fichera films were seen as sexually exploitative, vulgar, tasteless, and simply appealing to their audiences’ primal senses. Similar to other popular film genres, fichera films are said to possess no cultural value other than of fulfilling heterosexual visual pleasure, rendering women depicted in those films as passive, disgraceful, or tragic victims who are acted upon and rarely, if ever, have any agency. For these reasons, however, such films created opportunities for dialogue in which gender, sexuality, and issues of equality were pushed to the forefront in ways that eluded cine de calidad. Much like the breakdown of the Mexican film aesthetic that, according to Charles Ramírez Berg (32) mirrored the breakdown of the film industry, I argue that the fichera films of the 1970s, and later the sexycomedia (sex comedies) of the 1980s, mediated the breakdown of patriarchal structures and the failure of the State as the protector/provider. With the absence of men, who would continue to migrate north 4 , and a failed State unable to perform, women had to take on further responsibilities, which would ultimately earn them greater visibility, freedom, and importance, not just in the home but out in the public sphere. Popular cinema would respond to the times by increasingly focusing on 4 Due to Mexico’s economic crisis and U.S. need for cheap labor, Mexican men were recruited by the thousands migrating north and leaving behind women to take on further responsibilities previously performed, primarily by men (Hondagneu-Sotelo 62). 10 issues relating to the absence/impotence of men and state power. As Sergio de la Mora has argued, fichera films were read by their audiences as challenging “social taboos, prejudices, sexist double standards, and oppressive Catholic morals regarding women, the body, sexual expression, and freedom of speech” (245). It is not surprising, then, that films with strong female protagonists would come out during this period. Also “coming out” during this period were films with central queer and transgender characters. Fichera films, like most popular films, targeted the male spectator, but they were also viewed by female and queer audiences who could have ascribed multiple, unintended meanings to the male and female characters. The Naco in the Popular: Changing Definitions In this study, I revisit the controversial term naco and use it to theorize the genre of border cinema, specifically films produced in 1976 and continuing to 1989. The term naco was originally used as a slur against Indians, peasants, or anyone who stood for provincial backwardness and who could be redeemed only through an international culture (Lomnitz 111). Knowing very well what it means to be a naco and not wanting to be associated with anything that is naco, most audiences of popular cinema are initially hesitant to admit to an outsider that they watch those films. Most would rather talk about the “good films” that they watch, like those from the Golden Age, as if they, too, want to be associated with dominant Mexican nationalist models of good taste. The desire to be associated with good taste emerges from a long colonial history, where European powers rewarded those who adapted to new ways while chastising those who were slow or 11 refused to change. In keeping with such colonial histories, popular audiences acknowledge dominant models of good taste more broadly, but amongst themselves they identify as naco fans, while stripping the term of its negative connotations. Following their lead, in this, I resemanticize naco and challenge the conventional understanding of a marginal cinema that is disavowed and derided by dominant critical discourse. 5 I begin to define naco cinema as a transnational cinema that both embodies and creates the identity of recent Mexican and Latin American diaspora in the United States, a group that is constantly transgressing established boundaries. The bulk of my analysis will concentrate on the naco films from the second stage (1979 – 1989) or, as I refer to it, the “Golden Age” of naco cinema, because those were the films that saw the genre solidify—a genre that began some years earlier and is still going strong today. Chapter two, will detail all three stages, so my interest here is to provide an overview of the history and typical structure of naco films. The genre is partly a product of the political/economic context of the Mexican film industry and the nation. Since the Mexican film industry is financially dependent on the government, during prosperous times most projects that were green-lighted were assured full funding, but during economic downturns, even those productions that had government support suffered as industry budgets were slashed. During the economic downturns of the 1950s and 1970s, private producers would take up some of the State’s slack, but as Carlos Monsiváis pointed out, private producers were “convinced that film is the art of the 5 In doing so, I hope to echo the reappropriation of a word once used to express disapproval. There is a long history of this: the term impressionism, first coined in 1874, expressed the critics’ disfavor with the emerging painting style; ‘impression- ism’ first denounced the short attention span of the painters, who are now among the most beloved in art history. Once a term of derision, impression- ism now conjures up the most popular and well-known movement in art of the nineteenth century. 12 immediate return of investments” (77), so producers would reduce budgets even further so as to ensure higher rates for their investments. At first, even with all the financial shortfalls, film producers seemed to have found a magic formula, since films continued to be popular attractions and box-office successes. Causing further problems were higher production costs and across-the-board salary increases for industry workers in 1969, so “as salaries went up, film schedules were trimmed to the bone” (Ramírez Berg 37). Adding to that was a Mexican film industry that, in trying to keep up by imitating Hollywood, would always put itself in perpetual inferiority, “always trailing behind, always trying to catch up” (Ramírez Berg 38). With the Mexican film industry already in so much turmoil and Hollywood reasserting its dominance in the Mexican film market, Mexico’s film industry had little chance to stay on its feet and land on its knees, where it has worked from ever since. The late 1960s and early 1970s were not particularly good years for Mexican cinema or for Mexicans themselves. Hundreds of protestors died or “disappeared” in Tlatelolco on October 2nd 1968 at the hands of the army, led by Luis Echeverría Alvarez, who would later become Mexico’s president in 1972 and cinema’s new crusader. In this period two distinct cinemas would flourish: a cinema de calidad (quality cinema) that was internationally praised and loved, and a naco cinema of the masses, disdained by some but watched by almost all. The naco cinema that proliferated in the 1970s was produced with quantity, not quality in mind. As a film genre, naco cinema encompasses many sub-genres: action, western, comedy, melodrama, brothel (Cabaretera), horror, science fiction, wrestling, and border cinema (fronterizo). With their low-budgets 13 (originally shot on 35mm and then 16mm to save on costs), naco cinema had the appearance of being shot a la brava (hastily and on the run) in an aesthetic that matched the times. Common to naco films are their thin, simplistic storylines, built around sensationalist topical stories “ripped out of the headlines” involving drugs, prostitution, kidnapping, vengeance, murder, state corruption, migration, illegal border crossings, rebellious teens, sexuality, and overcrowded urban family life. Perro callejero/Street Dog (Gilberto Cazcón 1980), for example, combines many of the above storylines with documentary footage of the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre. While most of the films have male-centered narratives, there are those that revolve around tough women with big guns and big cars, or women who must carry on without men. A film series with a tough woman is Lola la trailera/Lola the Truck Driver (Raúl Fernández 1983), a twentieth- century soldadera, who, along with her male sidekick, fights injustice along the Mexico/U.S. border. Being formulaic makes sense: if it works once, as with the success of La banda del carro rojo, then why not make a few sequels like La muerte del soplón/Death of the Snitch (Rubén Galindo 1977) and El regreso del carro rojo/The Return of the Red Car (Fernando Durán 1985). In La muerte del soplón, the character Pedro, from La banda del carro rojo, actually survives the shoot-out in the climactic ending and in this sequel he takes vengeance on the traitor and those behind him. In the third installment of the trilogy, El regreso de la banda del carro rojo, it is revealed that before his death, Lino Quintana, from La banda del carro rojo, hid a large quantity of cocaine and now his 14 brother Pablo decides to find the contraband and the red car so that he can collect the one million dollars from the dealers (Wilt 579). While formulaic, profit motivated, private, and/or State produced, these films and their stars are part of Mexico’s unofficial history and its naco national cinema. One thing that the Mexican-American filmmaker Rodriguez (El Mariachi 1991) learned the hard way as he tried, unsuccessfully, to sell his film to a Latino distributor in Los Angeles, was that although naco films are of low quality and feature mostly unprofessional actors, to successfully sell a film it must include a naco star, even if only in a small role. Naco cinema does have a star system where movie stars like Mario Almada, Pedro Infante Jr., and Maribel Guardia can guarantee box-office success. Many actors in naco films become huge stars and are loved by their audiences who will watch any film in which they appear. Among other things, these actors are trend setters in their norteño outfits consisting of boots, form-fitting jeans, ostrich leather belts, silk embroidered shirts, top notch Stetson sombreros, horse shoe rings with matching gold nugget bracelets, and 20-inch gold chains with a Black Hills gold Malverdé 6 pendant. Other than the star, music is the most important element of a naco film. Films are commonly used as platforms for unknown performers who might become the next big star. Many of today’s top performers, such as Juan Gabriel and Los Tigres del Norte, became international megastars by participating in naco films, either as actors or musicians. It is common practice to have naco stars who are also active musicians perform their popular songs at various points throughout the films. Some of the most 6 Jesus Malverdé is a very popular narco patron saint. 15 successful films feature popular corridos (folk ballads) with added sound effects to create more suspense. Canned music, much like in Blaxploitation films, can be heard in- between the corridos and during many tense moments of the films. Formally, contemporary naco films are not much different than those of 30 years ago, even though today they completely bypass theatrical release and instead go straight to DVD. By examining naco films, we may observe the evolution of the aesthetic by the celebrated Mexican directors of today and the faithful international audience. Here I argue for a broader understanding of Mexican film history by examining the continuity or “circular flow” in cinematic conventions and practices between naco cinema and contemporary Mexican films that have critically received a well-deserved international attention. I make connections between some of the art films by Mexican and Mexican- American auteurs, such as Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu (Amores Perros 2000), Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu Mamá También 2001), Robert Rodíguez (El Mariachi 1991), and Luis Estrada (El Infierno/Hell 2010) and naco films by Rubén Galindo (La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang 1976), Gilberto Cazcón (Perro callejero/Street Dog 1980), and Alfredo Gurrola (La fuga del rojo/The Escape of Rojo 1982). I argue that art films are on a continuum with naco cinema but with higher production values. Art films also traditionally attract a more business-savvy production team that is well versed with the naco genre, that may even participate in both, and that freely and unapologetically steals from it. Film auteurs such as the above named, and many others, appropriate a popular genre and translate it for the appreciation of a more privileged international audience—an elite appropriation of the popular that reinscribes exploitation and hierarchy. 16 Beyond Exploitation: Creating a Counterfactual World Chapter one focuses primarily on Mexican film distribution and exhibition practices in the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, which saw the rise and fall of most, if not all, of the film theaters and distribution companies in California’s Central Valley and elsewhere. I argue that what happened in the Central Valley can be read as a microcosm of what happened in other cities across the United States which have a large Latino population which frequently patronized and visited film theaters. California’s Central Valley was an important social and cultural hub for migrants who came for temporary work in its vast agricultural lands but eventually settled and opened up new spaces for entertainment. Through interviews of those who owned or managed distribution companies and Mexican movie theaters in the Central Valley, I bring to light distribution and exhibition practices that sold hundreds of movie titles and attracted hundreds of people to its movie palaces, filling theater seats for naco films. In piecing together a local history, I show how Fresno became a capital of migrant cinematic culture. In this introduction I address the causes for the success and failure of those once very active and profitable businesses. What were the business practices that attracted such huge audiences to the theaters of naco films? What were the conditions, circumstances, and trade practices that saw the rise and fall of a few but very significant distribution companies? What happened to the companies and theaters that saw their profits and audiences slip from their hands by the late 1980s and why did all of the very lucrative theaters close their doors around the same period? To answer these questions I 17 take a more historical approach and reconstruct a brief history of el Crest, teatro Mexico, and teatro Azteca, the theaters that catered to a mainly Mexican migrant audience. 7 By reading the Central Valley, but more specifically Fresno and its downtown theaters as important spaces where Mexican migrants gathered and dreamed with the stars in the many theaters that opened up to meet their needs, much can be gleaned. Naco film theaters played an important role not just in providing the audience a cheap form of entertainment, but a weekly educational social space that fostered dialogue, exposed injustice, and prompted social change. Movie going, thus, became integrated into everyday life in ways that provided resources for migrants to think critically about their social realities, and, in particular, about the nature of State and capitalist power. Addressing this recent migrant past of the United States and of Mexico’s diasporic community will offer a counter reading of official State histories that have, for too long, made invisible the visible. In chapter two, I present the history of naco cinema, starting with what I will classify as the first stage (from the Golden Era to 1976), which saw the emergence of “naco taste” in Mexican film, followed by the second stage (1976 – 1989), which consolidated and solidified the genre, and concluding with the third stage (1990 – 2010), which saw the genre transform in notable ways. By looking at these films as important cultural transcripts, we can see how they were affected by the policies of Mexico and the United States throughout each of the three stages I identify. I argue that these films 7 Throughout the chapter I will use the term “Mexican” when referring to migrants, understanding very well that migrants from various Latin American countries also made the journey into the United States. However, historically, Mexicans have represented the largest group entering the U.S. during the various mass migrations. 18 continue to represent the political, economic, and industrial conditions of an oppressive daily life not only in Mexico and in the border region, but also deep into the U.S. By situating naco film in relationship to a volatile history on both sides of the border, I argue that they encapsulate a rich history where politics, economics, industrial practices, and all aspects of social life shaped, molded, and brought about a new kind of film more representative of Mexican migrant life for popular audiences. Classic naco films, such as La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang, are the films that the migrant audience, weekend after weekend, would pay to see because they were considered a “true” cinema of lived reality. As a case study that will support my argument, I present a close textual analysis of La banda del carro rojo and its four principal characters, demonstrating that it exposes often invisible forms of migrant exploitation. Naco films, as chapter two will show, resonates with migrant experiences of police powers that serve as agents of population control. Cinematic interactions with the police sometimes foreground migrants’ subjectivities in the face of displacement. Adding to that argument, naco films recurrently foreshadow its audience’s justified preoccupation with unjust or unwarranted State interference in their public and private lives. The characters in La banda, and other action films like it, resist forms of state power that protect wealth and privilege at the expense of Mexican migrants. Just as audiences take vicarious pleasure in resistance to state power by naco heroes, they also take pleasure in violating nationalist standards of taste. This film and its characters thus attest to the reach and power of naco cinema to make visible a critical vision of state power from below. 19 In this chapter I argue that many acculturated Latino immigrants often elevate naco films above mainstream American and Mexican films because they deliberately offend middle and upper-class appropriate cultural values and rigid norms of aesthetic taste. Naco films producers might not be interested or invested in creating lasting artistic polemics or deep philosophical thoughts, nor making films that will garner national or international film awards. But that should not matter because time and time again, as history has shown, low-budget, cheap naco films have triumphed over some of the best, big-budget Mexican film productions. By deliberately patronizing “low” culture, audiences chip away at the dominance of the mainstream. By watching the latest naco film on DVD, audience members take a small amount of money and fame from big-name directors and the Hollywood circus. Immigrant film consumers thus seem to take delight, conscious or unconscious, in the fact that they are not funding “high” art when they watch naco films; they enjoy participating in the “low” end of nationalist hierarchies of film taste. While most members of naco film audience, might not be able to clearly articulate their vast knowledge of Mexican cinema, they can, in fact, indicate through their viewing habits and fashion choices, strong links among film, music, and fashion. Naco cinema connects film, music, and fashion, since the visibility of popular musicians in films makes them fashion trendsetters. In chapter three, I trace the history and development of the heroic northern corrido to the narcocorrido and the trajectory of charro fashion, to northern naco attire. Both charro and naco have been used in derogatory ways that, I argue, share many characteristics. 20 The Mexican corrido of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as discussed by the great Américo Paredes, was not only a popular form of entertainment but it also functioned as an audible record of the history of Mexicans in Mexico and in the United States. Here I extend Paredes’ claims about the corrido to naco films which, I argue, may serve a similar function, but in an audio-visual medium. Studying the history of the corrido will render a better picture of the origins to many of the early national films, as well as the naco films that use songs as the basis for their narrative structure. No other musical group is historically as important to the mass popularity of the corrido and the naco films than Los Tigres del Norte/The Tigers of the North, since it is their music and attire that have become the most recognizable costume and soundtrack of the Mexican diaspora. Naco films foreground fashion as a kind of practical visual record of a Mexican diasporic history. Keeping the origins of the corrido in mind, while revisiting the history of the Spanish Conquistador’s contact with the New World indio, which pitted the outsider’s trouser against the practical loincloth, will reveal a documented past but add distinguishing links between corridos, twentieth century Mexican male fashion, and film. Contemporary Mexican male attire, not thought of as having a violent history, covers up a turbulent beginning where, shortly after the destruction of Tenochtitlán, in 1521, by the Spanish Conquistador and in the name of “nation building,” native clothing fashions became a battleground, initially lost by the indio, but as I will argue, eventually won. Originally, Spanish fashion was forced on the natives but they resisted by appropriating the foreign charro attire, transforming and creating what is now considered the epitome 21 of an authentic Mexicano. The colonial and post-colonial history of the corrido and the charro partly explains the popularity of Mexico’s national film icon actor Pedro Infante and later the naco films of the 1970s, especially La banda del carro rojo, a film that firmly established a well-defined model for male fashion and a new formula for naco films that would soon follow. Inspired by and in paying homage to the cinema audience of migrant women and men in California’s Central Valley, whose stories have scarcely ever been recorded, I introduce, in chapter four, a qualitative ethnography conducted in my hometown of Madera, California. I presented the classic naco film La banda del carro rojo to the participants and then asked a series of questions about their reception of the film and other films like it, centering most of the study around the relationship between the audience and the film’s four main characters. On this basis I conclude that audiences find films such as La banda del carro rojo meaningful because they foreground migrant issues of displacement and vulnerability to police power, critical elements of the migrant worldview encoded in the naco films. Moreover, since all the participants were well familiar with the film, having seen it numerous times throughout the years, revisiting the characters from a contemporary vantage point added layers of possible readings for each of the responders. Focusing on an avid film-consuming audience composed of male and female migrant workers, who from the 1970s to the present day have never stopped loving naco cinema, thus provides a critical historical view of social class struggle from below. 22 Conclusion: Naco Resistance Overall, this study brings into question the oppressive reach and limits of neocolonial models of nationalist tastes and, more broadly, the national frameworks in which these films are (mis)understood by critics who abstract them from their social polemics. As Ricalde and others have done in their work, I hope to contribute to the agenda of cultural studies to democratize the study of culture by revaluing the “low genre” of naco cinema. Even at a basic level, the very fact that these films are so wildly popular with recent Mexican and Latino immigrant audiences, the fastest growing demographic in the United States, suggests that it is worthwhile to undertake an investigation into the genre. 8 Studying these films can give us a means to access the histories, dreams, and realities of the audiences that consume and find meaning in them. Much like corridos, as Herrera-Sobek has argued, these films “will yield valuable information as to the ideology, world view, political, economic, and social situation of the Mexican people” (49). By exploring the ways in which these films represent immigrant stories and the Mexico/U.S. border region, we can gain a more complete picture of the audience’s experience as new immigrants in the U.S. Furthermore, we can learn about the ways in which naco cinema speaks to migrant communities’ “… struggle for social justice …” (Cine-Aztlán 275). 8 Another aspect to consider about exploitation films is the fact that when there are only a few production people to please, the director enjoys a great deal more freedom in artistic choices. As Jeffrey Sconce points out, in his well-read essay on cinematic tastes, Hollywood films require endless meetings with lawyers, accountants, and corporate boards, while low-budget films may become wildly eccentric, even presenting unpopular and politically incorrect views (1995: 381–382). The filmmakers may also approach current and unusual subject matter: the taboos that scare Hollywood away from unpopular and radical views do not hold the same power over producers who do not expect to see their films reviewed in national newspapers and academic journals. 23 When defining Mexico, particularly in the context of today’s political and economic climate, it is important to examine all aspects of the cultural spectrum, and not simply concentrate on the most palatable ones. Naco cinema addresses the unpleasant realities of many immigrants living on low wages outside their home countries. They played and continue to play a vital role in unifying a displaced group of people who share common interests, hardships, and experiences. The literary scholar Ramón Saldívar writes that, “The nineteenth and twentieth-century corridos served the symbolic function of empirical events (functioning as a substitute for history writing) and of creating counterfactual worlds of lived experience (functioning as a substitute for fiction writing)” (40). Similarly, naco films also combine “the symbolic function of empirical events” and “counterfactual worlds of lived experience.” Just as significant an argument is that naco films also open a space where an audience can create a counterfactual world, counter to the dominant “factual” narrative, which has historically excluded them. 24 CHAPTER ONE EL CHO GOES ON: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE THEATER AND VIDEO Warnors and Hardy’s, two of the four California Central Valley downtown movie theaters, closed their doors simultaneously in January 1970, but with the rise of the naco flick, both would reopen before the end of the decade. Such episodes were not unique to Fresno’s theaters, since similar events occurred throughout the Southwest. With their baroque or Mayan deco facades and their ornate, colorful neon marquees that illuminated the night skies, movie palaces were the city’s enticing crown jewels. While screening Hollywood’s best, those architectural marvels enticed an audience who, week after week, filled hundreds of seats. Prior to 1960, downtowns were bustling with affluent locals who wined and dined in the finest establishments before catching the latest picture at any one of the local movie palaces. Although theater lights had already begun diming in the years following World War II, moviegoing, already a well-established American pastime, would soon fall into trouble. As Americans abandoned the theaters a new group of migrants, whose population had been growing, began taking over those once glorious spaces, revitalizing Fresno’s downtown. To better understand what happened in the Valley, this chapter will gather the “grains of sand,” where every small, detailed piece of local history will add up, providing us with a most informed picture of a diasporic community’s attraction to a cinema whose history has, for too long, been written and theorized by those at the top. In achieving that 25 objective, I will present a historical account of the Central Valley and its theaters through unconventional sources that will introduce us to the fading experiences of migrant life. Looking at the Central Valley as a microcosm of the Southwest, we can draw general but well-informed conclusions about how Mexicans were instrumental in the rise and fall of downtown theaters. We can also begin to address questions like, what were the business practices of the theater owners that guaranteed full houses week after week? How did local governments affect naco film? What role did producers play in the rise and fall of the naco film? What role did vaudeville-like shows have with the theaters? How did home video play out with the audience and the movie theater? What were the business practices of video distributers? How did television affect the naco film industry? How has DVD and the rise of the Internet changed naco film viewing habits? What impact did other social, political and economic factors have on the theaters, the films, and the audience? To answer these questions I relied on oral histories of migrants who settled in the Central Valley during the 1970s and were the original audience members who remember well standing outside the theaters in long lines waiting to see the stars. I will also use data collected from extensive personal interviews of the people who owned or managed a Central Valley theater. Adding to the oral histories are data collected from interviews of four video distributors and a Spanish television anchorman who was part of the Valley community while reporting on its ups and downs. In effect, by drawing out the implications of the cultural history in the Valley, I argue that a counter historical narrative was created, one that challenges and reinterprets official histories from below. 26 The Theater Falls The American downtown theater, up until the second Great War, was the primary site of exhibition for spectator amusements, but public events soon relocated to the private space of the home (Spigel 1). The main culprit for the downfall of the theater was television, which became almost ubiquitous in the United States after the 1950s. Another serious loss to downtown theaters was the exodus of affluent white Americans away from urban centers and into the suburbs, a relocation facilitated by the economic growth after the war. Seeing the outside city centers as having greater potential for tax revenues, city officials shifted financial resources to the suburbs where new businesses were growing. In supporting that statement, Davis argued in City of Quartz, that California experienced forms of “deindustrialization” as state and federal governments disinvested in urban centers to give tax breaks and subsidies to corporations (1992). Building on such claims but localizing them in Fresno, I argue that the downturn had contradictory consequences since it also opened up possibilities for new Mexican immigrant social spaces. With so many disastrous changes occurring simultaneously, many theaters already in financial trouble would essentially have their futures sealed with the 1970s’ stagflation and the eventual introduction and popularity of the VHS before the decade’s end. In an attempt to lure audiences, theater owners tried different tactics, like showing more risqué films, foreign or art-house movies, and midnight screenings of cult-classics. While such strategies did bring more people in, their overall numbers continued to diminish. Many theaters even began screening foreign films that catered to the new ethnic groups, whose population was continuing to grow. In the Southwest, and in particular, 27 California where there was a booming Mexican population, theater owners began allocating screen time to Golden Age Mexican films, filling time slots that were traditionally slow, while keeping Hollywood films during primetimes (Navarro). Having some Mexican programming did help, but in the end, all of those changes only postponed the inevitable and most theaters went bankrupt by the early 1970s. With the growing Mexican population concentrated in large numbers around Southern California and the Central Valley, entrepreneurs having a keen foresight saw a burgeoning “Hispanic market” as a great business opportunity. By the mid-1970s, Latino businesses began opening, concentrating in downtown areas where affordable, vacant commercial buildings were plentiful. Still existing or struggling movie palaces were also leased by entertainment promoters and began screening popular Mexican films to full houses of migrant audiences. The mid-1970s, thus, ushered in a new “golden age” for the downtown movie theater where new audiences, with dollars in hand, satisfied their hunger with popular Mexican films. Having introduced naco cinema into the U.S. market was a significant historical event that not only pushed the popularity of the genre to explosive heights but revitalized downtowns, opening up new Mexican spaces where, I argue throughout this study, an unintended collective was formed, fostering dialogue and educating its audience, all while entertaining them. The Central Valley’s migrant peoples’ viewing habits and business practices had a major economic and social impact that reverberated throughout the Southwest and into Mexico. The collective viewing habits of Central Valley Mexicans not only advanced the popularity of the naco film outside of Mexico but they 28 began to shape and inform a northern national imagery, on which I elaborate in chapter three. This counter reading of a local history, through a diasporic community, will place the Central Valley as formative cultural hub. Migration and Segregation: Audience Building in the Valley The Central Valley, or as most people call it “the Valley,” is one of the richest agricultural producing regions in the world and it is also home to one of the largest Mexican populations in the United States. Ever since the creation of the Mexican state, Mexicans have been living in the Valley and in other places throughout California. Although there have always been a steady stream of migrants into the Valley, by the early 1900s Mexican migration began to drastically increase because of the changing economic and political situations in Mexico and the United States. With the expansion of the railroads and the rapid growth of highly specialized irrigation agriculture, by the turn of the century much of the Southwest, and California in particular, were in need of a cheap, reliable, and massive workforce (Gutiérrez 41-43). Prior to this huge need labor, the U.S. relied primarily on an Asian migration, but by the late 1880s there was a growing, anti- Chinese movement in America. The U.S. Congress, with overwhelming grassroots support, passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, and then in 1907, the U.S. would make a “Gentlemen’s Agreement” with Japan, two acts that would negatively affect Asian migration into the United States. With an increased need for workers, growers would soon find a new source of cheap labor in the many Mexicans escaping the political instability of their native country (Buckley and Littmann 3). 29 Historically, the U.S. has always enjoyed a circular flow of temporary Mexican workers, with little concern for permanent settlement since once the work season ended migrants made the trek back home to join their families. With farm expansions and production efficiencies, established labor practices changed and growers were now in need of both a more ample and year-round workforce. Although Mexican labor was desired, issues of permanent, migrant settlement were raised, as the U.S did not want them as citizens. To address those issues, the U.S. government enacted “bracero programs,” which recruited only men for a temporary labor supply, and although employers did not have complete control over the movement of labor, eventually migratory patterns were established based on employer’s needs (Hondagneu-Sotelo 20). The U.S. need for Mexican labor could not have come at a better time, as Porfirio Díaz’s regime was forcing thousands of peasants off their land, creating internal migration as well as migration and settlement into the United States (Gutiérrez 44-45). Soon the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to1920, and further internal rebellion in Mexico after the Revolution, would stimulate additional migration into el norte. The coming of World War I would only accelerate and grow the demand for more labor from the south. Over time, migrant settlement grew and by 1920 the Mexican-born population residing in the United States had more than doubled, to at least 478,000 individuals (Gutiérrez 45). Larger cities like El Paso, San Antonio, and Los Angeles became important destination points for countless migrating Mexican families, as those areas not only served as good places to settle, but as labor-distribution centers where families would be recruited for rural work (Hondagneu-Sotelo 21). For those Mexican migrants seeking agricultural 30 work, a short trip to the Valley and to Fresno, an important migrant labor hub, was a sure bet. Once in Fresno, some migrants found work in the city and moved into the Westside, near downtown, where the barrios were located, while others found work in any of the numerous farming towns surrounding the city. It was estimated that by the 1930s Mexican migrants represented about 56 percent of the agricultural workforce in the Central Valley (Starr 65). The Valley, as well as the rest of the Southwest, would continue to experience a rapid population growth up until the Great Depression. Seen as scapegoats for the economic troubles in the United States, hundreds of thousands undocumented and documented Mexicans and their families were deported to Mexico. With the beginning of World War II, Mexican migration would once again pick up as the U.S. government introduced the Bracero Program. Set up to meet wartime needs in agriculture, it is estimated that the program contracted about 5 million temporary male workers between 1942 through 1964, but millions more entered the U.S. without contracts (Hondagneu-Sotelo 22-23). As migrants, with or without legal status, moved around following the work seasons, migratory patterns developed and networks of extended communities were forged throughout the United States, thus stimulating further migration. For migrants looking agricultural work, the Valley was an attractive stop since migrant farm labor was needed year round. As continuous employment emerged, migrant men eventually settled permanently and established roots near their jobs. Having secured steady work, men were soon joined by their families, providing employers access to a flexible and instant workforce. With the increase of Mexican migrant families making the 31 Valley their home during the 1950s through the 1970s, traditionally Anglo farming towns like Sanger, Fowler, Orange Cove, Parlier, Dinuba, Madera, Firebaugh, and countless other small towns surrounding Fresno seemed to transform into little Mexican towns overnight. Always longing to return to a Mexico left behind, but accepting that the United States would be their new home—where their children would grow up, attend school, learn a different language, and have opportunities that they never had—many families began the long, laborious process of legalizing their status. For the men who originally came as braceros or could prove years of steady employment, obtaining legal residency for themselves and their family eventually happened. Documented or not, it was common for Mexican migrant families to move into neighborhoods where there was an existing Mexican population. Living near other Mexicans created a sense of community for the residents, but the likelihood of those neighborhoods being located in historically impoverished, racially segregated parts of town was almost always a guarantee. Segregated communities had existed long before Mexican migrants arrived, so it was not just by choice or chance that the new arrivals ended up there, since forced legal racial segregation was how African-American ghettos and Mexican barrios were created. No matter their location, migrants accepted the realities of survival and new Mexican barrios sprang up, joining previous immigrants in ethnic neighborhoods. Although usually in poorer locations, barrios played an important role in migrant’s lives, as they were places where traditional values and customs would flourish, securing Mexican culture for future generations. Barrios also provided a support system, where Spanish was spoken; a sense 32 of home, safety, and familiarity was felt; and traditional religious practices could occur. With the increasing numbers of Mexican migrants moving into newly developed or long established barrios, cultural and social activities that united communities and solidified family ties became part of daily life. Churches, parks, shopping centers, restaurants, grocery stores, and many more businesses, all catering to the new migrants, opened up. Many times, these new businesses would move into neglected, empty downtown buildings, revitalizing old commerce centers that were once bustling with residents that had moved on. As English signs went down, Spanish ones went up and migrants began to visit those familiar places, while finding few reasons to venture into sections of towns where they were unwelcome or felt out of place. Laboring for long hours under the hot, baking California sun, day after day, individuals and families finally had a place they could look forward to going to on evenings or weekends, where they could relax and enjoy the good times. With passing time, almost all aspects of cultural life began revolving around downtown Latino centers, which continued to expand. Nowhere is the above-mentioned history more evident than in Fresno, California. Incorporated in 1885, Fresno and its downtown area had always hosted successive waves of immigrants and minority settlers, as it had relatively low cost housing—caused in-part by discriminatory housing practices and plentiful agricultural employment opportunities (Cytron 27). But its predominantly affluent Anglo population had virtually abandoned the downtown area by the end of the 1970s, leaving it to the new Mexican migrants. In 1977, the city of Fresno commissioned a study of west Fresno, which encompasses downtown. A warning was given to the city planners that out-migration of the middle class, already a 33 trend, if “allowed to continue, will eventually transform an ethnic community into a low- income ghetto” (Edison Plan 17). Already culturally segregated, west Fresno was becoming economically segregated as well. Originally devastated by the bisecting effect of Highway 99 in the 1950s, west Fresno’s problems worsened as businesses folded. While detrimental to the working poor, the highway provided easy access to northeast Fresno, where, after World War II, the suburbs and economic opportunities were flourishing. Area residents enjoyed a thriving economy that was able to sustain a culturally-diverse downtown, but with out-migration came social isolation. Before the construction of Highway 99, west Fresno’s cultural and economic hub revolved around its Chinatown neighborhood, where residents had access to a variety of business opportunities and social activities. With greater concentrations of minorities in low-wage jobs, living in low-income housing, and with few opportunities for upward mobility, by the 1970s west Fresno was facing new social problems that would only worsen with time. When Mexicans began moving into the area in large numbers they began to drastically slow the downward economic and cultural spiral. Having a strong Mexican population made it perfect for those seeking business opportunities that would cater to the new “Hispanic market.” Culture Hub: Naco Heads to the Movies Fresno had, from its early stages, played an important role in central California, as it was a major hub for commerce and entertainment life. Although Fresno’s downtown was small compared to that of Los Angeles, by the 1950s Fresno boasted over seven 34 theaters, all located within walking distance from each other. Since the city was only a short distance from many small farming towns, it was easy for migrants to access the Valley’s only exclusively Spanish-language theater. When teatro Azteca opened in 1948 it was a historic event not just because it was offering its audience only Spanish language films, but it was a major indicator that the Central Valley had a large enough Mexican population to warrant its own movie house. Although the other movie theaters screened Spanish-language movies, their best times were allocated to English-language movies. Having already fallen in love with the silver screen in Mexico, Valley Mexican migrants could now fulfill their love and admiration for Mexico’s stars in the United States. By 1950, Mexican films were already a cinematic tradition and part of Mexican culture. Films not only entertained an audience, as Ana M. Lopez and other film scholars have suggested, but films were instrumental “for the benefit of the imagined national community” (217). Nowhere was an imagined community more important and sought- after than in a foreign place, where having a community and a connection to their country provided its migrants a sense of unity and belonging. Watching Pedro Infante on the big screen playing characters that conveyed dignity and strength uplifted and empowered his fans (de la Mora 79). Once open, it did not take long for Valley residents to discover teatro Azteca, where they would find themselves comfortable and among others from their community. The Azteca became a routine destination for Valley Mexicans, filling its 700 seats on more than a few occasions. When the economic crisis hit downtown Fresno in the 1970s, businesses catering to Mexicans around the popular theater were initially affected, 35 but in the end all were able to weather the storm and eventually began turning profits again (Santos). If Mexicans had not moved into downtown neighborhoods, the area would have become a ghost town, where few businesses would have survived, as was the case by the end of following decade. Although housing was affordable and more Mexicans continued to settle around downtown, cultural life was confined to a small area that would eventually be unable to offer more leisure opportunities for its residents. When the economy worsened and the other four theaters located in what used to be Fresno’s business district closed, opportunities for more Mexican businesses opened up. Only a few blocks to the east of Chinatown and teatro Azteca was a business district that contained a long stretch of small shops and department stores: the Fulton Mall, all of which was also affected by the economic crisis. Once a thriving and upscale section of downtown, where some of the best restaurants and department stores were located, by the end of the 1970s the area became the new Mexican center of social life. What made the greater Fulton Mall area perfect for business ventures catering to Mexicans was its accessibility, location, and theaters. Its four theaters were some of the finest movie palaces in California, rivaling the best Los Angeles had to offer. Having four theaters in close proximity to each other in an area 10 times larger than Chinatown, available to new entrepreneurs and migrants in search of bigger and better things, could not have come at a better time. Two of the four theaters that attracted huge audiences were Hardy’s, which would be renamed teatro Mexico before it reopened in 1978, and el Crest, which reopened a year later. Teatro Mexico, with its 1,500 seats and el Crest with 1,200 seats, located only three blocks apart, opened when the Mexican migrant population was at an 36 all-time high in the Valley. The late 1970s was also a time when Mexicans were enjoying the benefits of steady employment and, thus, had more disposable income for leisure activities. Enticed by the opening of two more theaters screening films unavailable outside larger cities in the United States or in Mexico, Mexicans would visit downtown Fresno weekend after weekend, almost filling every seat. The more modest teatro Azteca would continue to attract an audience, but not in the same numbers it once enjoyed. When teatro Azteca opened, it was the height of Mexico’s Golden Age, screening some of the best black-and-white films ever produced in the world, unlike teatro Mexico and el Crest, which both opened during what is widely accepted as the “lost decade,” or “as one of the darkest periods in the history of Mexican film” (de la Mora 247). Regardless of any negative criticism, migrant Fresno audiences formed long lines, paid their $2.50 to $3.00, and watched the latest Valentin Trujio, Mario Almada, or Rosa Gloria Chagoyan film on screen. Instead of a “lost decade” or a “dark period” in Mexican cinema, naco films from the latter part of the 1970s and the early 1980s enjoyed a “Golden Era” and its theaters entered a second “Golden Period.” One common sight during the theater’s second “Golden Period” was entire families enjoying the same films. While some films contained adult subject matter unsuitable for minors, most were accessible to young and old alike. A good majority of “family” films were melodramas that focused on the hardships of living an undocumented life in the United States and action films that revolved around crime and corruption on both sides of the U.S./Mexico border. Adult-rated or films that primarily revolved around adult subjects were always available to the mostly single men or couples 37 in at least one of the many theaters. Part of the lure was that for the price of one film, audiences got to enjoy two, with one normally being a new release, while the other was an older film, or a film that was not well known. Often the older film was a Mexican classic from the Golden Era. Classic comedies starring Mario Moreno “Cantinflas,” German Váldez “Tin Tan,” or Adalberto Martínez “Resortes” were some of the most popular film characters that would bring people into the theaters and could make people laugh no matter how many times they were viewed. The popularity of these characters’ films (e.g. El gendarme desconocido/The Undercover Cop [Miguel M. Delgado 1941]; Calabacitas tiernas/Tender Little Pumpkins [Gilberto Martínez Solares 1948]; El nieto del Zorro/The Grandson of Zorro [Jaime Salvador 1947]) had much to do with the actors themselves, who, like their audience, had humble migrant pasts. To ensure large audiences, theater managers spent time thinking of clever advertisements. Local radio spots announcing Mexico’s newest releases recorded by well-known stars or local celebrities were always the best way to go. Advertisements in Spanish-language newspapers were also vital to the success and worth every dollar spent. Once managers had an audience in the theater they would not rest until every person had a playbill with the schedule of at least a two-week film lineup. Normally printed on color paper with black ink, playbills would be beautifully designed, with nice, clear lettering that would direct the eye to the tantalizing images sometimes taken directly from the films. Lobby cards were also a popular offering, but by far the best way to capture an audience was through the movie poster, which would instantly stimulate any moviegoers’ imagination. With their bright, bold colors and flashy, seductive images, no one could 38 resist its call as Rojelio Agrasánchez Jr. quoted philosopher and art critic Eugenio d’Ors, film posters were “a shout glued on the wall” (18). All the same, I must admit that the “shout on the wall” was sometimes far better to see than the film on the screen. If the film or the film poster were not enough to attract a Mexican audience, the music or the film star would eventually do the trick. Often times the music was what most audience members that I interviewed said was the main reason they went to see the latest naco flick. Radio, Stars, and Aficionados: Vaudeville-Like Shows in the Movies Naco films associated with popular music or their original performers did not only guarantee a full house weekend after weekend, some of the most popular music genres that were used in the naco films of the 1970s and 1980s were mariachi, rancheras, conjunto, and corridos. While there were many reasons audience members gave for their attraction to naco films with popular music, the major one given was their familiarity with the song or performer long before they entered the film scene. Most migrant workers listened to the radio for at least 8 hours a day while working and watched Spanish language television about 3 hours a day (Santos). Even before they began work, the radio would be playing in the background and once in the car the radio would be turned on and that was the way it went until they would come home to relax for the remainder of the day. With the radio always playing, workers not only heard popular songs repeated throughout the day, but they would hear advertising for the coming attractions at the local 39 movie theater. Knowing full well how many hours workers spent listening to the radio, producers found a sure formula by using popular music as the basis for their films. If radio were not enough to tempt migrants and their families to the movie theater, then inviting the naco stars of the films was sure to bring in an audience. When naco film stars were invited to Fresno, chaotic situations arose and streets needed to be closed so that the massive crowds outside the movie theater waiting to get in and catch a glimpse of their favorite movie star, could be accommodated. 9 Many times, the same well-known music stars, like Lucha Villa, Yolanda del Rio, Antonio Aguilar, Los Tigres del Norte, and Vicente Fernandez were also some of the most admired naco movie stars. As audience members and those who managed movie theaters all informed me, naco films were used as star vehicles for many beginning and unknown musicians. For those local musicians in search of fame, having a small part or even just playing their music in the background of a naco film would get them heard by millions of naco film fans. Although appearing in a naco film did not guarantee music stardom, it never hurt to try since many of the naco films depended heavily on music. In almost every naco film there are two or three musical interludes, which add to the narrative. Occurring in a bar or a nightclub, these scenes required a musical performance in the background, so many local or even regional musicians gave it a shot; for some it paid off. Pedro Santos, an ex-Spanish television news anchor in Fresno, remembers when a young and exhausted Vicente Fernandez, who is now one of the most famous and loved international mariachi stars, 9 Fresno migrant audience members clearly remember a highly-publicized 1985 publicity stunt where the movie star, Rosa Gloria Chagoyán Lola La Trailera/Lola the Truck Driver, pulled up to el teatro Mexico in a semi-truck! 40 came to the Azteca theater to promote his latest naco film. Before Fernandez successfully crossed over into the legitimate pop music mainstream he was one of the most recognized naco film superstars. 10 Writing on the subject, Benamou brought up Andrés García, a popular naco film star who was the lead in countless naco films during the 1980s but, like Fernandez, managed to fully cross “over into the mainstream, capitalizing on his … past, yet turning his professional back on the vernacular forms and venues that enveloped it” (177). 11 While naco films were at the service of musicians, musicians were also at the service of naco films and singers had the responsibility of not only entertaining their audiences on the radio but also on the silver screen. The late 1970s up until the mid-1980s, can be categorized as a period of star hunger for the theater audience. As I have noted earlier in this chapter, Mexicans living in the Valley had few choices when it came to entertainment. Consequently, it was only natural that once the movies became available to them through the downtown theaters that their eyes and wallets opened. All three theater managers that I interviewed, as well as Pedro Santos, matter-of-factly argued that the rise of the movie theater and naco films in the United States, came at a time when the Mexican audience had successfully transitioned from migrants, without economic security, to immigrants with secured employment. Without security or stability and with few opportunities to see their favorite movie stars, Mexicans would not have attended the movie theater in such exorbitant numbers. Rolando Collantes, who managed el Crest theater when it reopened in 1979 10 While I was doing a search for some of Vicente Fernandez’s better-known naco films on the popular film website IMDB, many of them were not listed. 11 Benamou wrote about the great naca film star Rosa Gloria Chagoyán, who in the early 1980s stared as the sexy and badass Lola la trailera, yet to this day she has gone on mainstream television, never turning her back on her naco film audience who made her famous. 41 until it closed ten years later, said that it was common to see over a thousand people on the weekends, all trying to get in to watch the latest release. Armida Espinoza, who worked at the box office for the Mexico theater, said that, back in the early 1980s, people who wanted to see their favorite movie stars did not have many options; “today you can turn on the television, open a magazine, or go online and you can see almost any star you like, but that was not the case back then, so when a new film opened or a movie star came to promote the film, everyone wanted to attend.” Some of the original audience members who religiously attended el Crest or teatro Mexico, in the early 1980s, mentioned that it was there that they got to see some of the great naco film stars of the day. Valley theaters continued in popularity for several more years, but by the mid- 1980s attendance began to drop. In an attempt to increase ticket sales, theater managers began advertising aficionados, vaudeville-like, or local talent shows, although they have a longer history connecting them back to the original carpas, 12 which were popularized across Mexico in the late 1800s. Aficionados would always attract large audiences, so it was common practice to present them in theaters that could accommodate their numbers. For the price of a movie ticket, audiences were entertained by local performers doing everything from singing to dancing to comedy skits involving juggling unicyclists or whatever talent people wanted to showcase. Pedro Santos and Justo Navarro both said that Los Originales de San Juan, one of the most famous nacocorridista bands to come out of Fresno, was originally part of the aficionados circuit, traveling around the Central Valley showcasing their talent. Naco films, naco movie stars, and aficionados would 12 Carpas are popular theaters, literally translated, tents. It was in the carpas where local talent like Cantinflas and Tin Tan got their start. It was also there where they would continue to refine their crafts. 42 continue to attract audiences, but no matter what theater managers did to keep ticket sales up, eventually naco films themselves would be partly responsible for their own demise. Theater Troubles: The Beginning of the End Going to the movies in the early 1980s was a family outing and one that provided theater owners and film producers a tidy profit. With the rise of the fichera and urban neighborhood comedy films 13 , two genres that dealt with adult-oriented themes, parents were beginning to share their concerns with theater managers. Fichera films were primarily about life in cabarets or brothels and urban neighborhood comedies revolved around “popular characters and their picturesque speech, especially the albures (sexual puns)” (Pérez Turrent 110). While I argue that the rise of those films came at a time when the Mexican populace was “opening up,” “coming out,” or “liberating itself” by accepting its reality (alcoholism, sex workers) and even normalizing it, or taking pride (homosexuality, transvestism) since many of the films dealt with those subjects, it was difficult for families with small children to watch those films. Theater managers, like Justo Navarro, remember attending a business film convention in Las Vegas around 1984 where he relayed his audiences’ concerns to naco film producers to no avail. He told them that concerned parents had been coming up to him for months, complaining about adult content in films, asking him if he could do anything about it because it was getting difficult to bring their children to the movies. Producers’ responses to his concerns were that as long as audiences wanted adult-content films and were willing to pay, they were 13 By the end of the 1980s the fichera and the urban neighborhood comedy would be combined to create a new sub-genre, called sexycomedias. 43 going to continue to give them what they wanted. Justo also remembers that he did not have much choice in the matter, because he was bound to contracts and had to screen what was sent to him. Just like block booking, if he wanted certain films, with certain actors, he had to screen all the other films that were sent to him by the film companies or producers. If not, he would miss out on sure blockbusters. Theater managers were some of the first in the film business to gauge audiences’ concerns, since ticket sales were a clear indicator of interest level. When more families began to complain about the films and then stopped attending, managers knew matters would only worsen because the film content was only going to continue to alienate. As naco films became less family friendly, theaters had another threat to confront—Spanish-language television programming. Currently, there are many Spanish- language television channels to choose from, but back in 1962 there was only one Spanish channel in the Valley: Spanish International Network, Channel 21 was originally owned and operated by Rogelio Agrasánchez Sr., who had successfully operated his first Spanish-language channel in San Antonio, Texas. While it took some time for the station to take off, Agrasánchez knew that Fresno would eventually become a profitable “Hispanic Market.” Like other stations, Channel 21 began with a few hours of taped programming from Mexico, normally telenovelas and such, but with the growing Mexican population in the Valley, by 1972 it was already developing its own original programming. One of the first things they began to offer, previously only available through the radio, was local news coverage in Spanish. Although it would take some years before the station would fully establish itself, by the late 1970s it was a full-fledged 44 member of the Mexican community. With only one Spanish language television station to choose from, there was no real competition for the movie theater until the mid-1980s, when another Spanish language television went on the air and began providing programming that included Mexican films. Channel 59 was always a local English language television station, but around 1987 Telemundo started buying more airtime and providing Mexican movies on television. It was then that Mexican audiences began to have more entertainment choices that would only grow with time. Having established a desire for more stars, entertainment promoters began bringing in numerous popular, musical performers. Unlike at American concerts, where audiences sit during performances, Mexicans like to move and dance to the live music. No one was in a better position to know that and be able to cash in on it than Leo and his brother Arturo Valdivia, the owners of teatro Mexico. Before the downfall of the movie theater, the brothers Valdivia had acquired the famous Fresno Rainbow Ballroom, where they provided audiences an open space with which to dance to live performances. Audiences would rush to buy $20.00 - $30.00 tickets, which would always sell out, filling the Rainbow Ballroom to capacity. Armida Espinoza, who worked for Leo Valdivia, remembers that after a day’s work at the ticket booth, she would easily have over five thousand dollars in cash. To further entice audiences, it was common for the stars to make a quick theater appearance: sign autographs, take pictures with their paying fans, and then later, at night, perform live at the Rainbow. That was common practice, not only in Fresno but also in Los Angeles and elsewhere, according to Armida, who was familiar 45 with entertainment business practices. Additional entertainment opportunities continued to open up in the Valley, so that by 1986 the Mexican movie theater was nearly dead. Rise of Videohome: Distribution and Changing Viewing Practices Central Valley moviegoing, a Mexican family outing popularized in the 1970s by teatro Azteca, el Crest, and teatro Mexico, was coming to a close by 1987. After years of seeing theater numbers rise to hundreds every weekend, and then drop to about a few dozen, theater owners were coming close to dropping the curtains on the show and calling it a night. The first theater to go down in 1986 was the Azteca, then teatro Mexico in 1987 and, the last one standing, el Crest, showed its last film in 1989. Audiences seemed to have given up on a favorite pastime just as fast as they had embraced it. For many of the original attendees, only the memories have lingered, although those are fading fast. The Azteca building is still standing and after years of neglect (losing its roof and all its seats), it was finally saved; as for el Crest and teatro Mexico, they were saved when Latino Christian Churches came in. While teatro Mexico has lost its “Mexico” neon sign and returned to being Hardy’s, most of the shops surrounding the theaters, once bustling with Mexicans and movie stars, have long closed or have become indoor swap meet malls, selling anything a Latino may want, even the classic naco movies that once shined inside the theater walls. In the end, the videohome (home video) came to replace the naco movie house. With the popularity of the VCR and the rise of video rental stores, people could rent a naco film in their local video store for about $5 a day and everyone in the family 46 could watch it without having to leave home. One of the reasons Justo Navaro gave as to why they were able to bring in an audience even when video became very popular was that in the theater, new film releases were screened every week, but if people wanted to see the latest film on video they would have to wait six months. With the high demand for video, eventually a six-month waiting period became a three-month and then there was only a one-month wait to rent the latest naco film on video. While Valley theaters were struggling and going bankrupt because of video, those companies distributing videos began seeing their businesses rise. With the help of three video distributors, I was able to piece together some early and current video business practices. Susana Conseco was very helpful in providing information on Madera Video and Madera Central Valley Video, two highly successful video distributing companies. Since Susana worked as a video salesperson at Central Valley Video and had a boss that was part of Madera Video, she is qualified to share a history that is rarely written about. When video became popular, around the mid-1980s, demand was so high that video distributors in the Central Valley were struggling to keep up with orders. Prices were anywhere from $60 to $80, sometimes more depending on the title or the exclusivity of the video. Valley distributors normally got their videos from larger distributing companies located in Los Angeles, such as Million Dollar Video, which is now bankrupt. Since there were only two main distribution companies in the Valley, competition was low and profits were high. A common business practice was to place weekly orders of approximately twenty new video titles, consisting of around one hundred copies of each title. While some titles were in high demand, selling all one 47 hundred tapes, most titles would sell at about sixty copies in any given week. When business was good not much effort was needed to sell any in-stock video title because local video rental houses were so popular. Any new video purchase would bring them profits. As demand for video fell, distributors had to work harder to sell their products, sometimes spending much of their time on the phone calling video stores, other video distributors, schools, libraries, and private customers all across the country. In general, video distribution was a profitable business well into the late 1990s, but with the rise of newer, more aggressive companies venturing into the video business, competition intensified and smaller companies were pushed out. Older, well-established businesses, such as Madera Video and Central Valley Video, were no competition for the larger box-chain retailers who saw huge profit potentials in the rapidly expanding Hispanic market. With Tower Records and The Warehouse Music and Video both opening up, Latino music and video sections in all major Latino locations, Mexican customers now had many more purchasing choices than before. Also, entering the video business were small vendors who would set up shop in local flea markets. With increased competition at an all-time high in the late 1990s, normally higher video prices began to fall. At that point, video titles would sell for about $10, where just a few years prior those same titles were running well into the $60 range. As the century closed, DVDs began replacing videocassettes, causing smaller companies that were slow in transitioning to go bankrupt since demand for video became almost extinct. With the new century came another big box store, Ritmo Latino, that began selling DVDs for only a few dollars, pretty much destroying any competition. Currently, even Ritmo Latino has 48 not faired very well with the continued rise of the Internet. Websites such as www.youtube.com have succeeded at gaining access to almost any naco film in demand and at the right price too—free. With downloading becoming the norm, most big stores have dropped naco films from their shelves, opening up new business opportunities for smaller entrepreneurs willing to sell directly to new migrants at flea markets or in local Latino stores. Contributing Political and Economic Factors Playing an indirect but noteworthy role in the downfall of Central Valley theaters was the financial crisis in Mexico during the 1980s, which was also felt in the U.S. It has been said that for a country which normally has played a marginal role in world events, “Mexico certainly precipitated a major international financial crisis when it ran out of dollars in the summer of 1982” (Wyman 1). In an effort to regain control of the economy, the newly-enacted government policies of president Miguel de la Madrid (1982 – 1988), with the urging of the World Bank, had major repercussions to Mexicans on both sides of the border. One of those detrimental policies was the devaluation of the peso, which before the crisis was overvalued by 30%. However, after 1982 it was undervalued by 30% (Reynolds 37). Additionally, all Mex-dollars were redeemable only in depreciated pesos so those who had “wisely” invested in dollars saw their savings erased. With currency loss, a drop in wages, and a rise in living costs both in Mexico and the United States, Mexican migrants had a lot less money to spend. Instead of attending the theater, migrants began relying on cheaper alternatives. With the rise of Spanish-language 49 television and the availability of naco films on VHS, theater attendance continued to fall. Catherine Benamou argued that by 1985, Mexicans not only had more entertainment opportunities, but with the worsening economic conditions, much of their purchasing power had been lost (172). A less-studied or pondered cause that sapped theater audience interest was the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), which legalized over 2 million undocumented workers in the United States. Before legalization, most undocumented Mexican migrants limited their visits back home because of the high cost and dangers associated with crossing back into the U.S. Since the difficulties of visiting their homes were many, but the need to feel connected to their community was great, local downtowns and their theaters provided good options to fulfill their needs. Although city downtowns provided various entertainment options, many still longed for their Mexico, where family home entertainment was possible. Having the ability to legalize their status not only took away the fear of deportation but it gave migrants the freedom to move about and travel. Now that travel was possible, many took advantage of it and went back to Mexico when work was slow or whenever they wanted to. Many also traveled within the U.S. to visit long lost family members and friends, or to see what different cities had to offer. With greater movement came endless possibilities for entertainment, so the downtown theater suffered another devastating blow. Although it is difficult to measure the impact that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 had on theater attendance, it no doubt cut into those businesses. A more mobile audience was sure to flex its new freedoms and seek out a wider playing field of entertainment options. 50 Conclusion: El Cho Does Go On With their entertainment choices, Mexican migrants had the power to positively impact and transform city downtowns and their theaters that had been largely ignored when urban areas were abandoned for the suburbs. With the economic downturn in the 1980s and with the rise of Spanish language television, video and other entertainment options, audiences began to leave those theaters and areas that they had helped transform. At its height in 1986, it is estimated that more than six hundred U.S. theaters were offering daily screenings of Mexican films and by far those films were the popular or naco ones that the audiences loved. With so many theaters in decline and videohome (home video) on the rise, Mexico moved to privatize their national film production, a move that would bring in high profits by opening the video home market. At the same time that theaters began shutting down, “video clubs” were springing up all across the U.S. and in Mexico. These clubs were rental places where people would go to rent the latest film release on video. In Mexico alone, as pointed out by Tomás Pérez Turrent, between 1989 and 1991, more than 10,000 video clubs opened up (111). While there are no figures available for the numbers of “video clubs” in the United States, my hunch is that those figures would be similar throughout the U.S. Southwest, where Mexican populations had grown. Even with the fall of the theater, naco films would survive, but what had been a commercially popular, lowbrow cinema, largely overlooked when it was produced by established production companies, would now go underground, bypassing theatrical release and thus any form of government control. 51 Seen as an abomination of Mexican cinema within intellectual circles in Mexico and the United States, which have continued to misinterpret and misread the history of naco cinema, only a limited, fragmented, and simplified historical perspective of a migrant audience experience has emerged. While there are many powerfully written studies of Mexicans in the Central Valley (e.g. Galarza’s Spiders in the House & Workers in the Field; Zavella’s Women’s Work & Chicano Families), most have concentrated on subjects “worth talking about.” By providing a highly detailed history of California’s Central Valley and classifying it as an important social and cultural hub for those migrants who came to work its lands, I have shown how movie going became integrated into everyday life. Downtown movie theaters, as I will continue to argue, played an important role for its audiences who came for entertainment but were also provided a space where they could socialize and learn from the films. One well-known fact is that theaters all across the U.S. have failed, but never clear were the causes and the role audiences played in their downfalls. Also not clear before were the political and economic issues that contributed to the problems that brought down the theater venue. This chapter made clear all of those issues that as of yet have gone unaddressed, while showing that there are rich histories of migrant life yet to be explored. 52 CHAPTER TWO PERPETUAL STATE OF CRISIS: POPULAR ATTRACTION IN MEXICAN CINEMA On April 15, 1957, Mexico and the film industry were in a state of crisis. Not only were they mourning the death of Pedro Infante, one of their most beloved national film stars, but they were also bemoaning the end of a once-glorious film era. It was Mexico’s postwar years that saw the rise and consolidation of an illustrious state-funded national film industry, reaching its zenith in what is called the Golden Age of Mexican cinema (1935 – 1955). Although having a nationalistic agenda, Golden Age films, with their classic black-and-white style, are considered some of the greatest works of art Mexico has ever produced. During that period, Mexico was seen as a bastion of new possibilities and creativity, gaining world attention through its arts and attracting internationally- known intellectuals and artists, such as Leon Trotsky, Sergei Eisenstein, Paul Strand, Fred Zinnermann, and Luis Buñuel. Due to numerous domestic and foreign problems, such as national reductions of financial investment and Hollywood reasserting its global dominance on foreign film markets, it is widely believed by many film historians that by the end of the 1950s, most innovation and creativity that Mexican national cinema had supported came to an abrupt end. When speaking of Mexican cinema, foreign film pundits, with few exceptions, generally excoriate most Mexican films as unartistic and unreflective of cultural reality. In the well-circulated introductory film textbook, The Oxford History of World Cinema, 53 for example, which claims to be “The definitive history of cinema worldwide,” Michael Chanan stated that “by the 1950s, there is nothing of any lasting value in Mexican cinema except the work of Buñuel” (434). Chanan’s criticism was part of a cacophony of voices that have long championed European and American influences on the Mexican film industry, ignoring most cinematic endeavors by “popular” film producers who came into the picture soon after the collapse of Mexico’s golden era. Pedro Infante’s death, thus, coincides with the very end of what has been called one of the most innovative and creative periods in world film history. The cinema in crisis that followed Infante’s death and the departure of what Chanan would consider Mexico’s last great director, Luis Buñuel, was a cinema for the populace, a cinema of popular attraction. 14 This chapter then historicizes the origin and development of naco cinema, starting with what I refer to as the first stage (from the Golden Era to 1976), which saw the emergence of “naco taste” in Mexican cinema; followed by the second stage (1976 – 1990), the classic or “Golden Age” period, where the genre consolidated and solidified; and finally the third stage (1990 – 2010), in which the genre moved towards more violent and sensationalist ways. By contextualizing these films within the history of Mexico and the United States we can begin to see how political, economic, industrial, and social factors all contributed to the development, rise, and solidification of the naco film genre. In revisiting the apertura (openness) initiatives of president Luis Echeveria’s sexenio (1970 – 1976), some of which were intended to revitalize the national film industry, I will show how his polices inadvertently benefited naco cinema. Fronteriza action films, 14 Here I am alluding to Tom Gunning’s influential essay, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator, and the Avant-Garde.” 54 dealing with drug smuggling, were often excluded from serious academic inquiry because of their sensationalist, “unrepresentative” and “exploitative” natures. I will argue, present, and tackle issues of migration, representation, and inequality for a mass audience in ways that Mexico’s “cine de calidad” (quality cinema) has not. In this chapter, I will also present evidence to support my argument that naco films made visible a popular critique of state power that has been excluded from dominant discourses, both cinematic and state-sponsored. While subtle, naco film patrons, especially those born in the U.S. of recent immigrants, are elevating these “bad” movies above mainstream Hollywood and Mexican art films because they have deliberately offended middle and upper-class aesthetic values. A close textual analysis of the classic naco film, La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang (Rubén Galindo 1976), will reveal how these films can be read by an audience who wholeheartedly consumes them and who, over time, has been exposed to more firepower and ultimately more graphic depictions of their experiences with social displacement, marginalization, and police brutality. The Film Crisis Begins to Materialize While the majority of films produced by the Mexican film industry during the years of crisis (1955 – 1970) were of low production value, Mexican cinema continued to be a sought-after attraction, set into motion by the industry a few years before. The decisions and practices adopted by the industry and that brought about a “bad” cinema were in direct response to domestic and global economic and social crisis. Prior to the 55 turmoil, Mexico was a prosperous nation, benefiting from a state-led modernization and economic development model focused on import substitution and a vigorous export trade with the U.S. (Harvey 98). Although Mexico’s prosperity did not always reach the peasants who continued to fight for land rights, it did reach the state-funded film industry, which enjoyed industrial expansion and production growth from 38 features in 1937 to 125 in 1950. By 1954, the economic miracle came to an end and the government, in an effort to deal with inflation, devalued its currency and began decreasing public spending. While the strategy was successful in so far as it gave an “appearance of stability between 1955 and 1960 … the [film] industry was in fact really undergoing a severe crisis which affected primarily the quality of films” (de la Vega Alfaro 91). With diminishing financial subsidies and less direct state involvement, the Mexican film industry began its descent into darkness. Surviving with less government assistance but with profits in mind, producers began slashing production budgets and sticking to proven formulas, such as melodramas, comedies, and cabaretera (brothel) films. Although not of high quality in terms of production value, popular films released during the mid-1950s still borrowed from the classical Mexican film style that brought the industry international accolades (e.g. La Perla/The Pearl (Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández 1945) and Río Escondido/Hidden River (Emilio Fernández 1947). While popular films suffered from the breakdown of the industry, they were nonetheless beginning to cinematically show the difficult realities of the times, not only in their narratives but also in their mode of production. Numerous films, such as Espaldas mojadas/Wetbacks (Alejandro Galindo 1953) or Abajo el talón/Down with the Curtain 56 (Miguel M. Delgado 1954), presented issues of overcrowding, displacement, internal and foreign migration, corruption, drug-addiction, and other social ills facing the urban influx, which saw Mexico City’s population grow from 3 million in 1950 to 9 million by 1970 (Pineda and Paranaquá). The most memorable actors who made their debut during the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema became wildly successful by playing naco characters whose shticks and popularity would survive well beyond the end of the Golden Era and into the “Golden Age of Naco Cinema” (1976 – 1989). Characters like “Cantinflas,” played by Mario Moreno; “Tin-Tan” played by Germán Valdéz, “Resortes,” played by Adalberto Martínez Chávez; and of course, El Santo, the masked wrestler played by El Santo himself, were among the group of actors who achieved cult status by the 1970s. Often embodying outsider status, these actors were based on the characteristics of real people who, like them, existed in a difficult, unromanticized world of social unrest controlled by an oppressive capitalist State. These films and characters would continue to feed into the popular or naco films of the 1970s, albeit in more graphic or hyper “real” ways, as my informants explained in the qualitative ethnography found in chapter four. The End of a Golden Age and the Birth of Naco Taste (1950 to 1976) During the Golden Age, Mexican national cinema represented the country as a glorious developing nation with romanticized peasants and campesinos (e.g., María Candelaria (Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández 1933), and Allá en el rancho grande/Out on the Big Ranch (Fernando de Fuente 1936). These films, and others like them, were made to 57 build national character and to educate citizens, along with entertaining them. Mexican national cinema represented the political and cultural re-visioning of a national identity alongside the development of the vibrant cinema industry (Hershfield 81). However, due to the withdrawal of U.S. financial support post-1946 and the aggressive competitive tactics of Hollywood, which forced the Mexican state to recant on some of its protectionist measures, by 1950, Mexico’s state-sponsored cinema was in crisis (Tierney 160-161). In an effort to reestablish control of the international film market, Hollywood reasserted its hegemonic position in Mexico by enticing filmgoers with big budget blockbusters. Reacting to aggressive northern tactics, the Mexican film industry, which in reality was not a unified body nor could it find consensus to support a plan of action, tried to imitate Hollywood. Mexico is not Hollywood, so by imitating their northern neighbors, Mexican productions would be “in the position of perpetual inferiority—always trailing behind … always trying to catch up” (Ramírez Berg 38). Contributing to this crisis were established film producers and filmmakers who had worked their way up a strictly regulated labor union, which made it difficult for new players to enter the industry. Those in positions of power also had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, for the industry was not free of corruption and if played right, affluent lifestyles could be sustained through work or through “special” favors. That situation created an industry that was out-of-touch with its public. Combined with shortsighted business, industrial, and creative practices, this distance from the public “ensured the eventual downfall of the classical Mexican cinema” (Ramírez Berg 39). Eventually, new producers and 58 filmmakers managed to enter the industry and memorable films were produced, but audiences were essentially lost to Hollywood. In an attempt to save the film industry, established, as well as private, producers found a formula that worked and began making low-budget genre films with urban settings (de la Vega 166), where overcrowding, corruption, and crime were everyday occurrences. Some of the themes were a direct result of the influx of the working poor into the cities due to the accelerated process of industrialization that had begun years earlier (166). It was the “Mexican miracle,” a period of combined political and economic growth, beginning in the 1940s till about the mid-1960s, that encouraged this rural-to- urban migration (Hondagneu-Sotelo 29). Films that dealt with these themes included Mexican director Ismael Rodríguez’s two huge melodramatic, box-office successes, Nosotros los pobres and Ustedes los ricos (We the Poor, 1947 and You the Rich, 1948). They showcased the famous and proud movie star Pedro Infante, but without his trademark charro (cowboy) outfit and his horse. Pedro was now Pepe “el Torro,” a simple man who wore tattered clothes and spoke in colloquial Spanish, like the vast majority of new arrivals who would leave the countryside for the city in hopes of financial stability or even prosperity. He still sang, but his singing matched his persona in the film as a poor, working-class hero, living in a Mexico City slum where most of the inhabitants had to deal with the daily struggles of survival. Capitalizing on the success of Nosotros los pobres and Ustedes los ricos, Ismael Rodríguez would once again strike box-office gold with his third installment of Pepe “el Torro,” also starring Infante. 59 Although all three films were of high production value, such was not the case for most films produced during those years. While Nosotros los pobres glorified poverty by presenting the poor as morally superior to the wealthy, the theme of poverty struck a chord with the socially and politically disenfranchised working poor, as cinema was beginning to be representative of the audiences’ new realities. Those themes and subjects were not new to Mexican cinema; what was new during the crisis period was producers’ willingness to set most narratives within the context of contemporary social ills, even if they were secondary to the story or dealt with it in simplistic ways. Gone were the days when most films showcased a content peasant in the countryside, beautifully framed and photographed by Mexico’s foremost cinematographer, Gabriel Figueroa. For the most part, these new films’ mode of production was cheap, fast, and primarily for profit, with minimal time given to writing the script and all other production aspects. On that topic, the films starring one of Mexico’s greatest comedians, Germán Valdéz “Tin Tan,” come to mind. Tin Tan was a man of the streets, a man of words, a man who used every part of his body to make a living. Tin Tan was the suave, streetwise barrio dweller who took but gave, butchered the mother tongue, dressed like a pachuco, and moved like Cab Calloway. Even if one knows nothing of Tin Tan, just by looking at a still from one of his films, much is revealed, as his Cab Calloway influences are made abundantly clear by the way he dresses and by his confident attitude. As much as he was influenced by U.S. popular culture, he was very much a product of his time and of his 60 audience, since he began performing in carpas, vaudeville-like traveling shows, which were cheap entertainment venues frequented by the masses. Like Mario Moreno “Cantinflas,” Mexico’s other great comedian, Tin Tan embodied the downtrodden struggling for land, a mestiza/o violently uprooted from her home in the name of progress (modernity), and thrown into the city, which was being sustained by her arms and back. It comes as no surprise, then, that Tin Tan’s movies, though cheaply produced and encompassing weak plots, would, nonetheless, resonate with millions of new urbanites. As these films became popular attractions with the people, whose viewing preferences assured a continual flow of low-quality genre pictures and a nice profit for producers, Mexican national cinema was pushed further and further away from its glorious period. Of the 114 features produced in 1959, 20 percent were cheaply made formulaic serials (Pineda and Paranaguá 42), such as Venganza apache/Apache Revenge (Fernando Méndez 1959), a chili-Western (influenced by Italian Spaghetti Westerns). Such serials overtook the melodrama genre and became just as popular as the Cantinflas and Tin Tan’s comedies. The trend of producing low-budget films would continue to be the preferred mode of production. Only three years later, out of the 81 films produced, almost one-third were cheaply-made pictures (Pineda and Paranaguá 43). Even though these pictures were cheap, campy, kitschy, and at times problematic, I argue that they played an important role since they functioned as Mexico’s primary weapon to fight off U.S. cinematic neocolonialism. Also, the fact that many of these “bad” films achieved blockbuster success undercut cultural norms of worthiness 61 and tastes, while siphoning monies that would otherwise flow north and feed the Hollywood circus. Film scholar John Mraz has referred to the early 1950s period in Mexican cinema in terms of the development of the churro. A churro is a cheap, mass-produced, sugary, fried pastry—in the Mexican film industry it describes any piece of work hastily made, poorly done, and created purely for the “fast buck” (Mraz 23). Although churros alienated the Mexican middle-class audience, who turned to Hollywood movies instead, they continued to be popular with the urban working populace (de la Vega 167). These cheaply-made genre pictures, by now, included comedies, romances, melodramas, adventures, masked wrestlers, chile-Westerns, sci-fi, thrillers, horror, musicals, rebellious youth, cabareteras/ficheras (brothel/prostitute), and frontera (border) films. The films were beginning to be characterized by their blue-collar protagonists (Mario Moreno “Cantinflas,” German Valdez “Tin Tan,” and “El Santo” the masked wrestler). These popular heroes were outsiders and personified the same characteristics of the audience who eagerly consumed their films. El Santo physically wrestled with the oppressors, whilst Cantinflas and Tin Tan (in films like Ahí está el detalle/Here is the Point (Juan Bustillo Oro 1940) and El rey del barrio/The King of the Neighborhood (Gilberto Martínez Solares 1949) outwitted them through verbal sparring 15 . These new heroes unmasked and challenged the social problems of Mexico’s inner city by foregrounding 15 These commercially produced films, some with state financing, I agree were cinematic victims of the industry breakdown, but even so, they deserve their places in the sun. Film characters such as El Santo, Cantinflas, and Tin Tan deserve all the credit that they received and much more for their pioneering roles in shedding light on domestic and global issues affecting the millions of Mexicans throughout Mexico and the U.S., simply downplaying their importance will no longer work as the film industry’s modus operandi. 62 issues of inequality, where governmental policies perpetuated the interests of the ruling class at the expense of the masses. Light in the Darkness: Cine Nuevo and a New Openness When it seemed that Mexican cinema would be forever lost to an “inferior” cinema, “ungrounded” in its historical and cultural reality, a new period was ushered in by the governmental policies of President Luis Echeverría’s sexenio (1970 – 1976). It was Echeverría’s apertura democrática (liberalizing efforts) that “bore mature cinematic fruit,” as experienced private producers who traditionally propelled and supervised film production were out of the picture, and, as a result, film quality rose as quantity dropped (Ramírez Berg 50). This carefully-crafted cinematic resurgence, supervised and supported by the government, contributed to the rise of a new auteur-driven film movement lead by young, politically left-leaning, somewhat idealistic film makers who were newcomers to the industry. Filmmakers like Felipe Cazals, Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, Arturo Ripstein, Alejandro Jodorowsky, and others made their debut in Mexico’s Cine Nuevo. Having secured governmental funding for their productions, these talented young filmmakers enjoyed unprecedented freedom under Echeverría to address controversial topics and to use real-life events as the basis for their films. Even with this newfound openness, taboo issues and topics remained, mainly those involving the government or the military, that filmmakers eschewed in order to avoid sure censorship, exhibition, or lack of distribution if produced. The apertura was, of course, intended to revitalize national cine de calidad, but “commercial filmmakers were not slow to follow 63 the trend, even if their reasons for utilizing actual events as the basis for their movies were less altruistic” (Wilt 162). While allowing room for the production of many great films, the new government openness inadvertently opened the floodgates, which would allow Cine Nuevo to thrive. A new conservative administration sharply reduced the openness in dealing with controversial subjects, “but the genie could not be put back in the bottle” (Wilt 162), and while films from the Cine Nuevo suffered, naco films exposing the current political and social crises facing Mexico continued to multiply. Being seen as a primarily domestic, lowbrow, or exploitive art form and, thus, for the most part, ignored by official censorship boards, popular naco films had greater freedom to tackle controversial topics with little worry of government meddling since they were mostly privately produced, for profit, and catered to a local Spanish-speaking audience on both sides of the wall. If read as allegory, I argue, most of these films began to show Mexico’s “dirty laundry” in a way that resonated with its working-class audience in Mexico and in the United States. The new naco films not only fingered the local politician or State representative as corrupt and unsympathetic to the populace, but they pinpointed local problems as national interests inherently flawed at the highest levels of government. Mexico’s Cine Nuevo was short lived since Echeverría’s sexenio would come to an end in 1976 and the new administration would significantly limit financial support and its direct involvement in the industry. José López Portillo, the newly elected president, considered Echeverría’s term a disaster “both to the country and to the film industry” and soon began reversing most of his predecessor’s policies (Ramírez Berg 51). Under 64 Echeverría, the Mexican film industry had been nationalized, but under Portillo’s privatization measures, film would revert back to private producers. These economic policies were in line with the actively promoted U.S. neoliberalization measures being adopted throughout Latin America, beginning in the 1970s (Harvey 28-29). With privatization, most cinematic gains made during Echeverría’s sexenio would fall by the wayside, as established private producers stuck to making formulaic genre pictures that would guarantee a healthy profit. Most film after the Golden Era was seen not as a cultural or educational tool but as a business, therefore “the only good films are those that turn a profit” (Pérez Turrent 95) 16 . Nonetheless, the naco films produced during the “crises” of the mid-1970s focused critical attention on the “problems and tensions” present in Mexico. Even if such themes were treated in simplified or formulaic ways, they still represented their times. Not for international consumption, early naco films began attracting huge domestic and border audiences who could relate to the stories unfolding on the big screen, since frequently recurring narratives revolved around displacement and migration. It was during this period that Mexican filmmakers moved into previously unexplored territory, taking them further and further away from the centralized and romanticized idea of the nation. These films were making visible previously taboo topics, where unequivocal criticism of state power had been largely excluded in most cinematic or artistic endeavors. Naco cinema was, I argue, unleashing a relentless critical vision of state power from below in a way 16 Although I agree that, characteristically, most of those films were of low quality, I disagree with statements that call this period “totally unreflective of the problems and tensions of Mexican society” (Mora 101). 65 that began to threaten and shake loose the government’s monopoly on Mexican national identity. Back to U.S./Mexico Border: The Rise of Naco Cinema It comes as no surprise, then, that the rise of the naco cinema, which began in the mid-1960s, coincided with large-scale migration to the U.S./Mexico border region. This demographic shift was triggered by political and economic policies, both in Mexico and in the U.S. Beginning in 1940 and lasting for over 20 years, Mexico experienced what has been called the “Mexican miracle,” which provided political stability and an abundance of urban jobs for the rural folk. By 1965, the miracle was over. In an effort to hold down unemployment while keeping control of the “wild” border, the Mexican government introduced a series of measures, one of which was the Border Industrialization Program (BIP). The BIP was designed to make the border region an attractive place for foreign investment by creating the illusion of a prosperous nation that was invested in modernization and committed to the wellbeing of its citizens. By building industry, which included maquiladoras (sweatshops) where low-skilled, non-union, cheap labor was in abundance and environmental laws were relaxed, foreign manufacturing companies would come to exploit the resources while taking in huge profits. Ending a year earlier, but also contributing to northern migration and cheap labor was the Bracero Program, which was implemented by the U.S. in 1942 as a temporary labor contract program in agriculture. It is estimated that the Bracero Program contracted 66 more than four million guest workers during its twenty-two year period (Alba 22). 17 While the BIP, as well as the Bracero Program, stimulated economic growth, their combined effect was detrimental to Mexican border towns such as Tijuana, Baja California, whose infrastructure and social services were not equipped to accommodate the rapid population explosion and the millions of “temporary” arrivals. Although some temporary workers made the trip back home to rural Mexico, many stayed in the border region, settling for maquiladora jobs as well as other low- wage, unskilled work. Alongside a never-ending flow of workers from the countryside, often naïve and gullible, emerged another group of recent Mexican arrivals whose intent was to make money by any means necessary. This group of charlatans, frauds, extortionists, drug smugglers, coyotes (guides taking people illegally across the border for a fee), or other kinds of swindlers took advantage of the country folk. There had always been border conflict, but with the increased population, limited/non-existing government support or resources, and numerous opportunities for dishonesty, institutional as well as social problems were pushed into the open, making hardship an expected part of daily border life. Corruption ran rampant at all government levels, from federal officials to police on the street. The border town, thus I argue, became a transitional area, or a “holding cell,” for many Mexicans hoping to eventually make enough money to return to their communities or find a way into the U.S. where they could earn much-needed dollars for their families back home. 17 Other historians have placed that figure at five million temporary labor contracts issued, with five million apprehensions of workers without documents (Hondagneu-Sotelo). 67 The global economic recession of the 1970s made living conditions in Mexico even worse. Hit hard by the recession, Mexico had no choice by the World Bank but to devalue its currency nearly 100 percent, causing, among other things, capital flight, decline in private investments, and high unemployment throughout the nation (Hondagneu-Sotelo 31). The border area, which until the mid-1970s had been an alternative location for those in search of a job, could not weather the recession, making life even more difficult. Life had never been easy for Mexico’s working poor, but with limited options for finding work at home or in the city, rural peasants continued to try their luck at the border or el norte. As people left their homes in search of jobs, migration became part of the experience of Mexico’s poorer classes—and as people moved from the south to la frontera, their lives were characterized by new experiences, new problems, and new dreams. It was these new experiences by people on the border that provided the foundation for a great majority of narratives found in the second stage of the naco cinema. The Naco in Mexican Film (1976 – 1989): La Banda Del Carro Rojo By 1976, the state-funded Mexican film industry was once again in crisis, as its classic film aesthetic of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, which captivated a world audience, had, by then, been replaced by low-quality, formulaic pictures. Pérez Turrent passionately argued that, during the 1960s, producers “transformed genres into formulas, exploited till the point of exhaustion and without any enrichment or evolution” (94). The rise of low-quality, formulaic pictures was not only the result of the economic and social 68 conditions caused by the global recession of the 1970s, but also because of the strategies commercial producers adopted in order to turn a quick profit under such dire conditions. To minimize costs and maximize profits, producers began cutting production days; using non-union, less experienced workers; working with minimal equipment and limiting film takes; switching from 35mm to 16mm film stock; featuring one well-known lead actor while relying on non-professional actors to complete the cast; shooting on location; making sequels of successful films; focusing on exploitive, local topics; and basing many of the narratives on sensationalist, real life stories taken from television or the newspaper. Most privately-funded filmmakers of that period have been criticized as being unoriginal and lacking any personal vision. Even the two film schools that were producing films were also not that successful, since they never developed or adopted their very own specific aesthetic principles, relying mainly on the Hollywood model (Pérez Turrent 105). Although cinema was still in a period of crisis, there was a small group of filmmakers that managed to project an appearance of some coherence within the national film industry (Pérez Turrent 103). Films such as Felipe Cazal’s Canoa (1975), Humberto Hermosillo’s La passion según Berenice/Passion According to Berenice (1975), and Raúl Araiza’s Cascabel/Rattle (1976) are good examples of films that countered the proliferation of “bad” or naco films during those times. Although the state funded a few well-produced films in the mid-1970s, it is the sheer number of lower quality, privately produced films that cast a dark shadow over that period. 69 At this point, many settings of low budget film productions moved from Mexico City to the northern parts of the country, particularly to la frontera, following the large migration of peasants to the northern border region. By then most film plots focused on the hardships of leaving home, city/border life, working in a foreign country, corruption, drug and alcohol abuse, as well as other struggles of day-to-day addiction. The dark subject matter offered an element of realism, combined with exaggerated glamour and violence. Like telenovelas (soap operas), emotions in these naco films ran high and tensions were built up with soundtracks engineered to evoke appropriate responses. The films popularized during this period were action movies revolving around drugs, border crossings, and corrupt law enforcers on both sides of the border. Other popular naco film topics touched on issues of corrupt laws, abusive employers, heroic cruel men, tough women, fast cars, guns, sex, and the border as a place ruthlessly controlled by the drug cartels and the Texas Rangers 18 . This period also saw the direct merger between popular corridos (folk ballads) and films. Many narratives were based upon and driven by narcocorridos (drug ballads). Popular musical groups sang about common drug dealers in narcocorridos, catapulting these cruel men and women to the status of local and regional heroes. The audiences for this naco cinema could identify directly with many of the experiences depicted on screen; the narratives were contemporary to their own. While the viewers may have been far removed from drug trafficking and other illegal activities, they certainly had experienced some of the issues presented in the naco films, such as financial hardship, crossing the border, racial isolation, abusive working conditions, and 18 The Texas Rangers frequently stood in for U.S. racist, State representatives in the service of protecting capitalist interests. 70 police brutality. Audiences may have known family members or may have heard of friends who had experienced the dramatic stories presented in these early narco films; this was a world familiar to them but unavailable in Mexico’s cine de calidad or Hollywood films, which by the 1970s dominated the Mexican film market. Naco films based on popular music were not new to the film industry, but what was new was the immense popularity of action films based on corridos. While these films were influenced by Spaghetti Westerns and Hollywood’s blockbusters like Warren Beatty’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry (1971), they also borrowed heavily from Mexico’s western genre of the 1950s, whose popularity was due in part to the inclusion of popular musical numbers and performers within the films. By including well-known songs and the singers who performed them, producers were almost always guaranteed a box-office hit. Even if the films were formulaic and of poor quality, audiences could still find pleasure in watching the performances of the singers they listened to on the radio or watched on television. Lucha Villa, who performed her songs or starred in western films of the 1960s and 1970s, is a good example of a performer whose participation in any film guaranteed its producers a sure return for their investment. In real life, already a famous ranchera singer, Villa was known for her macho behavior of heavy drinking and singing in traditional, male dominated spaces like cantinas (bars) or palenques (cockfighting arenas) where she learned how to fight and sing for her man like the great, male singers of her time. In her songs, as well as in her films, she displayed a revolutionary soldadera toughness and was loved for her beauty, 71 respected for her determination, feared for her uncompromising hardness, and sought after for her “golden voice.” Lucha Villa became even more popular once an audience, who was used to hearing her songs on the radio, could see her perform on the big screen. Naco films starring or featuring young, up-and-coming performers would use these films as vehicles to stardom, since their songs would be heard and they would be seen by an audience who may not have had access to live performances but could now see them perform in the naco movies. The young norteño, Mexican-American band Los Tigres del Norte/The Tigers of the North, would be such a group, who would not only be instrumental in transforming the “greater México” corrido, but would also make a huge impact on the direction of naco cinema. Los Tigres del Norte, based in el otro México/the other Mexico (meaning the U.S.), by the mid-1970s had already attained regional popularity singing corridos that spoke of their experiences as displaced people in el norte, but always longing for the beautiful México left behind. With the release of their first narcocorrido, Contrabando y traición/Contraband and Betrayal in 1972, a corrido that recounts the tragic “true” story of a drug smuggling couple, the gun-wielding Camila “la Texana” and Emilio Varela, Los Tigres became international stars. That narcocorrido would soon be followed by another huge hit, La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang and many other narcocorridos that would eventually become part of the history and collective memory of the Mexican diaspora. Contributing to the collective memory of its audience would be the naco films, whose narratives were taken straight from narratives of the narcocorridos. 72 Not straying far from the drug ballads, many of the naco films used the same titles as the narcocorridos. Still suffering from low production values, awkward acting by non-professional actors, and out-of-sync-audio, Los Tigres’ films continued to be some of the most popular naco films produced during the “Golden Age” of naco cinema. The following narcocorridos became the foundation for a series of highly profitable narco films; La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang (Rubén Galindo 1976), Contrabando y traición/Contraband and Betrayal (Arturo Martinez 1978), Treinta segundos para morir/Thirty Seconds to Die (Rubén Benavides 1981), La fuga del rojo/The Escape of El Rojo (Alfredo Gurrola 1985), Un hombre violento/A Violent Man (Valentín Trujillo 1986), La camioneta gris/The Grey Pickup (José Luis Urquieta 1990), and Dos plebes/Two Rascals (Jorge Reynoso 1999). The audience’s familiarity with the songs made these films easy to follow since they primarily functioned as an extended video to accompany the music. All the above-mentioned films revolve around drug trafficking, money, romantic relationships, betrayal, vengeance or family vendettas, gun standoffs, police corruption, suspenseful car-chases, murder, and incorporate sound effects and canned music, typical of 1970s Blaxploitation films. La banda del carro rojo was the first narcocorrido of Los Tigres del Norte to be made into a film. The film follows a plot outlined by the corrido but adds elements to fill out subplots. There are four principal characters, or narcos, in the film that make up the red car gang. At first glance each character seems to follow the stereotypical formula of the genre (e.g. unrealistic, one-dimensional, stock characters …) but a closer reading of 73 each character reveals that they are much more complex. The audience may not only identify with each character in the way they look, talk, and dress but also in the ways they think and react when confronted with life-changing decisions. They are open to reading depth into these characters even though each character was created according to a stereotype, and within a formula that remains the same throughout most of these films. Because many audience members have personally shared the experiences of the characters, or at least know of someone (a loved one, friend, relative) who has, the audience is not simply passively enjoying the entertainment or easily manipulated by the stock characters and formulas; I argue that this audience actively engages in such films and ascribes new meanings to situations and characters on the screen. In the film La banda del carro rojo, the character Pedro, played by Pedro Infante Jr. (the son of the beloved Golden Age actor Pedro Infante), is a naïve and newly arrived illegal immigrant to the United States. While the actor’s father enjoyed critical success for his cinematic work in “legitimate” Mexican cinema and was seen as a national icon, Pedro Infante Jr., I argue, can be read as an unofficial national icon, embodying the dreams, aspirations, and experiences of the Mexican diaspora forced to leave home and enter a hostile environment where their labor is welcomed but not their personhood. Infante Jr., thus, represented a kind of diasporic nationalism, disarticulated from official nationalisms and reterritorialized at the U.S./Mexico border. Unlike his father, but like most naco film stars, Pedro Infante Jr.’s participation in naco films was mostly dismissed or flat-out erased by popular television show hosts or news reporters who preferred to always associate him with his father. What made his rise to naco stardom and popularity 74 as a vernacular borderland icon of diasporic nationalism paralleled the decline of official nationalism in the face of state failures and corruptions. His popularity filled the void left by official state nationalism’s legitimacy crisis and represented the emergence of a new diasporic nationalism focused on the border. In La banda, although always fearing capture by the Border Patrol, the character Pedro exhibits some of the typical dreams of a young, inexperienced, first-generation migrant into the United States—he expects easy social acceptance, plenty of opportunities for upward mobility, and fast wealth because he is willing to work hard. In an early scene from the film, Pedro just having arrived to the United States the day before pleads with Rodrigo, who owns a ranch, to hire him as a ranch hand. Initially rejecting his offer, Rodrigo finally gives in and asks Pedro to tell him his strengths, to which Pedro responds, “I can do everything boss, because I am talented and have strong arms.” Rodrigo, being smart and wise, quickly sees through Pedro’s pretentiousness and asks, “if you can do everything, then why did you leave México, why are you here?” Knowing he can no longer lie, Pedro asks him not to laugh, and then confesses that, in reality, he came to the United States to become a Hollywood actor where “they will recognize his talent.” Although most audience members have no Hollywood aspirations, they share with Pedro a hunger for what Hollywood, and by extension capitalism, feeds the world; in America no matter who you are or where you come from, with hard work, anyone can achieve the “American Dream.” What the other characters in the film know, including the audience, who may have already ventured to the United States, is that Pedro will soon have to 75 confront the cruel reality that awaits an undocumented, uneducated, unskilled, Mexican migrant. When we first see Pedro, he is wearing the typical nondescript outfit of a recently arrived Mexican worker (worn-out jeans, faded T-shirt, and ordinary sneakers), but through the course of the film, he abandons such clothes and instead adopts entirely new attire, consisting of hat, boots, and a three-piece suit that displays a northern influence. The audience may quickly read his new American attire as a sign of his loss of national identity. While Pedro may have seemingly acquired the external trappings that would signal financial success characteristic of the “American Dream,” he pays a high price for his drug fortune. But the audience can, nonetheless, still vicariously enjoy Pedro’s material success without having to compromise their own honest identity or safety. Pedro’s character, thus, foregrounds the way diasporic Mexican audiences are shifting the national Mexican imaginery northward because his northern-influenced outfit has caught on with popular male fashions which I elaborate on in chapter three. The character, Rodrigo, played by the well-known naco film star Fernando Almada, real life brother of Mario Almada, who plays another character in the film, is a Mexican immigrant who has been in the United States for many years and is already disillusioned with the possibility of ever achieving the “American Dream.” In the same scene where Pedro approaches Rodrigo about a job, Rodrigo and Pedro’s ideologies clash during their conversation. Pedro believes that Rodrigo has “made it” because he has cars and a “big ranch,” but Rodrigo counters that he owns nothing, referencing his staggering debt and that he cannot even pay for his daughter’s life-saving medical treatment. Rodrigo refers 76 to his own story, a life of hard work resulting in very little wealth or upward mobility. That being said, Rodrigo will soon have to make life-changing decisions, all of which audience members in chapter four agreed reminded them of the dire choices they had faced. When his brother Quintana approaches him with an illicit proposal that will leave him with enough money to fulfill all his needs, Rodrigo finds himself with limited choices, all of which he quickly rejects. During that scene Rodrigo argues with his brother and declares that he has made it this far because he is an honest man who has always led an honest life. Quintana counters, “What has honesty and hard work given you, a life of misery, a ranch that you cannot afford, a wife that abandons you and a sick daughter … you call that progress?” Continuing his efforts to persuade his brother, Quintana quips, “In this life everything is a business, even war and diseases, yet you talk about justice and honor.” Audiences here may well understand both perspectives since sometimes a hardworking, honorable life will not always afford even the basic social necessities because in a ruthless capitalist world where legal justice and personal honor are subordinate to profit, then breaking the law to meet basic social needs feel justified. Mario Almada, who plays Quintana, was one of the most successful, hard-working actors in naco cinema, having participated in well over three hundred films, encompassing all genres, in a career that spanned over 50 years. He worked with respected Mexican film auters, such as Arturo Ripstein, in the critically-acclaimed film La viuda negra/The Black Widow (1977) and alongside most of Mexico’s well-known actors from the 1950s to the present. By the time La banda del carro rojo was released Mario Almada was already a legend in Mexican cinema, but it was this film that 77 cemented him as an iconic film “god” in the minds of his audience. The majority of the films that he has starred in have dealt with current social and political issues of their times; even those not accustomed to watching his films are quickly captured by his screen presence. Almada has been familiar to many in the Mexican immigrant community in part because, as I have heard numerous times, “he looks, talks, and acts like us.” In this film, he played the leader of the red car gang who felt forced to venture into illegal business to get out of debt. Many audience members from the lower socioeconomic strata interpreted his behavior as an act of desperation and relates it to his quest to achieve the prosperity that has supposedly been available to all (if they work hard) in the United States (i.e., another aspect of the “American Dream”). His trajectory during the film traces an arc from an honest citizen with a gambling problem, to a drug trafficker, to a dead man. He illustrated the difficult position of desperate, poor immigrants with few avenues for upward mobility, who made the wrong choices and were forced to pay a high price. Quintana, while a relentless, cruel character, resonated with his audience because he exposed migrant struggles with corrupt police powers. Jorge Patiño, who played the character Boom, is another easily recognizable naco film star. Patiño not only acted in some of the most popular naco films of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s but he wrote many of them, including La banda del carro rojo. Like Mario Almada, and so many other naco film stars, Jorge Patiño collaborated with and wrote for some of Mexico’s greatest film directors, such as Felipe Cazals in Las siete cucas/The Seven Nymphs (1981). In La banda, Boom represented a Mexican-American, 78 or better yet, a pocho 19 who is deeply entrenched in the criminal element. He may have been interpreted as a product of Chicano alienation caused, in part, by the unassailable consumer culture of the 1960s and 1970s that recent immigrants could not participate in. As a response, many lower-income Mexican-Americans, frustrated and enraged by the impossibility of ever having the money to actively participate in the consumer culture through honest means, turned to crime (Limón, Dancing 109). Boom operates as a coyote, ferrying desperate Mexicans across the border. In this way he exploits others from his home country, charging exorbitant rates for a voyage that may not even be successful. His drug addiction also makes him unreliable and selfish. Boom has long since discarded the idea of making an “honest” living in favor of making a lucrative income by any means necessary. Many audience members quickly dismissed Boom early in the film, labeling him a pocho with no morals, who not only gave up on life but sold out his culture. At first, most could not relate to him because of his drug habit, since as an observer put it, “he is choosing to give up, rather than to fight.” While conducting an audience study, presented in chapter four, a few people in the group made some very insightful observations that caused the rest of the audience members to re-evaluate what they originally thought about Boom. As an audience member pointed out, Boom always wore a camouflage jacket and was probably a veteran of the Vietnam War who self-medicated to ease the mental stress (PTSD) caused by the war. In support of this reading, other audience members chimed in by pointing out that Boom would have been of draft age during the war. The film, thus, 19 Generally, a pocho is a derogatory word used to describe a Mexican who was born in the United States but has rejected or has no sense of his Mexican heritage or the Spanish language. 79 suggested that Boom was a casualty of an unjust war perpetrated by the United States against Vietnam, where Chicanos paid a heavy price. Audience members also noted that Boom lived alone with his younger sister, prompting numerous theories as to the absence of the parents. Boom, who early on was read as a simple criminal and drug-addict with no morals, was more complex and an observant audience detected the subtleties that were missed by a dismissive critic. What the four characters have in common is their deep desire for freedom. Driven by different motivations into a life of crime, they hope to evade the authorities and make money in order to get out of debt, pay for medical treatment, and achieve a small piece of the “American Dream.” When it becomes clear that their pursuit of money through crime is not sustainable, and the Texas Rangers pick up their trail, they decide to avoid capture at any cost. In the film’s climactic finale, when they find themselves surrounded by the Rangers, they decide to take a last stand and die with pistols in their hands. Feeling victimized and criminalized by society their entire lives, they decide to take charge in their moments of death. In their eyes, death as free men is preferable to spending the rest of their lives in prison. The corrido, as well as the film, La banda del carro rojo, illustrate many of the themes of Mexican immigrants’ cultural experiences, beginning in the 1970s and continuing to the present, including social inequality, the struggle of migration, the dream of quick success, the temptation of drugs, limited access to power, and the differences between first and second-generation Mexican-Americans. The narrative of La banda is similar to those of many naco films that deal with experiences common to immigrants to 80 the United States—the hope of achieving the “American Dream” quickly destroyed by the realities of discrimination, alienation, and exclusion. New undocumented Latina/o immigrants who enter the United States to work and contribute are immediately criminalized. They are uncomfortable with authority for fear of deportation and feel excluded from the social arena. Some internalize a feeling of criminality, which keeps them disempowered. The lack of education and opportunities for social mobility lead people to the drudgery of low-wage jobs and desperate frustration. Often, the frustration is centered on the inability to pay for or access basic human needs, such as health care. For some, this frustration pushes them towards a life of dishonesty or even crime—the only way they feel able to gain control of their destiny. The characters in La banda, who deal with the same feelings of exclusion and disempowerment experienced by many new undocumented immigrants, choose to empower themselves through crime. They act out the subconscious fantasies of the audience who get to see themselves embodied on the big and small screen as powerful and courageous, standing against the system. Even if the character dies at the end, at least he has died by his choosing and after his moment of glory. Though most migrants do not lead lives of crime, either because their repressed rage against the system keeps them disempowered or because their moral beliefs warn them against it, they are responsive to the story of La banda del carro rojo, and other naco films like it. Thus, what appears at first glance to be a simple and uncomplicated narrative that is based on a two-minute song, can actually be read as a profound reflection on the complexity of the Latina/o immigrant experience. 81 Conclusion: The New Naco (1990 to the Present) History impacts culture, creating a context for events. Our current political climate fosters certain artistic forms, sometimes unintentionally, including naco cinema. These quickly produced, artistically indifferent, now straight-to-DVD films continue to be some of the most popular media consumed by Latina/o audiences in the Southwestern portion of the United States. With demographic changes in various parts of the U.S. one can encounter these films in places from the Midwest to New York City. As the relationship between the U.S. and Mexico continues to be a hot issue, never out of the political limelight, and as border “protection” measures increase, verbal and physical attacks on Latina/o immigrants are becoming progressively more vicious and it is this rage that feeds some of the more violent contemporary naco films. Helping fuel the rage captured in many of the new naco films are the polices of the World Bank, which are partly responsible for stimulating a constant flow of cheap labor into the U.S. As cultural theorist George Lipsitz pointed out, the World Bank, along with other economic elites have produced “unprecedented concentrations of wealth and power for transnational corporations, while relegating the vast majority of the world’s people to a future marked by ever increasing disruption, disorder, and social disintegration” (299). With the first economic crisis of 1976, followed by the 1982 crisis that bankrupted Mexico, then the collapse of the financial markets in 1987, and finally with the adoption of NAFTA in 1994, naco cinema has been there to capture it all. While World Bank policies have benefited the established upper class, the poor have only become poorer. The current financial crises and the social disintegration, combined with detrimental government 82 policies from both sides of the border, have all crept into the naco films from the third stage, which audience members use as an example to show how, over time, naco films have gone from “bad” to “worse” and “worse again.” Films of the third stage of naco cinema continue to mediate the political, economic, and industrial conditions of the period. They represent the oppressive daily life in the border region, exploring misery, violence, overcrowding, and State corruption. The plots of the films continue to deal with the experiences of their intended audience, the recent Mexican and Latina/o immigrants in the United States, largely poor and with limited formal education, who cross to the United States to work for little money in el norte. We can determine a direct line of influence between these naco films and the Mexican films that garnered such critical acclaim in recent years. For instance, La banda de carro rojo (1976) and Robert Rodríguez’s El mariachi (1992) both commented on the financial crises of their times, the war on drugs, and the fortification of the U.S./Mexico border. Of course, one is completely overlooked for its participation in “low” culture, while the other is praised for pandering to an art-house cinéaste. As the United States stepped up actions against the new migrant class, the resentment in the films became more pronounced. As the frustrations of new Latina/o immigrants increased, the naco films responded by becoming more violent and unrepentant. In the decades after La banda del carro rojo was produced, both narcocorridos and naco films based on them have become progressively more violent, showcasing machine guns, unrelenting profanity, and further female degradation. Also, while the characters in La banda del carro rojo paid for their crimes at the end of the film (they all die), the criminal characters in the more recent naco 83 films often do not pay for their crimes. The character of the drug dealer in the naco films has become more of a cultural icon—a cruel modern hero never defeated, never beaten by the system. In this chapter, I have argued that naco films are cultural documents of social transformation that attest to the developing identity of the migrant class of Latina/os. Once one understands the context in which these films are created, and to whom they are addressed, one can begin to appreciate their cultural importance and relevance. When defining Mexico, particularly in the context of today’s political and economic climate, it is important to look at all aspects of the cultural spectrum and not simply concentrate on the most palatable ones. Naco cinema addresses the unpleasant realities of many immigrants living on low wages outside of their home country. I would further argue that many of the descendants who were born in the United States of recent immigrants elevate naco films above mainstream American and Mexican films because they deliberately offend middle and upper-class aesthetic values. Naco films producers might not be interested or invested in creating lasting artistic polemics or deep philosophical thoughts, nor making films that will garner national or international film awards, but that is okay because time and time again low-budget, cheap, naco films have triumphed over some of the best, big-budget Mexican film productions at the box-office. By deliberately patronizing “low” culture, audiences chip away at the dominance of the mainstream. By watching the latest naco film on DVD, audience members take a small amount of money from big-name directors and the Hollywood machine. Immigrant film consumers, thus, seem to delight in the fact that they are not funding “high” art when they watch naco 84 films; they enjoy participating in the “low” end of the standard artistic film hierarchy. This economic and social move remains subtle and unrecognized by almost all but the participants, but it does signal a deliberate choice. With naco films in great demand, and with stripped-down crews and hence few production people to please, even with low-budgets, the director enjoys a great deal of freedom in subject matter, presentation, and artistic choices. As Jeffrey Sconce pointed out, Hollywood films require endless meetings with lawyers, accountants, and corporate boards while low budget films may become wildly eccentric, even presenting unpopular and politically incorrect views (543). Naco films, I argue, are invested in an energy which seems more about the creativity of impurity and mixing it up, rather than accepting modernist aesthetic norms that most Mexican, non-naco films ascribe to or inspire to achieve. Naco films tap into an imperfect cinema, a risky improvisational cinema whose ultimate goal is to articulate an alternative naco aesthetic that speaks to the populace in a cinematic language that they can comprehend and enjoy. By adopting and championing an imperfect, naco cinema aesthetic, uninterested in modernist norms, naco films are free from many special interests that plague most productions where producers and directors shoot for a “universal,” international appeal geared to pretentious cinéaste. The filmmakers may also approach unusual subject matter: the taboos that scare State- sponsored filmmakers away from unpopular and radical views do not hold the same power over naco film producers who do not expect to see their films reviewed in national newspapers or academic journals. Even if presented in simple ways, naco films have addressed national issues that the government would rather forget. Naco films have 85 gotten away with direct representation of State corruption where the street corner cop all the way up to the Mexican president are shown in their true colors, subject matter most government sanctioned, big-budget productions shy away from for fear of censorship or complete production shutdowns. It seems that my childhood memories of a low-income Mexican family living on the border of the United States and Mexico have become compelling subject matter for the critically acclaimed “New Wave” of Mexican films, such as Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu 2006) which stars the internationally known actor Gael García Bernal as a norteño (northern) naco from his cowboy attire all the way to his mannerism. More recently, though, have been two big budget and high production value films, El infierno/Hell (Luis Estrada 2010) and Miss Bala/The Bullet Queen (Gerardo Naranjo 2011), both genuine naco films that clearly attest to the ways in which the genre has become an influential cinematic force that can no longer be rejected or relegated to second class “B” film status. However, it is important to remember that these stories have been told for decades to a largely undervalued audience of migrant workers. Academia and popular culture have recognized the public’s interest in these “new” stories and in this “new” form of storytelling, but may still not understand its ancestry. I would like to give some credit to the naco films for their contribution to the resurgence of the new wave of Mexico’s cine de calidad. A new cinema that is not entirely new but relies upon a foundation of quickly produced, critically shunned, naco movies: both share attention to the border region as a place of opportunity and self-invention; both feature a grainy, low- quality film style with high melodrama and the northern sounds of norteño corridos. 86 CHAPTER THREE CORRIDOS AND MALE FASHION IN “POPULAR” MEXICAN CINEMA “My comrades are dead and can no longer speak. So, I’m sorry sheriff because I don’t know how to sing.” Lino Quintana from La banda del carro rojo After a thrilling and suspenseful car chase in the 1976 naco action film, La banda del carro rojo/ The Red Car Gang (Rubén Galindo) comes a climatic end and the four members of the gang find themselves surrounded and over-powered by machine gun- wielding Texas Rangers. Lino Quintana and his comrades-in-arms decide to make a last stand and go out with blazing pistols in hand. As each man courageously and heroically lunges out to face the inevitable, a blanket of bullets mows them down, one by one, as they decide to take charge in their moments of death. Once the loud, menacing noise of the Rinches M16 armor comes to a halt, the only ominous sounds heard are the wailing winds of the Texas countryside and the blaring car horn where Boom’s lifeless body lays slumped over the steering wheel of the red Pontiac Bonneville. Moving cautiously from body to body, looking for any signs of life, a Texas Ranger approaches the mortally wounded Quintana, grabs hold of his makeshift necktie and asks him in broken Spanish “who is your boss?” To the disappointed but unsurprised white representative of the law, Quintana defiantly responds, “I don’t know how to sing.” Knowing all too well the double meaning behind Quintana’s last statement, the audience quickly understands not only his unwillingness to rat on his associates, but the reference to the narcocorrido 87 (drug-ballad), on which the naco film is based. The Ranger, realizing that it is futile to continue, quickly lets go and as he retreats, the signature accordion sounds of Los Tigres del Norte’s narco-corrido, La banda del carro rojo, are heard beginning the ending of the film. In the end, “singing” is not what the film’s dying, cruel hero knows how to do but singing is something the talented and fashionable, San Jose, California based norteño 20 band, Los Tigres del Norte know how to do. In fact, Los Tigres were so good at it that by the time this film was released, singing about dark subject matter was something they had already mastered, paving the way for the more violent corridos that would soon “flow” from the edges of the Mexican periphery and back down to the center of Mexico. Not only did corridos and corridistas follow Los Tigres into the realm of the narcocorrido, but so did many naco films of the 1970s and 1980s, whose narratives were based on popular corridos of the time. While this corrido/naco film merger was taking shape, popular Mexican male fashion was also changing and moving towards a northern style, which combines traditional vaquero (cowboy) fashions consisting of form fitting pants, long sleeve shirt, and boots, but adding that little extra in the unique style of the tejana (hat) and in the belt with a large buckle. This fashion change, I argue, was driven by the popularity of Los Tigres del Norte and the 1970s naco movie star, whose wardrobe differed from the singers and movie stars of Mexico’s golden era (1940 – 1950). Since narcocorridos were heard in almost any Mexican neighborhood and the naco films, 20 Developed in the late nineteenth century, norteño style music also known as Tex-Mex evolved out of a fusion between rhythms and folk songs from the north of Mexico and the accordion polka styles of German settlers in Texas. 88 showcasing narco heroes were regularly seen on the big screen, the cruel heroes’ northern attire began to attract attention in ways that began to transform Mexican popular forms of fashion. The aim of this chapter then is twofold: first, to analyze this corrido/naco film merger by tracing the history and evolution of the Mexican corrido tradition to the narcocorrido; and second, to examine how the trajectory of the Mexican male fashion from the charro to the northern naco came to represent the image of what Mexico was, and not what it wants to be. In making such a claim I am suggesting a borderland shift in the Mexican national imagery that displaces and critiques historically-dominant forms of Mexican nationalism. Placing the naco film, La banda de carro rojo, within the historical and social context of the corrido and within the history of charreria and charro style, suggests that in the twentieth century, music, fashion and film all began to merge with the coming of film in Mexico. By accounting for this “forgotten,” unofficial, or counter Mexican history, I hope to shed light on and inscribe los de abajo (the proletariat) as active agents in the creation and re-interpretation of the nation. The Mexican Corrido Américo Paredes, the foremost scholar of border balladry, defined Mexican corridos as “narrative folk songs, especially those of epic themes, taking the name for correr, which means to run or to flow, for the corrido tells a story simply and swiftly” (xi). Originally sung by a corridista and his guitar around a campfire, locals would gather to hear current events consisting of stories of the heroic men and women who fought 89 bravely, or as popular journalist Sam Quiñones wrote, “had done something worth singing about” (12). The coridista usually acts as a hypothetical witness of the event, describing the proceedings in first or third person (Limón, Mexican 10). A corridista can take any subject matter, particularly of the adventurous kind, and transform it into a corrido (Herrera-Sobek 49). It is common for the opening stanza of the corrido to set the scene of the events that will follow and for the closing stanza to offer an overall comment on what transpired. The corrido appears to be built on three structural elements: a hero or protagonist whom the Mexican audience identifies with, a setting in a world in which the hero acts and is acted on by antagonistic forces presumably a reflection of the audience’s conception of the world, and an oral narrative that describes the interaction of the protagonist and the world (Saldivar 61). Almost all scholars agree, according to José E. Limón, that the corrido is a male narrative folk song of greater Mexico (Mexican 10). Women, if they do appear, as noted by María Herrera-Sobek, generally play secondary roles in the narratives (xiii). 21 In addition to being a popular form of entertainment, heroic corridos of the past and the more violent narcocorridos of today serve as a form of recording history and of chronicling events not only in Mexico or the U.S./Mexico borderlands, but also in various geographies where Mexicans live. Corridos are valuable resources worthy of critical study because as Limón stated, they are “deeply implicated in the social history, in politics, conflict, and social change … in their present historical moment” (Mexican 56). After discussing the imposition of 21 It is important to note that most corridos are patriarchal in form and problematic in the way that they represent women. 90 the border on South Texas in the nineteenth century, Paredes focused on how Chicanos at the beginning of the twentieth century used corridos to counter Anglo centric hegemony (48). They played and continue to play a vital role in unifying a displaced group of people who share common interests, hardships, and experiences. As the literary scholar Ramón Saldívar put it, “The nineteenth and twentieth-century corridos served the symbolic function of empirical events (functioning as a substitute for history writing) and of creating counterfactual worlds of lived experience (functioning as a substitute for fiction writing)” (40). They can be heard as the voice of the oppressed, recording the political, social, and personal histories of the proletariat. In this capacity they could be read as a “collective diary,” expressing symbolically the people’s reactions to events vital to their self-interests (Peña 161). Herrera-Sobek assigned further value to the corridos, writing that under careful examination, corridos “will yield valuable information as to the ideology, world view, political, economic, and social situation of the Mexican people,” and I argue that the same could be said of naco films because of their inseparable ties to the 1970s corrido (49). Narcocorridos, much like the corrido of border conflict (El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez) and the corrido of the Mexican Revolution (Los Combates de Celaya), two representative examples that I will discuss later, can be read “as a repository of basic historical data for a public with minimal access to the official written word” (Limón, Mexican 31). Unlike the heroic corridos of the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century, the narcocorridos of the 1970s and those of today are commercially produced, but their function remains the same and both forms attract an audience for the same reasons as those in the past. 91 The Northern Migration of the Corrido If the “center of the periphery” is located in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, as cultural theorist Saldívar suggested in his book, Border Matters (18), then I place the development of the narcocorrido tradition within the periphery of this periphery. The periphery that I am suggesting is part of the ever-expanding border zone of what Américo Paredes calls “Greater Mexico.” Richard Bauman, who edited a volume containing some of Paredes’s most important essays, wrote that Paredes coined the term “to comprehend both ‘México de Adentro’ and ‘México de Afuera;’ the former encompassed by the political borders of the Republic of Mexico, the latter taking in all those other parts of North America where people of Mexican descent have established a presence and have maintained their Mexicanness as a key part of their cultural identity” (xi). This “borderland” is what Saldívar described as “a dialogic space between two worlds that [Paredes] came to call a “‘Greater Mexico” to indicate the Mexican labor diasporas north from the border, as well as the social, economic, political, and symbolic overlap between those contiguous worlds” (5). Although Paredes’ scholarship centers around folklore and culture in the borderland region on both sides of the lower Rio Grande, he “never descends to provincial narrowness” (Bawman xi). He avoided narrowness by contextualizing his work within a wider geographic area and historical view of the Greater Mexican experience. In this holistic approach, Paredes elegantly wove together history, textual analysis, and personal narratives when writing about the greater Mexico corrido tradition. Building on Paredes, I analyze a corrido tradition that developed in the borderlands or in the periphery, migrated down south, and ultimately fed into the 92 corridos of the revolution only to migrate back into the narcocorrido and naco films that have emerged on the edges of the periphery. The circular northern-to-southern migration, or “flow,” of the corrido and of naco films is important to understand from a subaltern perspective because it opens up a new way of thinking, which is invested in a macronarrative that has global implications, which accounts for multiple “voices.” This kind of thinking is what postcolonialists Walter D. Mignolo and Ramón Saldívar would call “border thinking,” where “border thinking and local histories” serve “as coordinates of larger global designs” (Borderlands 36). Corridos, moreover, are prime examples of border thinking. Departing from the scholarship of his time, Paredes argued that corridos were not descendants of the romantic Spanish ballad but originated in the Mexican borderlands and then flowed south, rather than vice versa, as prior critics had argued. In “The Mexican Corrido: Its Rise and Fall,” published in 1958, Paredes first introduced this controversial proposition. Paredes claims that although there were “corrido-like” romances being composed and sung throughout New Spain, this in itself does not prove folklorist Merle E. Simmons’s central thesis that there was a “continuous and unbroken line” between the Spanish romance ballad to the Mexican corrido (231-232). Among other things, Paredes claimed that what eventually gave rise to the Mexican heroic corrido were the border conflicts and cultural clashes between Mexicans and Americans. He identified two general social conditions that are prerequisites for the emergence of a heroic balladry. “First, there must be present a community with a general tradition of balladry scattered and uncrystallized as the tradition may be. Second, this community must find itself in a fairly sharp 93 adversarial relationship with other groupings in the social order, a relationship based on an unequal distribution of power, status, and resources” (Limón, Mexican 19-20). Both of these conditions, according to Paredes, were present in the borderlands of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of which El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez is an excellent example, recounting a border conflict of a persecuted man who fights for his rights “with his pistol in his hand.” The Mexican corrido, then, did not begin with a heroic period but with a proletariat one. Mendoza as well as Paredes agreed that as an independent form in Mexico, the corrido “falls into three distinct stages: a period of ascent from 1875 to 1910 (during which time the ballad heroes are Robin Hood-like outlaws in rebellion against Porfirio Díaz); a culminating period from 1910-1930 (the epic period of the Revolution); and a period of decadence from 1930 to the present [1993]” (Bauman 132). The first corrido heroes robbed the rich and gave to the poor, showing their class-conscious origins (137). These corridos were different from the border corridos because, stylistically, they were sentimental and the men symbolized class struggle rather than cultural strife or civil war, which were characteristics of the border outlaw corridos (Paredes, With His 143). Border smugglers, or robbers, are not Robin Hoods but are, quite frankly, rogues: cynical and usually unrepentant; if the corridista wanted to justify his hero’s deeds “he will transform him into a border raider fighting against the outside group, the Americans” (Paredes, With His 143-144). Those proletariat corridos that were then transformed into heroic ones during the Mexican revolution, such as Los Combates de Celaya (Combats of Celaya), owed their existence to the ballads of the north because 94 as Limón demonstrated, “As Villa’s norteño soldiers sang their ballad around the evening campfire near Celaya in April 1915, it is likely that they were singing in a form they had learned in their home region of Chihuahua, across the Rio Grande from Texas” (29). Much like the revolutionary spirit coming from the north and migrating down south, the border corridos followed that journey. By tracing the journey of the heroic corrido, informed and shaped through earlier experiences of social domination along the Lower Border, we can begin to see how a local narrative evolved to become “an expressive form for all of greater Mexico during the period of Revolution” (Limón, Mexican 29). In tracing this journey, we can also learn how an expressive form for greater Mexico during the Revolution was then commercialized and tamed in the hands of the cultural upper class only to become, by the 1970s, an “unruly subject,” unrealistic and unworthy for bourgeoisie tastes. Approaching this history from a subaltern perspective is where Américo Paredes began and it is from there that I, too, will begin this journey. The Border Hero, the Smuggler, the Revolution In confronting unequal justice and trigger-happy Texas Rangers, Gregorio Cortez became a legend and a symbol of resistance for the downtrodden people struggling for freedom and social justice. The ballad of Gregorio Cortez was thus born out of Anglo encroachment and occupation of southern Texas, which produced a violent conflict that displaced and disrupted traditional Tejano life. El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez, the man, the history, and legend was then recounted by Paredes in his seminal book, With His Pistol In His Hand, published in 1958, becoming an instant text for the Chicano 95 Movement of the 1960s. The corrido documents the trek of a Mexican Texan who fled for his life after killing an Anglo sheriff in self-defense because of a misunderstanding over some stolen horses. The corrido was composed in 1901, soon after the arrest of Cortez and according to Paredes “nothing seems to have been added, but on the contrary, much of its original detail has been lost” (109). The legend, on the other hand, “has grown considerably … due, no doubt, to its lack of precise form and to the way that it is usually passed from one person to another” (Paredes, With His 109). For the most part, the subject in the corrido [Cortez] is meant to stand not as an individual but as an epic- like construction of South Texas society that interpolated him (Saldívar, Border Matters 40). Characteristically, the form of the border conflict corrido is realistic in tone, exaggerating what it takes for a fact but always providing scenes taken from real life (Bauman 194). The theme of confrontation, as Paredes pointed out, is an essential part of the border corrido, which centers on “the dialogic face-off between the defiant hero and the cowardly agents of Anglo power—the rinches (Texas Rangers), sheriffs, and the like—rendered as direct discourse” (Bauman xvi). “Gregorio Cortez” is then the ideal example of the corrido hero in the borderlands because of its social theme of confrontation and its direct discourse. This “face-off between the defiant hero” and the “agents of Anglo power,” was, by 1900, already part of El corrido de Mariano Reséndez, preceding El Corrido de Gregorio Cortez, and both songs served as the foundation of the corridos that would follow. The classic ballad of Mariano Reséndez is about an early corrido hero or “smuggler” who defiantly takes on a corrupt system, enforced by newly assigned Border 96 guards. The theme of confrontation is set in the background of the border region where local life has been disrupted and is in need of order. This corrido is typical of the border corridos that depict common, hardworking, and honest people who are defined, by the law, as smugglers and outlaws. The following two stanzas from the corrido give us a great deal of information about the man, the law, the confrontation and the smuggled goods: Decía Mariano Reséndez Then said Mariano Con esa boca de infierno: in a malevolent voice, Entranle, guardias cobardes “come on, you cowardly Border guards, engreídos con el gobierno. Who live off the government’s bounty.” Traigo una pana muy fina “I’m carrying some very fine corduroy, y un casimir de primer, and some first-class cashmere, y una buena carabina, and also a good rifle; éntrenle ahora que hay manera. come try your luck now there’s a chance.” The corrido of Mariano Reséndez is of particular interest because, with the passage of time, we will see, the hero and the smuggled goods begin to change drastically, but the characteristics and themes of the smuggling ballad remain virtually unchanged. In A Texas-Mexican Cancionero: Folksongs of the Lower Border Américo Paredes discussed “Mariano Reséndez,” as a corrido that deals with the exploits and capture of a popular textile smuggler whose “malevolent voice” brings fear or admiration on both sides of the law. Paredes wrote that although Reséndez was a smuggler according to the law, in the eyes of the people he was seen as a folk hero (Paredes, A Texas 42) who fought for his honor and rights against Anglo injustice. It is important to note that Mariano Reséndez smuggled “fine corduroy,” a durable, working-persons fabric, and “first-class cashmere,” a fine fabric, used in producing garments such as expensive 97 sweaters. Both were common goods that local merchants had routinely passed freely into the United States. When new policies were enacted and enforced by “braggart” officers, as we are told in the corrido, everyday goods began to be controlled and taxed, creating criminals and outlaws of common people who, like Reséndez, refused to contribute to the “government’s bounty” (Paredes, A Texas 42). Another important thing to note is that the adjectives used to describe the border smuggler, Reséndez, and the border hero, Cortez, are the same ones that would be used to describe the heroic figures in the “epic” or “true” corridos of the Mexican Revolution. An exemplar of an “epic” corrido from the period of the Revolution, which José E. Limón analyzed in his book Mexican Ballads, Chicano Poems, is the 1915 corrido of Los combates de Celaya (Combats of Celaya). This corrido recounts the events in the most famous battle of the Mexican Revolution, where the army of Alvaro Obregón defeated the populist forces of Francisco Villa “in a ferocious encounter that presaged the ultimate demise of Villa and Zapata” (Limón, Mexican 7). The following stanza comes from one of the numerous corridos composed soon after the confrontation: Dice Don Francisco Villa: Don Francisco Villa says: De nuevo voy a atacar, I will attack once more, me han matado mucha gente, they have killed many of my people, su sangre voy a vengar. and their blood I shall avenge. By reading this stanza and comparing it to the corridos of Cortez or Reséndez, we quickly learn that there are few differences in how the Revolutionary hero General Villa is being described. Characteristically, all three men are presented in their respective corrido as defiant and fearless men, fighting for what they believe in. Thematically, all 98 three corridos deal with confrontation in pursuit of social justice in situations where life has been disrupted and these men have no other option but to violently bring order to the day. All three corridos are folksongs that speak for the rural folk, recounting their victories as well as their defeats. Since these corridos are representative of their times, we can clearly see how a borderland tradition moved with the people, from north to south. It was a corrido tradition, informed through earlier experiences of social domination, that became, according to Limón, “an expressive form for all greater Mexico during the period of Revolution” (Limón, Mexican 29). The popular Mexican corrido hero, or border bandit, would soon fall from grace, becoming unrealistic once it was adopted by the Mexican mass media, thus ending un- heroically its “epic” revolutionary spirit. Paredes writes that, after the 1930s, the corrido began to change and its “decay was inevitable” due to its commercialization: “At first radio and the movies employed folk singers and composers, and Mexican popular music had a brief golden age. But soon the demand for more and more new songs wore the folk material thin” (102). I find that corridos sought after by radio and commercial film producers of the Golden Era in the 1930s through the 1960s were, for the most part, unrealistic in tone, not being grounded in real life, and their social theme of confrontation was “thin” or absent, supporting Paredes’s theory of their “decay.” Limón addressed this “decay” by stating, “It is as if, Paredes seems to be suggesting, the demand for corridos produced a new body of songs that were ‘thin’ in their articulation of the traditional aesthetics and social vision” (39). If Limón is right in his interpretation of Paredes’s argument, then I would argue that with the changing times the ballads would eventually 99 start to lose some of their “thinness” and begin to articulate some of the traditional aesthetics and social vision championed by Paredes. My research suggests that after the corrido’s brief “Golden Age,” as identified by Paredes, and with the collapse of the national film industry, the corrido was no longer in high demand and was free to develop and flourish organically. A New Tradition Finding itself rejected by the urban establishment, elements of the “true” corrido would soon begin to appear in the ballads of the late 1960s. These narco ballads recorded the trials and tribulations experienced by an oppressed migrant people in the northern parts of a greater Mexico. The ground in this area was once again fertile for the growth, sustainability, and eventual solidification of a new and more visceral, cruel hero ballad tradition. I identify five general social conditions needed for the development of this new corrido tradition to occur: (a) the existence and awareness of a prior ballad tradition that can be used for “building on what was previously there, but with an emphasis on the sensationalist;” (b) warlike conditions where the downtrodden are frequently acted upon by agents of neocolonialist powers; (c) a continuous sense of despair where race, class, and gender become the means of domination and social isolation; (d) the accessibility of modern technologies “used to circumvent censorship” and establish “methods of distribution;” and (e) finally, a direct merger of the oral and the visual, two traditional forms of popular communication. The full intensities of these social conditions are not found anywhere else, but they do define the borderlands of the late 1960s. These social 100 conditions are similar to those that allowed for the development and solidification of the naco films discussed in the introduction. In this way, the balled tradition of the narcocorrido soon mushroomed and became a force to be reckoned with. The social conditions in the borderlands, many of which were a direct result of the global financial crisis in the 1970s and the introduction of neoliberalism to Mexico in the same decade, gave rise to the corrido that would eventually crystallize and enter its classic period by the mid-1980s. It is to the 1970s that I trace the subjects and heroes of the narcocorridos that would dominate during the classic period. With the accessibility of modern technologies, like portable cassette recorders, the cruel heroes in those ballads would eventually gain international popularity in ways that the “epic” corrido never could. The recorded and uncensored corrido, grounded in “real” life, would become so popular that a collapsed, “beaten down” film industry would take note. With the newly enacted government privatization polices I discussed in the introduction, the private film industry, with little government interference and the drive to make a “fast buck,” would benefit from the northern corrido and its unflinching subject matter. In the end, what made corridos even more accessible and popular was when an audience could see on the big screen their larger-than-life cruel heroes, as I discuss in chapter four, “a todo color” in the naco films of the 1970s and 1980s. The early naco films, based on the narratives of the corridos, would eventually proliferate in the market, providing the spark that set into motion the merger of an oral and visual tradition that was accepted and understood very well by the masses. 101 Soon after the introduction of the narcocorrido to the naco film and a wider audience, the content and narrative of the narcocorrido became the subject of controversy, debated and disliked by some but sought after and appreciated by many of its working poor audience. In a move meant to protect women and children from hearing and idolizing the narco, the state and the “protectors of decency” who control the airwaves have banned the narcocorrido from the radio in the hope of limiting their popularity, but all efforts have failed. The audience, who hears and sees the narcos come to life in the naco films, read them as powerful agents that symbolize a reality that the government, on both sides of the wall, is unwilling to acknowledge or deal with. These corridos have been compared to Gangsta Rap because they tend to sensationalize drugs and celebrate the exploits of the drug-dealer or smuggler, while vilifying state powers, such as Ice Cube’s “Gangsta Rap Made Me Do It” and Scarface’s “Money And The Power.” The drug dealer achieves heroic status, becoming a legend in the eyes of poor people who find themselves caught in-between the crossfire of a drug war. According to Curtis Marez, Rap and narcocorridos narrate the drug war from below and “often represent fantasies of a world turned upside down in which poor black and Mexican characters become rich and powerful social actors who battle with and often triumph over the police and other representatives of state power” (23). This is in keeping with the Saldivar quote I highlighted above—an example of a representation based in everyday experience but still constituting a counter factual fiction, or what Marez here calls a fantasy. In everyday life, working-class Mexican migrants do not openly battle the police 102 and state power, but those same conditions partly explain their interests in a fantasy of power reversal. Even if the “hero” of the corrido is a selfish, cruel drug smuggler who indiscriminately kills, an audience is sympathetic to the “bad” guy because as Mario, an audience member that I interviewed and write about in chapter four said, such characters recall Cortez since they “had been kicked way too many times.” The new heroes in the narcocorridos, seen in the films, are for the most part displaced workers or “illegal” immigrants who began as honest and courageous men or women but are “forced” to venture into illegal activities to “level the playing field.” They must defend themselves by any means possible from the “bad guys” who are almost always unsympathetic Texas Rangers and the like. An audience identifies with and cares for the narco hero even when the corrido lyrics seem to disapprove of their unlawful activity because, in the end, they stand up for their rights as wrong as they might seem to someone who is unfamiliar with these corridos. Writing on some of these issues, Marez argued that the history of narcocorridos, and I extend his argument to include naco films, “suggests that subaltern audiences take vicarious pleasure in the narcotrafficker’s opposition to State power. The tastes of such audiences contradict dominant representations of the poor people longing for patriarchal state protections” (Marez 23). From this perspective, the drugs, or illegal activity become secondary to the action and to the theme of social confrontation, where the underdog is no different than Reséndez, Cortez, or Villa. It is no coincidence, then, that an audience who found themselves “acted upon” would vicariously strike back at 103 “agents of Anglo power” through their cruel heroes like Lino Quintana of La banda del carro rojo. Revisiting the Periphery It was in the central and southern parts of California, or within a “Greater Mexico,” in the 1970s where all the social conditions needed for the development of a corrido tradition were found and would be unleashed, producing a loud bark where there would be a bite. The Mexican ballad in the hands of a young, recently arrived, and “illegal” norteño group (Los Tigres del Norte) would set into motion the narcocorrido tradition that would become their trademark and that others would follow. The case of Los Tigres suggests that the narcocorrido tradition, and later, I will argue, Mexican male fashion, did not necessarily begin or flourish in the immediate borderlands, but in the “México de afuera;” flowing back and forth with the people to the border and eventually into the “México de adentro.” My argument is in line with Paredes’ theory that the development of the Greater Mexican corrido began in the Lower Rio Grande Border and migrated with “the revolutionary spirit” down to the center of Mexico where it would crystallize during the Revolution. The narcocorrido was conceived in the north and then flowed down south, as I suggested earlier in this chapter, making the borderlands the center and Mexico City the periphery. With this shift, the borderlands came to displace the urban, cosmopolitan capital and center of power, and put it in the hands of migrants. Originally from the state of Sinaloa, Los Tigres del Norte first migrated to the dusty border city of Mexicali, Baja California, where a musical promoter from San Jose 104 discovered them. They eventually settled in San Jose and performed norteño music locally to Latina/o migrant audiences whose numbers were surging and their appetites for hearing music and watching Mexican performers that spoke to them were not easily satiated. Writing on Los Tigres and on their Silicon Valley audience, José David Saldívar, in his book Border Matters, quoted the political scientist Jesús Martínez: “The musical style and subject matters of the songs recorded by the group are alien to the values and lifestyles of the rest of the population,” reflecting the “sharply segregated society” (3). Even if Los Tigres were virtually unknown and invisible outside the Latina/o culture, their songs were recorded and captured the “true” reality and desires that a greater Mexico audience experienced daily. With a continuous flow of migrant labor to California, the interest in Los Tigres’s music only grew and soon they became regionally popular, but their greatest success did not happen until 1972, when they released “Contrabando y Tración” (Contraband and Betrayal). That narcocorrido, about a drug smuggling couple, Emilio Varela and Camelia la Texana, was so popular that it sparked a hunger for more of these drug ballads and soon they were made into a narco film, but not before Los Tigres’ other hit, La banda del carro rojo made its way to the big screen first. La banda del carro rojo, Los Tigres del Norte’s pivotal corrido and naco film, recounts the story of four beaten-down and desperate men who, for reasons that I explored in chapter two, decide to venture into the lucrative business of drug smuggling. The corrido gives us little information about the men, but it does present them in a heroic and courageous manner because of their defiance of the law in a bloody shootout, where all four die after taking down three law enforcement officers. For an audience with a long 105 history of unpleasant interactions with U.S. authorities, it is not surprising that the corrido would specifically say that it was the Border Patrol, the Sherriff, and the Texas Rangers who were involved in the shootout. The first two stanzas of the La banda del caro rojo provide a good deal of information about the narrative of the corrido and the film. Dicen que venían del sur, They say that they were coming from the south, en un carro colorado. in a red car. Traían cien kilos de coca, They carried one hundred kilos of coke, iban con rumbo a Chicago, they were headed for Chicago. Así lo dijo el soplón, That’s what the whistle blower said, que los había denunciado. who had informed on them. Ya habían pasado la aduana They had already passed customs la que está en El Paso, Texas. the one in El Paso, Texas. Pero en mero San Antonio But in San Antonio los estaban esperando. they were waiting for them. Eran los rinches de Texas It was the Texas Rangers que comandan el condado. who command the county. From the two stanzas we quickly learn that the protagonists are smuggling cocaine, not something any law-abiding citizen would consider to be an act worth singing about. The narrative, or “massacre” of the corrido, unfolds in the borderlands, more specifically, San Antonio, Texas. Setting the corrido in that area is no coincidence because the heroic corridos of Mariano Rezéndez, Gregorio Cortez, and Pancho Villa are all from that region. The audience, being well aware of the location’s historical significance, has not forgotten the stories they heard of the numerous Latina/os who suffered atrocities at the hands of Anglos and in the name of progress. The corrido makes no distinction between the law enforcers and the drug smugglers because, as the corrido nears its end, we hear that of the seven who died, four were from the red car and the other 106 three were from the government, but even they “will go with Lino to hell.” In the end, these smugglers become heroes symbolizing resistance, much like Rezéndez and Cortez. Audiences, as I indicated in chapter two, are well accustomed to hearing stories of good men who tried their best to succeed through honest means but are stripped of any success due to “Gringo Justice.” One thing to note is that the narcocorridos of the 1970s and the naco films that they inspired were still somewhat tame in language compared to the ones that would follow. We can see this in the fact that this corrido, a representative of the period, does not use any foul language or overtly say what they are smuggling, but instead use the word “coca” in reference to cocaine. Also important is that in La banda del carro rojo, the “bad guys” in the end die for their crimes, which is something that has changed in many of the new narcocorridos of today. The Narco in Mexican Male Fashion With the ubiquitous sounds of the narcocorridos heard throughout most 1970s Mexican neighborhoods, on both sides of the border, and with the rise of the naco films, the narco hero in his northern attire gains visibility like never before. Prior to the big drug run in La banda del carro rojo, Boom takes Pedro to a clothing store so that Pedro can buy some “decent” clothes, but when Pedro comes out of the dressing room Boom is surprised to see him in a tan, three-piece suit with matching hat and other accessories. It is clear to Boom and the audience that Pedro does not fit-in with the other members of the gang because of his fashion sense. In referencing Pedro’s new style and unwillingness to rob the clothing store, Boom tells him that he looks like Clyde from the film, Bonnie 107 and Clyde, but acts like Mary Poppins. In revisiting the moment right after the climactic last scene in La banda del carro rojo, the film soon reveals the lifeless bodies of all four members. Nevertheless, even in death it is difficult not to notice Pedro’s stylish outfit. His outfit, now covered with blood, is ironically similar to the outfit of his executioner, a Texas Ranger. Pedro believed that by trading in his worn-out jeans, T-shirt, and ragged sneakers—common attire worn by many recent migrants into the United States—for American attire, he would eventually blend in. All the other characters in the film, as well as the audience, could see that “el mojadito,” the little wetback, as Boom called him because of his naiveté, was overly dressed for the party. In the end, this scene not only captured the four members’ punished bodies, but signals to the audience that the “American Dream” cannot be had with a simple costume change. A displaced migrant audience in a foreign land, knowing all too well the importance of “fitting-in,” is reminded that wearing the colonizers’ clothes will not easily give the colonized an “in.” Although not central to the narrative, the issue of fitting-in is worth examining because of the immense and lasting popularity of the corrido and of the film, which by now have both become part of the Latina/o migrant community. Discourses about Mexican immigrants’ failed efforts to fit in through fashion have a longer history and can be found in other films before La banda. Even if Pedro acquired an appearance of upward mobility, his fashion choice, as I show in chapter four, is read by the audiences as an eerie symbol of his impending doom. In reality, society would still cast him as a foreigner, a charro or a naco, both terms used in a derogatory manner, for a simple attire change would not grant him the same status that his American counterpart, Clyde, or the 108 Texas Ranger, would have been afforded. Pedro was a charro, because much like a naco, the term charro originally meant a Spaniard of the lowest social class, and with time its meaning changed to describe a Mexican who over-dressed in an attempt to assimilate. Placing the naco film La banda de carro rojo within the historical and social context of the corrido and within the history of charreria (rodeo) and charro style, suggests that in the twentieth century, music, fashion, and film all began to merge with the coming of film in Mexico. This music/fashion/film merger began with State-sponsored films in the 1930s and ultimately came to characterize the disdained naco films of the border in the 1970s and 1980s. With the popularity came visibility and the naco del norte (low class of the north) began to transform common Mexican fashion, changing the Mexicano “de adentro” into the style of the Mexicano “de afuera.” The Beginning of a Change In looking at the point of contact between Spain and the New World, we can begin to stitch together a history of colonization not always through brute force but through assimilation, where Indians attained some privileges by learning and adopting the foreigners’ ways. That was the case when Spanish colonization ushered into Mexico cultural change that created a new fashion sense. The process of civilizing through colonizing included modernizing native ways of dress, beginning not long after the destruction of Tenochtitlán and the establishment of Mexico City in 1521, as the capital of New Spain, overseen by Hernando Cortéz. While some Indigenous groups fought colonization and acculturation by fleeing into the mountains or jungles, others were not 109 so lucky, becoming subjects and having to pay tribute to the new State, and eventually forced to adopt foreign dress. The resulting fashion was neither fully Spanish nor Indigenous, but a mixture of both, a hybrid style of dress. This fusion, at first gawked at and made fun of or dismissed, over time, was taken in, adopted, and accepted, becoming a new popular way of dressing. Power relations then shifted in subtle ways, serving the colonized and weakening the colonizer’s ways. After the fall of the Aztec civilization in 1519, all aspects of Indian life would undergo cultural Hispanization. According to historian Charles Gibson, not all changes brought by Spanish colonization were intended, especially when it came to “the more prosaic aspects of native commodity production,” such as housing, food, or clothing (335). Even if no specific law or body dedicated itself to enforcing any fundamental change in commodity production, intended or not, Spanish exploitation and demands did have an adverse effect on all aspects of Indian society. When the Spanish laid eyes on the inhabitants of the New World, they were shocked to find a people wearing minimal clothing; soon after the conquest Indians began to change. Gibson wrote that the shirt, trouser, and hat, introduced in the post conquest period, would become major Indian articles of dress, and the loincloth was generally abandoned, “probably under clerical persuasion and for reasons of decency” (336). In the late sixteenth century, Spanish styles were legalized for Indians but not Spanish clothing (Gibson 337). Preventing Indians from having access to Spaniard clothing, or anything considered a Spanish privilege, helped keep Indians in a subordinate place. Spaniards did, however, reward Indians who cooperated. Kings and Viceroys granted favors, allowing them to carry swords, firearms, 110 wear Spanish clothing, or ride horses, opportunities that would be used to demonstrate their status within Indian society (Gibson 155). An adept macegual (lower class Indian), able to exploit the foreigner’s ways by learning Spanish among other skills, could gain a measure of wealth and local success (156). Such incentives could motivate Indians to assimilate, and with Spanish clothing styles accessible to them, would try to fit-in. Indians would create versions of Spanish clothing styles using plant fibers, animal skins, and other materials native to them. With the mixing of two complex societies, new combinations would be made, changing native clothing style and Spanish fashion tastes along the way. The Southern Charro Spanish conquistadores, unlike their Indian subjects, were free to adopt or resist any native influence on their fashion tastes. The clothes would define the men, so as a way to deny their provincial situation, the Spaniard “rarely adopted Indian styles in dress,” opting instead to exaggerate their own style but relying on native resources to implement them (Gibson 8). In disdain, the Spaniard from Spain would refer to the “overdressed” men as charros, with no fashion sense (Gaona 1). Having acquired power and wealth by becoming a patron or hacendado (boss) of large estates, the conquistador, in his elaborate vaquero (cowboy) outfit, would become a status symbol of Spanish pride; the more exaggerated his outfit, the greater sense of success. Participating in equestrian events full of pageantry was an excellent way to show off his costume and impress, while frightening his Indian subjects with death-defying acts of horsemanship (Ganoa 1). A 111 typical vaquero outfit consisted of a sombrero, waist-length riding jacket, long-sleeved shirt, tight-fitting pants, ankle-high boots, silver or gold spurs, and to show off wealth, the Spaniard would accessorize by adding silver buttons along the pants and horse-shaped ornaments on their jackets or vests. His Indian subjects, slaving all day in the hacienda, would eventually copy his patron’s way of dress. Not allowed to legally possess Spanish clothes, the Indian would create his interpretation of the vaquero style by using a variety of plant fibers, deer hides, leather, suede, and other native materials. Like the Spanish vaquero who would exaggerate his style as a way to feel connected to Spain, so too would the Indian exaggerate his interpretation of vaquero style in an effort to show off and stand out with regard to other Indians, but still hope to blend into Spanish colonial society. But with his costume made of heavy gabardine and suede, with hand-stitched elaborate details of horse shoes or horses, silver or gold colored buttons alongside his pants, big sombrero, everything in great excess, the Indian would awkwardly stand out more than fit-in. He would eventually be criticized and called a charro. Gradually, the Indigenous interpretation of the vaquero dress would be accepted and taken in, becoming part of the Spanish vaquero way of dress (Gaona 1). As much as the Spanish influence had forced the Indian to change, so too did the Native, with time, bring some change to the conquistador’s sense of taste. Initially, the word charro in the hands of the Spanish and then the colonizer, denoted a hopeless fashion parody of anyone who overdid their style in the hopes of showing off and fitting in. By the twentieth century, the charro’s rigid definition had unraveled, from describing someone of low social status and bad fashion taste to 112 someone with cultural cache. The charro had become the “purest essence of Mexicanness,” safeguarding rural traditions of times past, characterized by his bravery and heroism (Carreño King 89). This shift was set into motion by the government soon after the Mexican Revolution, in which members of official circles began to wrestle with the job of defining the country and unifying its vastly culturally diverse people. It was no coincidence then, that the charro, a rural herdsmen, in his ornate outfit and on his horse, was prominently featured in the events and parades organized to commemorate the consummation of independence (Rincón Gallardo 89). The charro, once ridiculed and laughed at, became projected as the majestic embodiment of the national spirit by the government, artists, and intellectuals. He became a symbol of unity in a country that prided itself on its regional diversity (Carreño King 93). Before the post-Revolutionary 1920 group began contemplating the idea of adopting the charro as a national symbol, early vaudeville theater, whose entertainers were commonly seen decked out in charro costumes, had already taken the lead in bestowing this prestige on the charro (Carreño King 90). In the end, it was not the government but the merger of popular entertainment forms, like the cinema of the 1930s and the mariachi, that crystallized the image of the charro as a national symbol in the minds and hearts of Mexicans (93). To this day, the charro and his look are much loved and admired by the people, but he is now a dated representative of a distant past, a nostalgic past that the Mexican government continues to align itself with while essentially ignoring the new look and sounds of the north. Working on the history of the charro, Carrillo argued that it was at the close of the twentieth-century that the epic of social banditry, once usurped by the 113 charros of the silver screen, moved to the northern beat of accordions, Sinaloa’s drums, and to a dangerous clandestine pathes that drug traffickers tread (96). Agreeing with Carrillo’s argument, I place the move to the northern beats in the beginning of the 1970s, when the northern sounds and look of Los Tigres del Norte and the naco films emerged. This shift showed what Mexico was but not what it wanted to be defined as or associated with. While the Mexican Golden Cinema actor Pedro Infante Sr., in his charro outfit, was a representative of an idealized Mexican nationalism, it was his son, Pedro Infante Jr., and Los Tigres del Norte in their norteño outfits that were, in the end, closer to Mexican social realities. The norteño look that borrowed from the charro but added to it some new elements, consisted of a long sleeve western shirt, a tejana (cowboy hat), cowboy boots, and a belt with a large buckle. As Los Tigres rose in success and popularity, their image was updated with more elaborate outfits that, like the outfits of the Spanish charro, showed their wealth by adding very expensive touches like exotic leather boots, belts, hats, and gold accessories throughout. The Northern Naco Much like the corrido, Mexican male fashion in the 1970s and 1980s moved from the heroic to the narco. With the introduction of their narcocorridos, Los Tigres del Norte unleashed a style that would continue to evolve with the music, as performers invested more and more on their costumes as a way of flaunting their success. When the popular narcocorridista Chalino Sanchez, based in Los Angeles, entered the music scene in the late 1980s, he not only introduced a more sensationalist corrido and violent cruel 114 hero, but he also brought with him a new fashion look. On most of his album covers, Chalino is decked out in form-fitting Western wear, but unlike Los Tigres, he never missed an opportunity to display his wealth. Always wearing his tejana, exotic leather boots, thick gold nugget watch or bracelet, gold ring and gold plated gun, posing next to the latest model truck, he was the epitome of the northern style of dress. This norteño style would be considered “narco” or “naco,” with both terms being used in positive and affirming ways. Although very popular with Latino men, for those unfamiliar with the culture this style may look “tacky” or “naco,” used in this context to denote bad taste. Like the charro who became a symbol of pride and success defining Mexicanness, the northern naco is increasingly viewed not as tacky, but as defining Mexican masculinity in both Mexico and the United States, especially for a generation of contemporary Latina/os. In borrowing from his predecessors, today’s narco-corridista Lupillo Rivera and the rest, most of whom are based in the northern parts of greater Mexico (Los Angeles), have become the heirs to the charro tradition, taking further a southern style and giving it an American flavor. Rivera’s look is a mixture of the charro and the northern naco style of dress, but with a nod towards American Rap and hip-hop. In one of his iconic photo shoots, Rivera sports a Stetson hat, a loose-fitting designer suit, silk shirt, exotic leather belt and boots, and gold jewelry in a style partly recalling a GQ look. Rivera belongs to a brand of narcocorridistas who still flaunt their wealth, but with a different sense of style and class. They pose in front of Bentleys or other luxury cars. Also with them are their guns and sometimes their drugs. The northern narco has incorporated a “gangster” look 115 into its style and has been changing the way Mexican men dress throughout Mexico and the United States. This mixed style continues to impress and to dominate any place where Mexicans are found, making it an unstoppable Mexica re-conquest. Conclusion: La Mexcla (The Mix) A mestizaje, or hybrid fashion, reflective of mestizo culture, a border culture, representing the intersection of cultural experiences and local influences, began to define the displaced Mexican, his fashion, and his music. The mestizo is a bridge, taking from the old (Mexico) and from the new (United States), always re-shaping his image over time. Fashion, music, and film, thus, became a form of self-invention that helped the Mexican male root his perception of himself in a hostile foreign environment. Not surprisingly, fashion, music, and naco films express a strong nostalgia for the life left behind—a romanticized life that never really existed in a Mexico that was constructed by those in power as a way to colonize and assert control over a diverse people living in a vast region. In response to such histories, the popularity of norteño music, fashion, and film among contemporary immigrant communities constituted part of a struggle for self- definition that included contradictory impulses of both assimilation and cultural preservation. Lino Quintana, from La banda del carro rojo, falls into the latter category, sticking to his norteño style and resisting the desire to “fit-in,” in contrast with Pedro, who, dressed in American attire, tried all too hard to assimilate. The northern narco and his corrido, became the representative image of Mexico, showing the world what the country really was. Since the late 1960s, Mexico has been 116 marching to the accordion sounds of norteño corridos, popularized by Los Tigres del Norte. Naco films and narcocorridos are even finding their way into places that, for a long time, have excluded them. When it comes to Mexican television and primetime, telenovelas with Cinderella stories have always dominated the small screen. Telenovelas are watched by nearly every native Spanish speaker in Latin America and in the United States, so when La reyna del sur/Queen of the South aired in 2011, it made history, becoming the first narcotelenovela and an instant hit. This came as a big surprise for an industry that, before then, had shied away from and dismissed the subjects of naco films and narcocorridos. La reyna del sur is based on a novel of the same title as the telenovela. A narcocorrido was composed and popularized by Los Tigres del Norte in 2002 and nominated for a Latin Grammy in 2004. La reyna del sur tells the story of Teresa, a stylish norteña and modest woman who becomes Latin America’s and Europe’s biggest drug-lord, ruthless with those who confront her but kind with the rest. In the narcocorrido, as well as in the telenovela, she is presented as a heroic cruel woman who resists patriarchal powers in the form of rival drug lords; much like Cortez or Reséndez, she fights for her rights with firepower in hand. Teresa is the heroine that an audience identifies with, so when she is betrayed and 400 tons of cocaine are intercepted by the Spanish state, the audience is sympathetic and cannot wait for revenge; “projecting a fantasy from below,” as Curtis Marez would say, where the subaltern have power and women are in no need of protection from the patriarchal state (23-24). Like all of their corridos that have been made into naco movies, La reyna’s instant success came as no surprise to its huge working-class Mexican audience, which has never stopped listening 117 and watching Los Tigres’ films or other naco films. La reyna del sur and Contrabando y tración both feature strong women who venture into the world of drugs, controlled by men, and become dominant forces who command respect. Similar to La banda del carro rojo, La reyna del sur deals with the darker subject matter of diasporic life, which its audience knows well. These stories and their heroines come from the periphery and “flow” into the center, where they eventually transform people’s tastes. In the novela and corridos, as well as in the rest of the naco films from the 1970s and 1980s, norteño clothing continues to adapt and change accordingly. When the corrido/film merger took place, producers probably had no idea that low budget naco films would not only survive but continue to prosper, representing and recording the northern lives of greater Mexico. Naco films can be understood as bridging the old and the new, creating a different way of thinking, a border thinking. Both the social bandit heroic corrido of yesterday and the stylish narcocorrido heroine of today are transgressors of established law. The high visibility of the narco in the naco film changed not only fashion but how films are made. It is in a local history and within the margins of colonial powers where change will happen and displace hegemonic forms of knowledge with the perspective of the subaltern. In this sense narcocorridos, narco fashion, and naco films are weapons used by its audience to chip away at old forms of colonization while resisting new ones. 118 CHAPTER FOUR AN ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY: THE “GOOD,” THE “BAD,” THE NACO, AND THE AUDIENCE This chapter introduces a qualitative ethnography conducted in Madera, my home town, located in California’s Central Valley, where I focused on a film-going audience composed of male and female Mexican field workers. I screened a popular classic, action naco film to my study participants and then asked a series of questions about their perceptions of the film and other films like it, focusing on what similarities they saw, if any, between themselves and the film’s characters. I intentionally designed my study to investigate cinema audiences who watched naco films from the mid-1970s to the mid- 1980s because, as I argued in chapter two, this was an important period that saw the solidification of the genre, making it the “Golden Age” of naco cinema. My primary focus was on films inspired by the hugely successful corridos (ballads) and narcocorridos (drug-ballads) made popular by Los Tigres del Norte after the 1972 release of their pioneering narcocorrido, Contrabando y Traición (Contraband and Betrayal). Specifically, I used the film based on their song, La banda del carro rojo (The Red Car Gang 1976), a film that I have argued is pivotal because of its significant contribution to the naco genre. For this ethnography, I used the film as a case study for assessing the ways by which working-class Mexican audiences consume, interpret, and interact with naco films. I also used the fieldwork research to assess how La banda del carro rojo has 119 encouraged critical thought among audience members, or, as it has been assumed, if they have been simply passively entertained by the action unfolding on screen. While a number of essays have been published on the audiences of border cinema, sometimes referred to as popular Mexican cinema, or what I call naco 22 cinema, no ethnographic study of this kind has ever been conducted. The best and closest that any scholar has gotten to a study of this kind is Norma Iglesias’s informative, early 1990s ethnography where she surveyed Mexican border cinema audiences as they were exiting the theaters. Although larger in scope and important, Iglesias’s study differs from mine in significant ways. More than 20 years have passed since she conducted the study and in those years much has changed regarding audience viewing habits. Since then, most, if not all, movie houses that screened these films have long gone out of business for reasons which I discussed in chapter one, but mainly due to the rise of the home video. Although, a responsibly-executed ethnography in the Tijuana/San Diego area can catch sight of the larger picture, we need to examine “a greater Mexico” as Américo Paredes would suggest and by doing so, we can begin to decipher a panorama of reasons that attract an audience to naco films. By studding the migrant audiences that watch naco films, we can learn ways in which they critically engage with issues presented on the screen. We can learn how issues of migration, displacement, class struggle, and state power are seen from below. In general, I will argue that audiences find in the films resources for analyzing the power relations they are imbedded in as working class migrants. I am particularly 22 Naco is a commonly used term to define this genre of films by both the Mexican elite and the people who consume these films. Even within the community that watches these films, there is an understanding that they are “bad” but also enjoyable. 120 interested in the migrants’ perspectives of how state police power works and the ideologies that justify it, since they are always on the receiving end. Setting the Stage: Made in Madera I conducted my field research in Madera, an economically depressed, small, agricultural town located in California’s Central Valley, where I grew up and where my family still resides. I decided to focus on this area for reasons further elaborated on in the introduction and chapter one. Here I will emphasize how, historically, the Central Valley has always served as an important relocation hub for many Latina/o migrants in search of agricultural jobs. With an influx of recent arrivals during the 1960s and 1970s a need for entertainment opened up, so it was in the Central Valley where early naco film distributors, like Madera Cine Video set up shop and began to cater to migrants’ needs. The Central Valley is also the area where the great leader, César Chávez, and the United Farm Workers (UFW) movement flourished in the 1960s and 1970s, and for a short time the country’s attention and eyes were tuning-in to see and hear of the civil unrest “caused” by this group of Chicanos who were advocating for the rights of farm workers. The deciding factor that made this area irresistible is my rich familiarity with the town’s history and its inhabitants, giving me a privileged understanding of the study participants. Most of my interviews took place in the predominantly working-class Latina/o area of Madera. Throughout the study, I spent at least three full days observing the environment so that I could get a better sense of my participants’ daily routines and activities. Around 5 A.M., and sometimes earlier, still dark outside, the streets would 121 spring to life with male and female farm workers dressed in their work clothes (jeans, sweaters and jackets, long sleeve shirts, boots or sneakers, and hats) and carrying various bags containing items that I knew very well because of my experience as a farm laborer—a thermos for coffee or juice, a piece of fruit, some chiles, and another thermos for those carefully-packed tacos, wrapped in foil and meticulously placed in their container so that they would be warm for when a moment opened up for a quick snack out in the fields. After about 20 minutes of bustling outside, one by one they would begin to pack the farm labor vans, easily identifiable by the stickers on the driver’s side door stating the owner’s last name, California Highway Patrol (CHP) registration number, and sometimes the words “farm labor vehicle” printed across the side and back of them. Once full, the driver would depart for their destination. Suddenly the streets reverted to their sleepy, peaceful conditions and stayed that way for most of the day. The evenings would find the neighborhoods with many kids running around the streets, either riding their bikes or playing soccer while Spanish-language music was heard throughout. For the most part, the participants’ houses were modest, having what I describe as the Mexican touches: bright colors, nopales (edible cactus plants) growing in the front yards, lots of rose bushes, iron fences with geometric designs, bars on the windows, barking dogs, and in a few front yards I saw small religious Catholic alters to La Virgen de Guadalupe. Daily activity, as well as environment revolved around constant movement dictated, in large part, by work and the rhythms of temporary farm labor in particular, punctuating and shaping their lives. Their neighborhoods were suggestive of orientations toward social spaces that, as much as they played an important decorative role in people’s lives, 122 were useful additional spaces or extensions of the home that could be occupied for religious, utilitarian, or leisure purposes. My observations and claims are in line with Chris Wilson’s study found in his book, The Myth of Santa Fe, who contrasted Anglo home architecture norms to those of working-class Chicanos. He argued that while Anglos have favored decorative adobe walls that serve as security devices, Chicanos surround their yards with low constructions of brick and wrought iron that leave much of the front yard visible and open. His point is that while Anglos are invested in securing their privacy, Chicanos are attracted to a more fluid and open social space, where the home opens on to the larger neighborhood. What people surround themselves with and how they decorate their spaces also support the value of a visual culture, where art and film, worth and tastes, reinforce notions of belonging. Methods for Studying the Unruly Subject For this study, I used ethnographic media research methods, relying particularly on the ethnographic model of audience studies influenced by anthropology and sociology. While ethnographic methods have generally been used for studying culture as a whole, I was interested in ethnographic media research because of its focus on one aspect of culture, the relationship with media (Seiter 10). The ethnographic model of audience studies involves the researcher spending extended periods of time participating with and observing the audience being studied and writing descriptive field notes. The researcher enters into the culture of the group and, through questions and interviews, tries to understand the perspective of its members and their relationship with media. The research 123 of an ethnographic audience study is based on in-depth, open-ended, semi-structured interviews. Marie Gillespie, a television scholar who has done extensive research on media studies, wrote that this model “requires long-term immersion and investigation: eighteen months is the standard length of fieldwork required to attain the ‘emic’ or ‘native’ point of view (55). Gillespie believes that the ‘native’ view envisioned by classical ethnographers is hardly to be grasped through a series of one-of ‘in-depth’ interviews or brief periods of observation” (55). Ellen Seiter, who has done substantial work on audience studies, pointed out that because a true ethnographic study is so time consuming, relatively few have been done (5). Generally, newer models of audience studies have focused on audiences being active rather than passive, and on individuals more than on mass audiences, because through personal, in-depth interviews an intimate, highly accurate picture can be gained. The ethnographic audience research applied in my study was based on in-depth, open-ended, semi-structured interviews that captured the complexities in audience responses to naco films. It also zeroed in on those complexities by borrowing from Gerry Connor’s idea of “cultural competencies” (2007) to address the specific experiences and viewing environments that undoubtedly have affected the way films are seen and perceived. Studying cultural competencies has shown how audiences bring with them certain competencies, which make them better able to enjoy and gain meaning from certain texts. Although the bulk of my audience study was conducted within a six-month period, I kept in touch with many of the audience participants by making periodic follow- up visits for over a year. The follow-up meetings continued to yield valuable information 124 that would either support study findings or bring up new ways to analyze data already collected. With close to two years’ of contact, I was able to achieve the “emic” point of view that Gillespie indicated is a valuable and important perspective. While I agree with Seiter’s argument that, generally, such studies are scarce because they require so much time, in the present case, I would argue that Mexican film scholars have, by far, focused on the naco films mode of production, while completely bypassing audience reception. This qualitative ethnography consists of numerous, lengthy, individual interviews as well as ten focus groups, made up of Mexicans who regularly consumed naco films of the 1970s and 1980s. 23 Since the legal status of some of the participants was questionable, I decided to use pseudonyms when identifying them. All the participants were born in Mexico and identified as working-class or field workers, with ages ranging from 18 years to the late 40s. Each focus group was made up of two to five participants, with a total of 32 participants. Two focus groups consisted exclusively of women, two other focus groups were only men, and the others were of mixed gender groups. An important criterion for selecting individuals was previous viewing experience of the film La banda del carro rojo. The group screenings were done at the residence of one of my participants who graciously offered to make interview space available. Mario’s “screening room” was equipped with a huge, flat screen television in a cold, dimly lit converted two-car garage with wood-paneled walls. A blanket blocked out the light from the large window. A full-size couch and many folding chairs made the place perfect for small groups to view the film together. 23 University of Southern California (USC) Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained before any interview or focus group screening was conducted. 125 General questions were asked before the beginning of the screening, but most of the questioning was conducted during the film. I quickly learned that my participants were more interested in watching the movie than discussing it, even though some of them watched it a few times a year because it regularly plays on television. It was very common for the participants to make comments during the screening about the action on screen. At these points, I would sometimes ask for further explanation or ask more direct questions. Some of the participants told me that talking during the movie screening was the norm. Participatory audiences were very common among naco filmgoers of the 1970s and 80s. Since many of the theatre audiences attended the same screening more than once, it was common to have full conversations during the slow moments of the film and to engage actively in the experience by shouting during the high points or moments of disagreement throughout the film. Participants agreed that these movies served as a social event, sometimes providing a chance to get some “alone time” with a partner or catch up with old friends in an air-conditioned room, while the film was playing in the background. My questions were semi-structured, open-ended, and fluid, set in the homes and familiar surroundings of an extended network of Madera community members, neighbors, and friends. All questions were asked in Spanish and audio recorded, and afterward I transcribed and translated the interviews myself. 24 Some of the open-ended questions were, “What kind of movies do you watch and why?” “In what ways do you identify, if at all, with the characters or the narratives in the film?” “What attracts you to 24 Transcripts of interviews are included in the appendix. 126 naco films?” “How are the government and state officials shown in the films?” “What do the films say about the social and political situations of their times?” “What values, other than entertainment, do you find in the films?” “In what ways are current films different or the same as the ones from the 1970s and 1980s?” I also asked them to discuss their movie-going experiences and to talk about the first time they saw La banda del carro rojo, or heard the corrido on which it was based. The Corrido: From the Heroic, to the Common, to the Movies Corridos historically have served many functions, which I wrote about in chapter three, but in general they are native folksongs that swiftly tell of a heroic deed, usually performed by a man, or of some other important event. The history of the corrido is as old as the history of a colonized Mexico, but for this study I concentrated on those of the second half of the twentieth century, particularly corridos that began to tell stories of common and sometimes cruel men who took on the system by any means possible. My focus was also on the corridos that, by the 1970s, made their way into naco cinema. It was in that decade that many naco films based their plots on the lyrics of corridos and especially on a subgroup of ballads called narcocorridos, which celebrated and eulogized the life of drug traffickers on the border. The audience’s familiarity with the songs made these films easy to follow since they primarily functioned as a video for the music but added secondary plotlines. All the participants in this study confirmed this fact. Everyone agreed that it was the music, the corrido of Los Tigres del Norte, which brought them to see La banda del carro rojo. José, in his mid-40s, said that he first heard of the song in 127 1978, when he was 12 years old and living in Mexico. “Everyone listened to those songs on the radio and we would all sing along.” Mario, age 49, said that it was the corrido that fascinated him and when he heard about the movie he was the “first one” out there. “The theatre would fill up and people had to wait in long lines to get in” he said, and added, “it was a hit because more and more people were experiencing what was on those films.” All the participants also said that the corridos were based on some kind of “reality.” José firmly said, “all corridos are based on something that really happened.” He continued by saying that corridos captured the realities of peoples’ experiences with “mean” police, although “a bit exaggerated but … still true.” When I asked what was “mean” about the police, he elaborated and said that from his personal experience, police “treat people that don’t speak English, like us, as criminals, if there is a problem and someone calls the police, who do you think is the first person to get arrested [suggesting Mexicans]?” José said that that happened to him when he got in a minor car accident, “the police arrived and they never even talk to me, they told me a few things in English but they said it really mean, then they turned me around and put on handcuffs and that was it,” so corridos he repeated, are based on “real things.” Elena, age 44, echoed that point, saying that the corrido, La banda del carro rojo, much like the movie, showed “our reality.” She said that the stories told in the music and in the movies gave her a window where she could look to find answers to the unknown. She and others in her family used these movies to help them try to understand what happens when people cross over to the United States and nothing is ever heard of them. We would see those movies because “we wanted to understand why they would not come back … if that happened to one of those characters 128 [on screen] then we would wonder, maybe that is what happened to someone we knew.” It is as if “the earth has devoured them” as Rojelio, age 37, put it when talking about people he knew that crossed into the United States and got lost, “never to be heard of” again. Reality of the Reel: Film As “Real” Like the corrido, naco films, to a certain degree, are seen as true visual representations of “reality” for many of the study participants. They are a true and accurate representation of reality because, as I heard more than a few times, the naco films of the 1970s told the truth of what was really happening in Mexico, not like the films of the golden era (1940 – 1950). While I agree that the naco films, based on corridos, do present a grimmer reality and, for the most part, problematize the narrative style of Golden Age films, where conflicts are neatly resolved, order is restored and our hero gets the girl, I don’t agree that such representations began with the naco films of the 1970s. Some of the films from the latter half of the Golden Era, I argue, were already moving towards a less-than-favorable representation of Mexico. This is important because, as I argue in chapter two, films whose narratives were based on the social problems of the time were some of the most successful films at the box office. These films also tended to incorporate or lean towards what I consider a naco taste for stories about the working class issues, such as overcrowding, displacement, migration, corruption, drug addiction, and other social ills that would continue and feed into the “popular” or naco films of the 1970s, albeit in more graphic or “real” forms, as my 129 participants would say. By naco tastes, I also refer to some of the most memorable actors who, as I discuss further in the introduction of this dissertation, made their debut in the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema, becoming very successful by playing naco characters whose shtick and popularity would survive well beyond the end of the Golden Era and into the Golden Age of Naco Cinema (1976 – 1989). Actors like Mario Moreno, who played “Cantinflas;” German Valdez, who played “Tin-Tan;” Adalberto Martínez Chávez, who played “Resortes;” and, of course, “El Santo,” the masked wrestler played by El Santo himself, were among this group of actors whose continued success afforded them cult status by the 1970s and their place alongside other naco film stars well-known to my participants, and who I consider members of the Pantheon of the Naco film gods. Often embodying the outsider status, these actors played characters, who all participants agreed, were based on the traits of “real” people who, like them, existed in an “un- sweetened” reality. The actors’ backgrounds were the reasons that many of my participants liked the characters they played on screen. All of them had humble, working- class beginnings and “migrant” pasts, which their audience is well familiar with. The topical realities of the times represented in naco cinema were primarily displacement, drugs, violence, alcoholism, corruption, and border crossings. Many of the study participants commented on the depiction of border crossings in these films. In talking about this subject, Mario, for example, remarked that “when you see these films, you probably think that it is not real … it looks unreal and fake but that was the way I crossed.” Elena and Luz, age 42, both said the same thing when talking about their experiences of watching these films. Elena said that during those times, these types of 130 films were popular to her and to others because “that was what people were going through.” Luz said that films like La banda del carro rojo sometimes did exaggerate or edit out details of border crossings, but in general, “those films showed how hard and dangerous it was to come here [illegally].” Manuel, now in his late 30s, remembers watching these films when he was a young boy in the late 1970s. He said that when his father arrived from crossing illegally into the United States, “it was just like Pedro [film character] in La banda del carro rojo.” He remembered that when he decided to come to the U.S. in the mid-1980s, although many years had passed, his experience was “the same, just like the movies, but even more intense and dangerous.” Jesus, age 43, said that although he has seen many films that depict border crossings, like in the beginning of La banda del carro rojo, he did not enter the U.S. the way the film shows Pedro, who swims across the Río Grande, but said that “if anyone sees those films and tells me that that is so false, I will tell them my story and that will shut them up, because I walked for two days, dressed very much like Pedro, and without water.” Border crossing was only one of the many issues that all of the participants talked about when watching La banda del carro rojo. The other issues that were brought up all had to do with corruption, violence, vices, and drugs. The film, La banda del carro rojo, follows the plot outlined in the corrido, but adds elements to fill out subplots. The action film follows four principal characters who are forced by desperate, personal situations to smuggle drugs into the United States but are eventually trapped by the Texas Rangers in a climactic, suspenseful, shoot-out reminiscent of a Sergio Leone film. At first, each seems to follow the naco genre’s 131 stereotypical formulas, discussed in the introduction, but a closer character analysis reveals that they are much more complex, as noted frequently by study participants. Mauricio, age 45, said that all the characters were very familiar to him. “It’s like I knew each and every one of them, like if they were cousins or people in my barrio (neighborhood).” Arturo, who is in his mid-40s, said that all the people in the film were based on real people, just like in the corrido, but since it is a movie, the characters are sometimes overly dramatic. When I asked Carlos, age 47, if the characters were made up and not based on reality, Carlos said that the reason people who do not watch these films would think that they are fake is because “you see the same characters and stories over and over in these films and they seem unreal, but they’re true. Those characters and stories are so common that we [the audience] don’t even think twice about it, as soon as we see those characters we know their story.” What makes the characters in the naco films “real,” as my participants would say, is not necessarily what is visible on screen but what is suggested and unseen, and becomes part of what the audience is reading into the characters and the situations they find themselves in. When I asked if the characters were one-dimensional and lacked depth, Rubén, in his mid-40s, said that he and the audience are so familiar with the four characters that “we know their stories just like if it were ours.” He continued by saying that even if this movie does not show the development of each character “we know what happened because it happens so much that showing it on screen would be redundant.” Versions of this last statement were repeated many times by most of the males and by a few female participants, who could still read depth into the male characters in this film. Amalia, in 132 her late 40s, agreed that even though La banda did not present a full picture of each of the characters “you can still make sense of who they are, so there is no need to tell you [the audience] what you already know.” Elena said that when people come back home to Mexico, after being gone for years, they tell great stories of how simple it is up north “where money grows on trees and all you have to do is go and get it.” She continues, saying that people hesitate to tell you the truth of how difficult it is because they do not want to be seen as weak or failures, so they make up stories, but “this movie is showing that things are not as easy as they seem.” To prove her point, Elena brings up a scene in the film where the character, Rodrigo, talks about owning nothing because he cannot even afford to pay for his daughter’s medical treatments. “See,” she says, “Rodrigo, who appears to have succeeded in the States is actually broke because he probably owes everything to the banks and I am sure they [the bank] are going after him.” “There is no need for the film to show us how bad his situation is,” says Rubén, “because many of us have been in that situation, where we borrow from banks and are charged high interest rates to the point where we fall behind payments and lose everything, that is capitalism.” After a few more participants spoke on the issue of reading more into the characters, in La banda and other films, it was clear that although producers have sought out and stuck to proven formulas with stock characters, audiences are not limited by what is presented on screen. By looking at a whole body of work and not just one film, audiences are reading complexity and depth in recurring themes, characters, and even across genres. With time, these characters deepen and audiences know them inside and out. An American equivalent is Clint Eastwood’s famous character, Dirty Harry. While naco 133 films are not intended to be seen as serials, audiences do begin to actively ascribe meanings to certain, commonly used characters found in film after film. Morality Tales: Empathy for the “Bad” Guys My participants identified, to a certain degree, not only with each character in La banda del carro rojo in dress and speech, but also in thought process and reactions when confronted with life-changing decisions. Many participants stated something similar to Felipe, a 30-year-old forklift operator, who said, “I understand why they are there and why they have to make those hard choices. If I had a sick daughter [like one of the characters in the film] and needed money I would do anything I could to save her life.” Although Felipe felt hesitant about drug smuggling, a drastic family situation could pressure him to break the law. Javier, in his mid-30s, said each character has his reasons for going into the gang, but concludes, “You may not think that what they did is justifiable, but what would you do if you were in their situation? I’m sure you might do the same thing.” María, a 40-year-old working mother, said she could relate to some of the situations these characters saw themselves in because, “as a parent, you know that if you only had the money to pay for basic healthcare, then life would be better and scenes like that would not happen.” Carlos summarized the characters’ situations best: “they have very few choices, they have been cornered by society and have to do the only thing they can, which is to survive however they can.” When surrounded by the Texas Rangers, they know that giving up and going to prison for life is not a solution because, as Carlos continued, “they have always been prisoners, so the one choice they do have is to go out 134 their way.” After listening for a few minutes, María made a keen observation, “These guys are bad but even worse are the bad laws in Mexico and the United States that keep people hungry so they have to leave their families and migrate.” When I asked her to say more she said, “You know, why are they there? Do you think they left Mexico because they wanted to? No, they left because the corrupt Mexican government keeps people dumb and hungry so they won’t question what they [the government] do.” All the participants were shaking their heads in agreement, and Carlos said “Look, in Mexico, politicians come to your village when they want your vote, and they tell you all the things you want to hear and then they even give you a T-shirt 25 so you can vote for them, but when they get elected they never do anything that they promised.” The participants made it clear that when the “bad” guys appear in the films, we must not divorce them from “the bigger picture.” To do so would be to miss a major point of the film. Lino Quintana, the main character and leader of La banda del carro rojo, played by the famous naco star Mario Almada, feels forced to venture into illegal business to escape debt. Although his gambling addiction makes him unsympathetic, many of the participants interpreted his behavior as an act of desperation and empathized with him. José said that Quintana has a problem but that he is not a bad person simply because he chooses drug smuggling: “Quintana had no choice, because he was in a jam and if he did not pay, his family would be killed.” Luz found Quintana a sick man in need of help with his illness, but assistance would be unlikely because their desperate financial situation could not provide treatment for Quintana’s sick niece. Víctor, in his early 20s, who 25 Giving away free t-shirts with the image of the candidate or with their name silkscreened on it, is common practice during election seasons. 135 worked in the fields and is now a high school graduate, remembers watching this movie a few years ago with his father and articulated an interesting character reading: “Quintana may seem unlikable and selfish because of his problem, but he is a tough guy who stands up to the authorities and [in this country] there are bigger problems than him.” Although Víctor said that he could never be a drug smuggler, he places the problem outside Quintana, concluding that “the problem is our society who demands the drugs.” When asked to elaborate, Víctor argued that if this “great nation” would focus on solving the desire for drugs, then “people like Quintana would not have a choice but to find another way to get out of debt or whatever problem they have.” He later added, “Just look at prisons here in the Valley [Madera has two and is expanding its county jail]. Do you think they are the solution?” He said that he knows of a few people, like Quintana, who are seen as heroes back home [Mexico] because even though they are doing something illegal, they are doing what they can to provide stability for their families and their communities. He echoes what Quintana says in the film, “with money you can do the impossible.” For Víctor, as for many of the participants, Quintana represents a man who commands respect, but is also respectful of others. The fact that Quintana is motivated by his desire to get help for his sick niece indicates that he is, at his core, a moral person who is more than just a simple drug-smuggler or a one-dimensional character. Fernando Almada (the real-life brother of Mario Almada) plays Rodrigo, Quintana’s brother, a disillusioned Mexican resident who has been in the United States for many years. He is in debt and cannot pay for his daughter’s medical treatment. All the study participants read this character as a person with high morals and could empathize 136 with his situation. Francisco, age 48, found Rodrigo the most familiar because, being a father, he understood the trauma of a sick child and the lack of funds for treatment to save a daughter’s life. He also relates to Rodrigo’s feeling of failure or “disillusionment” at not being able to attain the “American Dream.” Like Rodrigo,” said Francisco, “I am in debt and barely able to pay my bills. He has been here in the United States for many years and can’t even pay for his ranch.” Francisco added that “my dream and the dream of many who come here is to progress. Rodrigo worked hard and led an honest life, but when he feels that enough is enough, he decides to join his brother and dishonestly attain what he could not attain honestly.” Mario, also a parent, repeated Francisco’s fatherly concerns and added another testament to Rodrigo’s high moral value. “The United States medical system provides ‘some help,’ but if you have something major like Rodrigo’s daughter, then it is harder to get help.” He said that public hospitals are expensive and “even though we do not pay for them out of our pockets, we do pay in the form of taxes, but when we need medical care, we will not get the same care as someone who is rich. Rich people go to private hospitals where they have the best doctors, but those cost a lot of money and we cannot afford them.” As Mario sees it, Rodrigo had no choice but to take care of his daughter’s needs, as anyone in his situation would do. Although study participants found Rodrigo’s drug trafficking immoral, they believed it was justified because, before his death, he provided financially what he could not attain by adhering to an honest life. While most participants found value in Rodrigo’s actions, many of them were able to see a part of themselves embodied by the character of Pedro, played by Pedro Infante 137 Jr. (the son of the great Mexican Golden Age actor, Pedro Infante). Mario identifies with Pedro because “he just came here to work but he got in with the wrong group.” He said that Pedro, being naïve and having no green card, “doesn’t have much of a chance and is grateful to have anything, even if it is morally wrong.” Other people in this study repeated Mario’s statements and added that Pedro’s intention was not to get into drugs, but to go to Hollywood, where he believes he will find success. Sandra, a homemaker in her late 30s, said that “Pedro represents the great majority of immigrants who come to the United States with the idea that once they get here, things will be great and they will succeed.” She added, “they see themselves as hard workers but are clueless as to how hard it is to get a good job without papers.” Luz summarized Pedro as a nice young guy who is probably really talented but is so impressionable, “like this guy that I knew, who realized too late that what he was doing was wrong and ended up in prison.” All the participants saw Pedro more as an innocent and smart person who would have been successful if he had met the right people. “He would have even made it in Hollywood if he had never hung out with Boom,” said María. When I told other participants what María had said about Pedro, almost everyone disagreed when she said that he could have made it in Hollywood. Javier was uncompromising in his reading of Pedro having a chance at Hollywood: “He doesn’t even have his papers [green card] and even if he did, how many Mexicans do you really see up there on the screen?” Initially, the study participants declared that Boom was the character with the least morals. Luis, a 25-year-old tractor operator and son of a field worker, found Boom unlike him and “not a very likable guy,” but he still had empathy for him, understanding 138 some of the reasons for why he joined the gang. Luis said, “Look, even though he is not that likeable because he is a drug addict, you have to ask yourself how he got there. You think he wants to be there? I don’t like him either, but there is more to his story than what we see on screen.” Luis recognized that Boom’s intentions, though questionable, are coming from a man who “has been kicked too many times.” Mario, who was critical of Boom’s drug-addiction, said that out of all the characters, he was the most tragic because all he wanted was to “inject himself.” Even so, Mario finds some compassion for Boom. Jaime, age 46, believes Boom “was probably a nice guy and a good worker who somehow got lost.” Elena was most critical of Boom, saying that he “wants simple money and could care less about others.” She considers him a selfish coyote (human trafficker) and a drug addict who “takes advantage of everyone.” She says that Boom probably exploits immigrants by charging them exuberant fees to smuggle them into the United States, noting that Boom charged Pedro even though Pedro needed the money more than him. Jaime agreed with Elena, but asked, “Why is Boom that way? It seems that he has no family and lives with his sister who he probably raised when he was very young.” Jaime implores the other study participants to fully consider Boom’s situation and read more than what is shown in the film. Jaime finished by stating that “life has been hard for him [Boom] and he made bad choices that [because of his addiction] he doesn’t even think about it.” Víctor, once again, made a very informative observation that none of the other participants had considered. He read Boom as a pocho 26 who is “all 26 Generally, a pocho is a derogatory word used to describe a Mexican who was born in the United States but has rejected or has no sense of his Mexican heritage or the Spanish language. 139 messed up because he probably went to Vietnam and saw a lot of horrible things.” When I asked him how he came to this conclusion, he pointed to the fact that Boom is always wearing a “worn-out” army jacket and even has a framed picture of John F. Kennedy in his house who Víctor said, “I think I read something that said he started the Vietnam war where a lot of Chicanos died.” Once he said this all the participants were nodding in agreement and began connecting their readings of Boom, coming up with a clear narrative of his life, where he self-medicates to stop the mental pain that has gone untreated by medical doctors. When I asked the question of which character changed the most throughout the film, almost all the participants replied that it was Pedro. Everyone made reference to his change of clothes as indication of losing his naiveté and his moral codes. When we first encounter Pedro, he is wearing a pair of worn-out jeans and a stretched-out, old T-shirt, but later in the film he has traded in his tattered clothes for a three-piece suit. “See,” points out Luis, making reference to when Pedro goes and buys a suit. “You know that something bad is going to happen to him because he has made it in a dishonest way.” When I asked Luis to elaborate, he said, “Pedro thinks that he has achieved the ‘American Dream,’ but he is so wrong because all he has is an illusion that will soon end.” I asked him how he knew that and he said, “Well, when you see someone like Pedro who just arrived and is illegal, and then all of a sudden they have nice new clothes and other things like jewelry and a car, then you know that they are up to something illegal and that they will soon get caught and end up in jail or dead.” Luis reported that he has seen this happen to many people he knows. Like other people who responded to this 140 question, he took pleasure in seeing Pedro change, because access to nice clothes might represent a better world for the next generation, providing citizenship, education, and access for the children. When I asked Luis to say more, he added, “Having good clothes doesn’t always mean having everything, but when you see people dress better then you see them in a different way, a good way, better than when they had ugly clothes.” All study participants suggested that the characters’ actions were “bad,” but maintained that their intentions were “good,” or, as Rogelio put it, “They are good people who have to do bad things because that is the way life really is.” Rogelio and other participants stated that they would not commit the character’s crimes, but that they did have empathy and understood the reasons for their actions. In each of these cases, the characters came to represent the experiences of the audience and the audience can live vicariously through them. Power to the Women: Agency in La banda del carro rojo? Norma Iglesias, David Maciel and others have rightfully pointed out that most of these “popular” Mexican films tend to be misogynistic—treating women as either a virgin, a saintly mother serving a man in the domestic realm, or a whore available to the protagonist and the audience for visual pleasure. When I told Elena that critics have argued that women are positioned in the victim role in these films, and I pointed to Boom’s constant tirades against his sister, Teresita, Elena said, “Not all women are victims. You are only a victim if you allow yourself to be one. Boom’s sister is not always a victim, she is rebelling, just look at what she is wearing. If I had worn 141 something like that my dad would have beaten me.” Elena, and later Luz, pointed out that “Teresita has agency because she dresses however she wants and even wears make-up.” Carolina, age 48, who had been silent most of the interview, said “Teresita does play a traditional role in this movie but she is able to do what she wants and does not have to respond to anyone. She goes out whenever she wants, she dates whomever she wants, she dresses however she wants, so I see that as empowering because if she can do that, then maybe we will someday be able to do the same.” Carolina also said that because Teresita does not care about how men will see her, or think about her, she is resisting in becoming property by not acting like a “good girl.” Elena finished by pointing out that Teresita does not have a mother or father in the movie, though she does have an abusive brother. Nevertheless, she still has the freedom that “many of us did not have, so we could look at her as a model and someone we could emulate.” As mentioned by the participants, the roles of women in La banda del carro rojo are minimal in comparison to other naco films of the period, like La hija de nadie/Nobody’s Daughter (Tito Novaro 1976). In this film, a fully independent female night-club singer, originally rejected at birth by her alcoholic father for being born female, loses her mother and is obligated to care for her blind, twin sister. That film was mentioned by more than a few of the participants as being a feminist film because, as Luz said, “She is able to succeed in a male environment where women are hated.” Carolina then said, “In La hija de nadie, it is the men that come and go, while Yolanda [the main character] enjoys her time with them and by the end she is better off than any of the men who pursue her.” The other film mentioned by the participants that features a strong 142 female character was the classic action film, Lola la trailera/Lola the Truck Driver (Raúl Fernández 1983) with Rosa-Gloria Chagoyan, who, in her revealing shorts, single- handedly brings down the border Mafia. Elena declared, “This film showed the men that women are chingonas (badass) because if you really look at it, Lola and other women in the film are doing a man’s job better than them and are beating them at their game.” 27 Rosa Gloria Chagoyan who plays Lola la Trailera is a good example of an actress who has constantly played female roles that challenge established social norms of how a “proper” woman should be. Both of these women play unconventional characters that are in command of their futures, while the men are relegated to secondary, supportive roles. There are more naco films such as those two that go beyond the virgin/whore binary, but what surprised me was the reading of the female character in La banda del carro rojo by female participants who felt empowered after watching the film, just as much as men did. The Capital of Taste: Current Nacos Have No Taste After spending the majority of the time screening and analyzing La banda del carro rojo and its four principal characters, I dedicated the remaining time to inquire about other films from the 1970s and 1980s, including those from the third stage of naco cinema (1990 to the present). I began by asking general, open-ended questions like, “Do you still watch these newer ‘popular’ Mexican films,” and “If you do, what would you say are the main differences and similarities to the ones from the 1970s and 1980s?” The majority of the participants in this study were very dismissive of the newer films because, 27 Here, Elena has referenced the suspenseful, opening scene in the film where the highly skilled Lola is able to out-maneuver all the male truck drivers, even the dishonest ones, to win a truck-driving race. 143 as Mario put it, “They are all the same. They are all about drug-trafficking and bullets.” Mario continued to express his profound dislike of the newer films, stating that during his time, there were smart movies that dealt with many complex issues, “Those guys knew how to write and make good movies.” He gave the example of the action film, La fuga del Rojo/Escape of El Rojo (Alfredo Gurrola 1985), arguing that “That movie is about a drug-dealer who ends up fighting for a good cause in Nicaragua, but that is not all because there are other good secondary stories. There is a cop who wants to catch him and friends that betray him.” 28 Jose extended Mario’s argument by saying, “There were a lot of good films then, if you think about it. They were making them on film and I am sure that costs a lot of money, so not anyone could do one of those films, but today everyone wants to make a movie because they have a video camera.” Carlos supported Jose’s comment by giving his own example. “I know this guy who is a [car] mechanic and right there in his shop he has a box of DVDs of a movie he made and acted in … he gave me a copy but I only saw the beginning because it looks really bad. I know it is not based on a real story because all you see is people killing each other and you see a naked woman … no tiene sentido (does not make sense). Francisco said that the movies back then were about things that really happen and they “represented my reality, they were not just about guns and naked women.” Mario and the other participants, who were critical of the current wave of Mexican “popular” films were surprised when I told them that their statements are very similar to the ones made by critics who have written about the films of the 1970s and 28 La fuga de rojo is a good example of a well written naco film with a clear narrative, containing many plot twists, great acting by Mario Almada and Noé Murayama and good production value. 144 1980s. Mario acknowledged that back then, there were movies that contained nudity and were vulgar but “there were more choices and if you were underage you would not be allowed in the movie theater.” He continued, “Now that there are no movie theaters, no one is checking for vulgar things so they [the producers of naco films] are getting away with more and more.” Francisco agreed, saying “Nowadays, I can’t watch these newer movies with my family because they are all vulgar and show no respect for women or families.” Elena said that there were many films about guns and unscrupulous women but “we could still go to the theater and choose a romantic movie, but today I don’t think they make romantic movies, I think they’re all about killing.” Luz said that she is glad that there are no movie theaters in which to show these newer movies because “I would not want go to see a bunch of men talking dirty and killing people.” Mauricio said that there were a lot of “peliqulas rojas” (adult-rated films) during the 1970s and 1980s, but “in those films we were excited to see lots of legs and a breast once or twice, not like the ones now which show you everything.” Francisco then said, “when there was nudity or shootings there were reasons for it, there was a purpose, not like the films of today where there is so much killing for no reason.” He specifically compared La banda del carro rojo with the very successful film, Dos plebes (Two Youngsters 2000) and all five of its sequels. He said that if you look at La banda del carro rojo, you will see that the guns they carry are these small pistolas (guns),” or as Elena called them, “pistolitas (little guns),” “but if you look at Dos Plebes, you will see a huge difference. They have very powerful guns and cuernos de chivo (slang for machine guns).” 29 29 Curved cartridges like goat horns, also reference to the farm animal, synonymous to rural/ranch living. 145 Francisco and other participants also pointed out that in La banda del carro rojo the drugs are never shown. Even though it is a film about drug-trafficking, you never actually see what they are smuggling. In the newer films, as Mario put it, “You can even see them doing lines of cocaine with cases full of drugs in the background.” Elena supported Mario’s comments, but added, “The films of today are so explicit, leaving nothing to the imagination, going as far as to show you every detail of how they shoot- up.” Mario, Francisco, Luz, Elena, and most of the other participants who were very critical of contemporary naco films acknowledged that the reason why these films show more explicit violence with more firepower is because they show the realities of today. Jaime stated, “Just turn on the television and you will hear in the news that they found more decapitated bodies near the border and, depending on the station, you might even see the bodies.” After listening to what Jaime said, Elena, nodding her head in agreement, declared, “Just look at this movie [La banda del carro rojo] and the other ones made in those times, even if they were bad people they always wanted to do good, but if you look at the movies now you will not see that anymore. All you see is one narco killing another narco and for what, I don’t know.” In the end, all agreed that the movies they enjoyed best were the movies they grew up with because, as Mario stated, “They were movies from the “Golden Era” of the 1970s.” 30 These were the films of the second stage of naco cinema that, from the perspective of the participants, were tamer while still capturing events of their times, a reality that they are no longer part of, since the films from the 30 One interesting thing to note is that, as I was conducting the interviews, never once did any of the participants admit that they watch or like contemporary naco films, yet they were all able to name more than a few films and their plots. 146 third stage of naco cinema capture today’s times, a reality of a new generation of immigrants. Conclusion: The “Good” and the “Bad” All the participants in this study at one point or another agreed, without hesitation, that many of the films from the 1970s and 1980s suffered from low production value, but that, in itself should not warrant a complete rejection because, for every few “bad” ones you will find a “good” one. “You can find ‘bad’ films anywhere you look,” said José and added, “I also look at Hollywood films and I can give you a long list of ‘bad’ ones, but at the same time, I can show you some ‘good’ ones.” He finished by exclaiming, “and those [Hollywood films] cost millions versus these [naco films] which cost, I don’t know, maybe fifty thousand dollars or a lot less.” Knowing these films myself, I too, can easily point to the “bad” ones and the “good” ones, the ones that have a strong, well-written narrative, good acting, good production value, while presenting complex issues. Those who are critical of these films have never pushed their research past personal taste. If outside viewers who are not accustomed to watching naco films continue to place personal value judgments based on production values, then these films will never measure up to their expectations, but if they can look deeper, then they might begin to see what this audience sees. By moving away from the personal and venturing into the realm of the analytical, anyone will see “there are ‘good’ naco films and then there are ‘bad’ ones.” 147 Although producers may have the almighty dollar in mind when making naco films, critics are misguided in their quick dismissal of this film genre. For, in doing so, they fail to see the true value of these films as important social and cultural documents that not only entertain their audiences but are representative of their struggles and dreams, or as many of the participants said, “These movies tell our reality.” In conducting these interviews, I was able to gain a clearer picture of how a migrant audience finds meanings that critically engage them. I found that a migrant worldview is encoded in the naco films, but since an outside observer is far removed from a migrant “reality,” it is difficult to ascertain what attracts so many people to a cheaply-produced and even exploitive cinema. Naco films show a grim reality, where life is cheap, weapons are ubiquitous, drugs are everywhere, violence is a daily occurrence, women are disposable, corruption runs rampant, and death is always around the corner. They tell stories of militarization in all of “greater Mexico” where the State is not there to aid and support but to contain and control. This is the reality that is “real” for the audience who looks at these films and can see themselves or someone they know, embodied in the characters and relating to the situations found in this immense body of work. Just “turn on the television,” as Jaime said, and you will see the reality in Mexico, which these films capture. All the participants agreed that even if these films are “cheap” and “simple,” they present a social class struggle and national issues that those in power would prefer, as Mario said, “to keep in the dark so the world won’t see what is really happening out here [Mexico and the United States].” 148 EPILOGUE Different Times, Different Places: Popular Film Is Still “Real” With their low production values, unprofessional acting, high melodrama, straightforward narratives, and gratuitous violence and sex, popular Mexican films do not have much merit according to traditional film standards. These films have been relegated to a cinema of mass-consumption, never to fulfill its audience, never to critically engage, never to become a legitimate cinema. Although producers may have profits in mind when making naco films, that in itself should not be the main indicator of their actual worth. In doing so, the true value of seeing this immense body of work, as important social and cultural documents that attest to the struggles and dreams of the Mexican diaspora will remain lost. Naco films, among other media, tackle unpleasant migrant realities of displacement and, by doing so, they have become the preferred cinema of the people. In understanding the context in which these films are created and the issues they are addressing, no matter how simplistic they may appear, one can begin to recognize not only their cultural significance but appreciate the entertainment value they provide their audience. Historicizing the genre’s development within a broader historical narrative of migration, from the 1970s to the 1990s, will provide the context from which it emerges and/or mediates. The aim of this study was primarily to explore migrant audiences in the analysis of Mexican national cinema, where otherwise they have predominantly served to bolster researchers’ theories or to confuse them. Here, I am championing for a cultural studies 149 realignment, where research is informed by producers of popular cinema but findings are not centered around them, which has been the approach taken by most writers on the subject (e.g. Mora, Maciel, Iglesias, Pérez Turrent, and Ramírez Berg). While I believe that producers of naco films are still some of the least-recognized and undervalued filmmakers in the history of Mexican cinema, by revolving inquiries around their intent and using those as the basis for determining the films’ worth, then much of the critical thought gleaned by an audience while watching the film will go unrecognized and fall by the wayside. Focusing on migrant audiences in the analysis of naco cinema will offer a panorama on the subject by allowing different vantage points that can provide multiple readings. The alternative is what we have available now and from surveying the literature, meaning that observations are based upon the producers’ main objective of monetary gain, which fuels the findings that naco film productions “have few if any links to the daily experiences and dynamics of the border” (Iglesias, Border Representations 211-212). Without disputing such claims, since I do not doubt the legitimacy of the collected data, I do, however, advocate for a more inclusive approach that places naco cinema audiences in the center of any analysis. This study, thus, takes advantage of all cinematic aspects, including producers’ intentions and migrant audience analysis, which is why my findings are sometimes at odds with traditional film scholarship in Mexican popular cinema. 150 A Greater Border: Cinema Within Time and Space Also vital in analyzing the naco film genre is not only establishing its timeframe, which I have done (1970s-1990s), but placing it within a geographical space, in this case, California’s Central Valley. I elaborated more in chapter one, but, in general, the Valley, and, more specifically Fresno, has a vibrant and volatile Mexican migrant history. Located in the heart of California, and in the capital of agribusiness, Fresno, being the fifth largest city in California, has a long history of migration both documented and undocumented. The main economic driving force, which continues to attract high levels of Mexican migration, is agriculture. Latinos are the largest minority group in Fresno, making up about 47% of the population. 31 Overall, high school drop-out rates are higher in the Central Valley than in California in general. Fresno’s drop-out rates hover between 30% and 40%, but the figure is considerably higher for Latinos—somewhere between 50% and 65% (Scharmann). Latino students make up the majority in many Valley school districts and yet their school board members do not reflect their student racial makeup. For decades, school officials have ignored voter discriminatory laws, thus preventing Latinos from getting elected to school boards. Madera’s school district, just 20 minutes north of Fresno, knowing that it would lose a legal battle, changed its at-large voting laws so that anyone living in the city can run for an open seat, to a district voting system where members must live within the district they represent. This new law will open opportunities for Latinos and African Americans who have been historically disenfranchised. 31 Figure is based on 2010 Census. 151 While county schools are losing millions of dollars due to state budget cuts, California’s prison population remains at an all-time high. Even during these hard economic times, millions of dollars are going toward adding more beds to county jails so they can accommodate state inmates and also new ones. The city of Madera is in its final stages on their jail expansion, with a price tag of over $30 million taxpayer dollars. The Central Valley, alone, is home to 9 state prisons, two of them located just 30 minutes north of Fresno. Out of the approximately 160 thousand prison inmates, two-thirds are made up of African Americans and Latinos. Other important Valley history that I addressed in chapter one included private and public spaces occupied by Valley migrants, and spectatorship spaces in relationship to other spaces. The Central Valley forms part of what I argue can be seen as a “greater border zone,” much like Américo Paredes’ argument for a “greater Mexico,” which exists where ever Mexicans find themselves in a constant struggle for social justice. By conceptualizing the Valley as a border zone, we can draw numerous similarities with the actual demarcation between Mexico and the U.S. Here, I would emphasize that we not think of the “greater border zone” in the abstract, or metaphoric use of “border,” since this is an actual place which has been a contested and volatile zone for just as long as the immediate area surrounding the Mexico/U.S. border. The Valley may project a more fluid and mobile place for its migrant residents than the discrete boundary between Mexico and the U.S., but we should remember the economic, social, cultural, and legal boundaries that cannot be easily crossed. As a border zone, Valley Mexican migrant farm workers in the 1930s were at the receiving end of violent paramilitary attacks perpetrated 152 by the police and white vigilantes, prompting The San Francisco Examiner to warn “that the whole valley was ‘a smoldering volcano’ ready to erupt” (Davis 11). That “smoldering volcano” was once again felt during the 1960s and 1970s, which was a formative period in the history of naco cinema. It is in the greater border zone and under those strenuous conditions where spectator spaces opened up, allowing a cinematic community to flourish, making it the capital of naco cinema. Disrupting Nationalism Mexico’s state investments and state policies, which had their hand in the development of naco films, inadvertently empowered migrants to use popular cinema as a tool for reimagining the nation from the north. With neoliberalism’s push to privatize the film industry, the state would begin to lose its firm grip on the image of the nation and its national icon, Pedro Infante. The 1970s was the decade of crises for the national film icon whose fashion has come to represent competing forms of nationalism. No longer would the nation be defined or imagined by those in the upper echelons of society, now it would fall on the hands of migrants who would eventually find their own icon. Even in the absence of direct representations of the Mexican state, the conditions of migration may reflect the limits of the State’s abilities to provide social services and jobs. Thus grows the idea of Pedro Infante Jr. as an icon of “unofficial nationalism” —a revised and reconstituted diasporic nationalism, disarticulated from the State nationalism revealed to be hollow and corrupt. With the competing forms comes nationalist ideals and norms come out of back-and-forth struggles between male styles—charro and naco—in 153 ways that mimic the male/female conflicts of the corridos. To complicate matters further, the new naco style becomes a hybrid one in terms of gender. In the new male style, attention is placed on bright silk shirts, exotic fabrics and leathers, and jewelry, and other accessories. Those male fashion interests in other contexts would be coded as feminine, but while few migrants will resist female influences, most will incorporate them. The hybrid fashion of the narco in his colorful, silk shirt and in his formfitting outfit is a good indication of how migrants in the north have transformed the official national fashion of the charro to the naco. This study brings attention to Mexico’s colonial history of fashion where most of the changes in Indian life would happen within the first 50 years of colonization. By the 1550s, Indians still possessed detailed knowledge of tribal ways, but a hundred years later, colonial life would displace much Indian knowledge, preventing them from ever putting their knowledge into practice (Gibson 30). It would take independence from Spain and a Revolution for significant change to occur in male fashion. After the revolution and as a method of modernization, a “low” form of dress was elevated to national status, becoming the image of an idealized version of what Mexico wanted to show the world. The stoic, paternal charro in his majestic costume would become the style of the proud nation, defender of women and of tradition. This style would, of course, be paired down for modern times, but the essence of the charro has remained fixed in Mexican male fashion. Mexico is still a paternal country with rural traditions, qualities the norteño exhibits. That is why there is so much resistance, at the higher social levels of power, in accepting the norteño and his fashion as an image representative of 154 Mexico. This is not just because the style is looked down upon, but also because it is the proletariat that is defining what the ideal Mexican is and not those at the top. A fascinating observation regarding the fashion style seen in recent migrant communities is the way in which it represents complicated identity struggles, struggles for self-definition that include contradictory pulls to both assimilate and to preserve cultural autonomy in a threatening new world. The result is a hybrid fashion reflective of a hybrid culture—a greater border culture that represents the intersection of disparate cultural influences and experiences. Although the unofficial norteño narco has captured Mexico’s attention, it is the image of the charro that is still considered the official Mexican national icon. However, when we think of the ideal Mexican man in his costume, we cannot forget the female national figures and styles that turn heads. While men dominate the perilous world of the narcocorridos and naco films, women have long been part of the same underworld, as true packing, gun swinging soldaderas (soldiers) and not just eye candy. Those female “nationalist” figures and styles have also moved towards a norteño style, one in which migrant women have fought to gain the freedom to create their own style. Indeed, naco cinema tends to exploit women by relegating them to sexual objects, so even there women had to fight to for their right to become norteña icons. Of the great many powerful female naco characters are Camila “la Tejana,” Lola “La trailera,” La India María, and Teresa “La Reyna del Sur.” All of these characters embody the ideals and struggles of migrant women who, in reality, are strong by refusing to live in a hegemonic male society. Those celluloid queens are not just mere fiction, since they are actual 155 women who cohabit traditional male spaces. Other commanding personalities that have ventured into male spaces and done very well for themselves would be Lucha Villa “La Reyna de la Noche,” who chose a life of a traveling performer where she sang all her life. Chavela Vargas, Paquita del Barro, and Jenni Rivera are all women who also continue to define what a woman can do and were she can go. Never content to be objectified, they are always strong and courageous women navigating a male-dominated space. Through their fashion and through their performances, these women have opened up for our society a world of possibilities to reevaluate and confront inequality. Fashion, thus, has become a form of self-invention that helps the male and female Mexican migrant root her/his perception of herself/himself in an unstable foreign environment. Not surprisingly, fashion choices show a strong nostalgia for the life left behind—often a life that never really existed. Studying the evolution of the fashion of this community provides a valuable tool for understanding the changing consciousness of a people and the re-invention of collective migrant imagery. Unbroken Continuum: Naco Influences It seems that experiences like mine, of a low-income Mexican family living on the greater border of the United States and Mexico, has become compelling subject matter for the critically acclaimed “New Wave” of Mexican films, such as Babel (Alejandro González Iñárritu 2006). However, one should remember that these stories have been told for decades to a largely-overlooked regional audience of migrant workers. Popular culture recognizes the public’s interest in these “new” stories and in this “new” form of 156 storytelling, but may not understand its ancestry. I would like to give credit to the naco films as part of the foundation for this new movement. I believe that this new cinema is not entirely “new,” but relies upon a foundation of quickly produced, critically disregarded, naco movies. Both share attention to the border region as a place of opportunity and self-invention; both feature grainy, low-quality film style and high melodrama. In an investigation of naco films, we may trace a continuum between the Golden Age and the current crop of incredibly popular Mexican directors. Instead of a cultural desert during the last half of the twentieth century, we observe a trajectory of films leading to a “New Wave” of Mexican Cinema, first exploring the underside of Mexico by focusing on struggle and strife in urban centers, then in the border region. By examining the naco film era, we may observe the evolution of the aesthetic celebrated by the Mexican auteur directors of today. Although it is true that such a lineage can be drawn, my aim is not to legitimize naco films for academic critics or to convince anyone that they are just as good as Babel, El Infierno, or Miss Bala. Rather, the ultimate goal is to get naco films included in a canon of important and culturally-significant works that are treated as serious critiques of hegemonic standards of film taste. I would go so far as to argue that many of the descendants who were born in the United States of recent immigrants elevate naco films above mainstream American and Mexican films because they deliberately offend middle- and upper-class aesthetic values. Naco films do not attempt to create lasting artistic polemics or deep philosophical thoughts; nor are they interested in capturing a large percentage of the box-office market or Oscar nominations. Audiences may celebrate these films because they discard the 157 typical goals of most moviemakers. By deliberately patronizing “low” culture, audiences chip away at the dominance of the mainstream. By watching the latest naco film on DVD, audience members take a small amount of money from big-name directors and the Hollywood circus. These immigrant film consumers seem to take delight in not funding “high” art when they watch naco films—they enjoy participating in the “low” end of the standard artistic film hierarchy. This economic and social movement remains subtle and unrecognized by almost all but the participants, but it does signal a deliberate choice. 158 BIBLIOGRAPHY Agrasánchez, Rojelio Jr. ¡Mas! Cine Mexicano: Sensational Mexican Movie Posters 1957 – 1990. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2007. Avalos, Adán. “¡Que Naco! Mexican Popular Cinema, La banda del carro rojo and the Audience.” In Vajuing Films. Ed. Laura Hubber. London: Palvgrave P, 2010 106-120. Bauman, Richard, ed. Folklore and Culture on the Texas-Mexican Border. Austin: U of Texas P, 1993. 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New York: Routledge, 2009. 158-170. Wyman, Donald L. “The Mexican Economy: Problems and Prospects.” In Mexico’s Economic Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities Ed. Wyman, Donald L. San Diego: U of California, 1983. 1-28. 166 FILMOGRAPHY Abajo el talón/Down with the Curtain. Dir. Miguel M. Delgado, 1954. Ahí está el detalle/Here is the Point. Dir. Juan Bustillo Oro, 1940. Allá en el rancho grande/Out on the Big Ranch. Dir. Fernando de Fuente, 1936. Amores Perros. Dir. Alejandro Gonzales Iñárritu, 2000. Asalto en Tijuana/Armed Robbery in Tijuana. Dir. Alfredo Gurrola, 1984. Babel. Dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2006. Bonnie and Clyde. Dir. Arthut Penn, 1967. Calabacitas Tiernas/Tender Little Pumpkins. Dir. Gilberto Martínez Solares, 1948. Canoa. Felipe Cazal, 1975. Cascabel/Rattle. Dir. Raúl Araiza, 1976. Contrabando y traicion/Contraband and Betrayal. Dir. Arturo Martinez, 1978. Dirty Harry. Dir. Clint Eastwood, 1971. Dos Plebes/Two Rascals. Dir. Jorge Reynoso, 1999. El coyote emplumado/The Plumed Coyote. Dir. María Elena Velasco, 1983. El gendarme Desconocido/The Undercover Cop. Dir. Miguel M. Delgado, 1941. El nieto del Zorro/The Grandson of Zorro. Dir. Jaime Salvador, 1947. Espaldas mojadas/Wetbacks. Dir. Alejandro Galindo, 1953. El rey del barrio/The King of the Neighborhood. Dir. Gilberto Martínez Solares, 1949. El mariachi. Dir. Robert Rodríguez, 1992. El Infierno/Hell. Dir. Luis Estrada, 2010. El regreso del carro rojo/The Return of the Red Car. Dir. Fernando Durán, 1985. 167 El festín de la loba/The She Wolf’s Orgy. Dir. Francisco del Villar, 1972. Fando y Lis. Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1972. La Perla/The Pearl. Dir. Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández, 1945. La passion según Berenice/Passion According to Berenice. Dir. Humberto Hermosillo 1975. La banda del carro rojo/The Red Car Gang. Dir. Rubén Galindo, 1976. La fuga del rojo/The Escape of El Rojo. Dir. Alfredo Gurrola, 1985. La camioneta gris/The Grey Pickup. Dir. José Luis Urquieta, 1990. La viuda negra/The Black Widow. Dir. Arturo Ripstein, 1976. Las siete cucas/The Seven Nymphs. Dir. Felipe Cazal, 1981. La montaña sagrada/Holy Mountain. Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1972. La muerte del soplón/Death of the Snitch. Dir. Rubén Galindo, 1977. La hija de nadie/Nobody’s Daughter. Dir. Tito Novaro, 1976. Lola la trailera/Lola the Truck Driver. Dir. Raúl Fernández, 1983. La fuga del rojo/Escape of El Rojo. Dir. Alfredo Gurrola, 1985. La mafia de la frontera/Border Mafia. Dir. Jaime Fernández, 1979. María Candelaria. Dir. Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández, 1943. Maldita Miseria/Damn Misery. Dir. Júlio Almada, 1979. Miss Bala/The Bullet Queen. Dir. Gerardo Naranjo, 2011. Ni de aquí, ni de allá/Neither from Here nor from There. Dir. María Elena Velasco, 1987. Nosotros los pobres/We The Poor. Dir. Ismael Rodríguez, 1947. Perro callejero/Street Dog. Dir. Gilberto Cazcón, 1980. 168 Río Escondido/Hidden River. Dir. Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández, 1947. Treinta segundos para morir/Thirty Seconds to Die. Dir. Rubén Benavides, 1981. Un hombre violento/A Violent Man. Dir. Valentín Trujillo, 1986. Ustedes los ricos/You the Rich. Dir. Ismael Rodríguez, 1948. Venganza apache/Apache Revenge. Dir. Fernando Méndez, 1959. Tonta, tonta pero no tanto/Dumb, dumb but not that dumb. Dir. Fernando Cortéz, 1971. Y tu Mama Tambien. Dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2001. 169 APPENDIX INTERVIEWS (Selected) * Note: all interviews were audio recorded but not all were transcribed. Interview with “Mario,” “Jose” and “Ramona”: Translated into English Where did you see La Banda del Carro Rojo? Jose: You saw it here? I remember seeing it here in Madera. Mario: I can’t remember where I saw it. Do you remember the beginning of the film? M: No…one of them Pedro Infante…(There are some interruptions and Mario has to remind a group of three kids that just walked in the room to settle down and be quiet because I am interviewing him. The noise and kids quickly leave the room.) Pedro Infante Jr crosses from Mexico to the US as a mojado. J: Doesn’t he cross the border in the beginning? I tell them that I will begin to play some clips of the film and both are excited. They remind me once more that they have not seen the film for a long time. I begin playing the beginning of the film and continue to record and ask questions as they watch the clips. Can you tell me more about Pedro Infante Jr.? M: Well, I remember that he was popular but I only remember a little bit about him. J: I don’t remember much about him. (as the crossing scene plays) Isn’t that Pedro Infante? M: Yes, That is him. He is crossing and that is his friend that is helping him. Movie: Police, Police hold it right there… J: It’s a Grand Torino right? M: Yes. (They are referring to the car the police is driving) M: What year was that movie made? J: 1975 I think, no. A: Yes, it was done in 1976. 170 M: Oh, I first saw that movie in Mexico. I saw it at the theater. J: See, I don’t remember but I think I saw it here in Madera but I can’t remember. It must have been in the 80s when I saw it. M: Yeah, because by 1975 you guys were already here weren’t you? J: 1978, we got here in 78. M: Then in 78 we all got here? J: Yes, but we came first then you guys came after. (Mario’s wife Ramona was passing by and heard the conversation and said yes that they soon followed when Jose’s family came to the States.) Ramona: We got here in 1979 in February. J: we got here in July because I remember we were just out of school. (Ramona walks away and the movie continues) I’m not sure what to ask, if anything. I see that both Mario and Jose are so focus on the film that I decide to let them talk and then ask probing questions. J: Wow, ‘Los Tigres’ are so young. What year did they begin playing? M: It was in the 70s. Are these the kind of movies that you mostly watched in Mexico? M: Those are the ones that always played. It was mostly Los Almadas (The Almada Brothers are huge actors in this type of films) (By this time I’m not sure what to ask. I have a list of questions in front of me but I freeze as they continue to focus on the film. After a pause that felt like minutes I ask a question) Do you believe that this film and other like it explore real life issues? M: I believe so because like in the movie when he crossed the river. That was the way people crossed over. J: Like the corridos (folk songs) the movies deal with things that really happen. M: Yes, those things really happen. How about the corrido “La Banda del Carro Rojo,” is that based on real events and what is it about? (no response from either Mario or Jose) Why did you choose to watch those types of films? 171 M: Because they were new movies and because of Los Tigres del Norte who were very popular at the time. This was a huge movie then. The theater would fill up and people had to wait in long lines to get in. But why did you like these time of movies? M: Because they had good music and because they were about what it was like in the United States. So you learned from them? M: Yes, we saw how it was out here and we saw that it was hard but it looked better than what we had here (Mexico). I had never been in the there and many of us wanted to cross but it seemed difficult. So you saw these movies as reality? M: Well, these movies were not real. It’s not really real. I mean I know it’s a movie but a movie can show reality and this movie shows people who come over here and there is always people who come over here. There is always drugs and people who decide to smuggle drugs. J: I did see La Banda del Carro Rojo as something that could happen, especially since it was based on a corrido. I have always known that all corridos are based on something that really happened, they tell a story of things that happen to people and even though I know that sometimes they are a bit exaggerated, I also know that they are still true. But why do you think that the people in this movie do that? M: For the money. Easy money and because they don’t know other ways to get it. They need it but. (Jose is focused on the movie and says nothing then his wife comes in the room and begins to have a conversation with him. They talk about the card game in the movie and how he lost every game he played last night. I feel odd asking them to focus on the movie so I stop recording and wait till she leaves after a few minutes) M: I was about 17 years when I first saw that movie. I think it was when it first came out. I first heard that song and then I saw the movie. I remember really enjoying the corrido…so when I heard that there was a movie about it I was the first one in line to see it. I also remember that the theatre would fill up and people had to wait in long lines to get in. J: In 78 I was 12 years old, yes, it was the song that brought a lot of people to the movie. 172 M: It was the music, Camelia ‘La Tejana’ all those songs were big then. J: Yes, it was the music. I remember being in Mexico and everyone playing those songs on the radio and we all would sing the song of ‘La Banda.’ We were all young. M: I think that after that movie more drug-dealing movies started to come out. Before there weren’t that many movies like that. There were more movies about wrestlers and vaqueros (cowboys) but then more of this type of movie started to come out. Why do you think this happened? M: Well, because this movie was a hit and more and more people were experiencing what was on those films. More and more people were crossing but before it was just about wrestling films and the cowboys. J: Yes, and Mario Almada has made many films about cowboys (western films). Now there aren’t many films like that. Most of the films are about drug-dealers. M: I remember not having any way of listening to those songs and I would go to “Kaliman.” He had a small tape recorder and he would play them. (Kaliman is a nick-name for his friend but Kaliman was what I consider an early form of naco story-telling. It had all the aesthetics and stories that were popular at the time in the 60s and 70s. Kaliman was a daily radio show that was huge with the working class Mexican population. They were acted much like the Orson Wells stories on the radio and families would gather around the radio to here the latest stories of far way lands where evil lurks and the common folk gets taken advantage of. Kaliman was a hero who fought for the common folk. His power was that he could control peoples thoughts and by doing so he could defeat the bad guys. What is also interesting is that he was a stereotype of an Indian from India that dressed in white and wore a turbine but had blue eyes. In addition to being huge in the radio Kaliman was also popular as dime graphic novels. Much like the graphic novels and the radio shows of the time Kaliman was full of mystery, suspense, drama, kidnapping, monsters, trafficking human organs…there is something that could be said about the popularity of Kaliman coinciding with the popularity with naco films but that will be another paper, another time.) M: He is a drug-addict, he injects himself (referring to the character Boom from the film), it is sad that he does that and you have to ask yourself how he got there because nobody is born that way. He is already lost unlike Pedro Infante who comes here to work but then by accident he meets the others and gets involved with Mario and Fernando Almada. He just wants to work and that’s it but then he meets all these people who are in drugs. Why do you think he decides to get into this gang? J: To make easy money because do you see how he dresses. He later gets a suit and looks very cool. 173 But is that the only reason he gets into the gang, to dress nice? M: No. He wants to make it by working but has no choice because he has no papers. He can’t find a job and if he doesn’t have money then why did he come here. All he wants is to work and succeed. I think that is what people who cross is all they want. He doesn’t want to do bad things but he gets caught up in those things because he doesn’t know anything else. He doesn’t know anyone else who can help him. J: Mario (Almada) doesn’t sell himself. He is not one who can be bought and does not want anybody using him. M: Yes, he doesn’t know how to sing (reference to the character Mario who does not want to work for the mafia but in the end he does and when he is asked to turn in his boss he says I don’t know how to sing) J: Rodrigo does it because he needs money for his daughter who is sick, right? M: Yes, he has a sick daughter who is blind or has leukemia, I think, right? J: And the other one (Boom) does it because he needs drugs. He uses them. But do you think that Boom was always like that? J: No, but he is now lost. He probably was a worker that got into drugs and got lost. He seems like a nice guy but has a problem and he is going to get killed or go to jail. Pedro wants to be an actor. Which character do you most identify with? M: In the beginning it was with Pedro Infante because he just came here to work but he got in with the wrong group. It was difficult for him because he was very naive and didn’t have a green card. I think he doesn’t have much of a chance and is grateful to have anything, even if it is morally wrong. That was what I wanted, to just work, but now I can relate to Rodrigo because he has been here for a long time and his life is still the same. He has not done much. I sometimes feel like him. I am better than when I got here but I have a lot of bills. I relate to him now. By this point I feel more comfortable in letting Mario and Jose focus on the movie and I don’t feel that I have to keep asking questions. I feel that I will ask them as soon as the film ends. M: When you see these films you probably think that it is not real, the way one would cross over. It looks unreal and looks false but yes that was the way we crossed. It was difficult for one to come here and this movie does show the reality but only the one who experiences that really knows how hard it is to come here. The movie shows the way things are. 174 How did you get here? M: That way. I walked over the mountains all night to get here. I crossed through Arizona. I spent all night walking to get here. But like Pedro, did you know where you were going or if you had a job? M: I knew were I was going and I got a job right away and since then I have not stopped working. Why do you believe that people get into drugs? Is it for the same reasons as those characters? M: Yes, that is true. I know people who have gotten into trafficking. J: Yes, it is true. Rodrigo needs money because of his sick daughter and I know people who don’t have money to pay for things for their kids. I don’t think it is right but I don’t think they have another choice. I think that this one is bad even though he is crossing drugs. As far as Quintana, another of the men in the movie, I don’t think that he is a bad person for drug smuggling. Quitana had no choice because he was in a jam and if he did not pay his family would be killed. That would be worse. M: This one (Mario) does it because he needs the money. Many people do it for that reason. He needs to pay off what he owes. Pedro gets into it by accident. That one (Fernando) wants to help his daughter. That is why he does it. It’s not right but he doesn’t think he can get the money another way. I know that here in the United States you can get some help but if it is something more serious like his daughter then it is more difficult to get additional help because it gets really expensive to be going in and out of the hospital. And even though we do not pay for them out of our pockets, we do pay in the form of taxes but when we need medical care, we will not get the same care as someone who is rich. Rich people go to private hospitals where they have the best doctors but those cost a lot of money and we cannot afford them. That one, Pedro gets into it by accident. J: He only says he will do it one time but… M: Yes, but he then begins to like it. What do you mean? M: He gets money to pay off the other guy but then. I don’t know but he likes it. The second time he does it is because it went well the first time but also to help his brother. But then things go wrong. Lauro turns them in. He is the one how beat him in poker. Lauro Cantu. Do you think that these type of movies are bad? 175 M: No. They are entertainment. They sometimes capture reality better than other movies. J: No. Maybe they are not for everyone to watch, like little children but they are not bad. You can find bad films anywhere you look. A lot of people think that just because they are Mexican movies that they are automatically bad. I also look at Hollywood films and I can give you a long list of bad ones but at the same time, I can show you some good ones. The difference is that those cost millions versus these which cost, I don’t know, maybe fifty thousand dollars or a lot less. (Ramona walks into the room momentarily and I decide to ask her a question.) A: Ramona, what do you think about this movie? R: I can relate to some of the situations that they go through because as a parent you know that if you only had the money to pay for basic healthcare, then life would be better and scenes like that would not have to happen. There wouldn’t be a reason to desperately try to find a way to make easy money. A: Are you familiar with some of the characters from the movie? R: I remember some from the first times I saw this movie…and from what I have seen today. A: Who of the characters stands out in your mind? R: I don’t know…well, maybe Teresita…oh, actually Pedro. I liked Pedro, he seemed like a really nice guy. I think some of the others corrupted him…yeah, he would have even made it in Hollywood if he had never hung out with Boom…that Boom guy was really bad. A: So you like the movie? R: Yes, I want to watch it again…when I have time. (Ramona walks out.) What other kinds of films do you watch? M: The Almada. I like the westerns. They also come out in many of those films but I also remember watching “Siete en la Mira” (Seven at Sight) but that was way after this movie. I think it was in 85. 176 J: I also remember movies with Valentin Trujillo like “Perro Callejero.” (Street Dog) I remember watching “La Muerte de un Gallero” (Death of a Cockfighter) with Antonio Aguilar. Are those films like La Banda? J: No because they are more about people in the city. They are not about coming to the United States. They do have drugs and violence but they are better than the kind of movies that are made today. La Banda del Carro Rojo was good but it talked about what was going on. Many people that I knew were coming to the United States. How are the ways that the characters dress similar to how people dress then and now? J: That is the way people would dress. People still dress that way. That is the fashion and things have changed a little but people still dress that way. M: If they have money they buy good boots and a nice hat but things are the same. How have things changed or stayed the same since those movies were made? M: Well, things are the same. People are still coming over because of the situation over there. People want to work. The thing that has changed is that more movies are showing more drugs and are about things about illegal stuff. Why do you think that is? J: Things are hard and people want to work and it is easy to make money doing those things. Also, more and more people are coming and there are less jobs. I don’t think that there are more drug smuggling now than there was then but I think people want to see the same thing. There are more people now who want to see that kind of stuff. Do you think that more people are selling drugs? J: No, I think that movies like that show things that will make money. People like them but I don’t think that they are in drugs. People like to see movies in Spanish. There are not many movies in Spanish. M: I don’t watch the new kinds of movies because they are all the same, they are all about drug-trafficking and bullets. When I was younger the movies were better because they showed reality, things that either happened to you or someone you knew. Back then those guys knew how to write and make good movies. Did you ever see La fuga del rojo? That movie was really good because, that movie is about a drug-dealer who ends up fighting for a good cause in Nicaragua, but that is not all because there are other good secondary stories, there is a cop who wants to catch him and friends that betray him. Now the movies are all about naked women and I don’t like that. I like westerns, films from the 70s. This new movies don’t interest. I used to watch them but I don’t any more. 177 When I buy movies I buy classic movies of the 60s and 70s with actors like Rodolfo de Anda, Luis Aguilar, Antonio Aguilar (both are also naco actors) Pedro Infante. J: I agree, there were a lot of good films then, if you think about it, they were making them on film and I am sure that costs a lot of money so not anyone would do one of those films, but today everyone wants to make a movie because they have a video camera. Do you watch the new Mexican movies that are coming out? M: No. I don’t like those movies. J: The thing is that those movies aren’t shown out here. We can’t watch them because there is no theater that shows those movies and if you want to see it you need to buy it. But how do we know what is coming out? We never see them advertise. But these are also not shown in the theater. J: Yes, but before they where shown in the theater. Like when there was a theater here in Madera but now where would they show them. In Fresno there used to be three theaters in the same area (Crest, Mexico, Azteca) but now they are closed. Those are the places that used to show new movies from Mexico but now there is nothing like that. So where do you see those movies now? M: They show some of them on TV. J: You can see them on Mexican channels from Mexico if you have cable. M: But I buy my movies on dvd so that I can watch them. I buy them here at the store “La Esperanza.” They cost me about 4 dollars. J: Before you would get flyers that would list the new films and where they were playing. Also, you would hear advertisements on the radio and now there is nothing like that. But when you would go to the theater did you worry about La Migra? M: Yes but we would go on the weekends. We would go on Sundays because they were not around then. They did not work but during the week we would not go out for fear of La Migra. We would not go during the week because we were afraid of the Migra. At this point Jose leaves because his kids are crying and have been coming in and out of the room. He apologizes but he has to put his daughters to bed. The screening of the film goes on and I continue to ask Mario more questions about the film. What can you say about Pedro Infante’s change throughout the movie? 178 M: Yes, he changes. He gets new clothes with the money. I think he is the only one that gets new clothes. (missed opportunity, I should have asked more about this change and what this means.) Do you know that they all die in the end? M: Yes because of the song we already know that this is going to happen. Why is it that you don’t watch newer (naco) films? M: I don’t like them. I know about them but I’m not interested in them. They are all the same. They are all about drug-trafficking. It’s the same thing in all the movies. The same thing, the same thing. Why do you think that this is so? M: For the reason that that is what is popular. Many people are watching them because they like all the action and because that is what is happening. You turn on the TV and you hear the same stories. You hear that there is another killing and that more drugs were taken. It’s the same story and people what to see it. People what to know what happened even though we already know what happened. Do you think it was worth for Rodrigo to get into drug-trafficking? M: For what he wanted it was not worth it because he was killed. I mean he needed the money but in the end he will not be able to see his daughter so it was not worth it. What do you think it says about the US social services? M: I think he could have gotten help here because we are in the United States but I think that they wanted more money. In the US you can get help in the hospital but if you have something major like his daughter then it is harder to get help. The hospitals are expensive and even though we don’t pay for them out of our pocket the money still comes from us. Well, you know, if you have money you can get to a better hospital. You think rich people are here in this hospital (Madera)? They are not here they are in good hospitals. The ones that cost a lot of money. M: This is one movie but it has about three or four stories, is in it? There is the story of the father of the little girl (Rodrigo), the guy who is a gambler (Lino), the drug-addict (Boom) and the one who came here to work (Pedro). Then one can identify with any one of the characters. One can identify and say well this is the way I got here and that was the way I thought things were when I got here (talking about Pedro). 179 How about the characters that get into drug-smuggling? M: No, the majority of the people who come here don’t get into selling drugs. They come here to work. M: The majority of the time these movies show the reality of people. Not necessarily our reality but the reality of many others. (Mario’s oldest daughter comes in and says that she is leaving. This causes an interruption that last for about 5 minutes.) (We get back into the movie where the Lino and Rodirgo are talking about there being no more honorable men in this world, that everything is a business…) M: With money you can even do the impossible. When you do it (illegal things) in good faith then it is justifiable but then people don’t stop. People get greedy and keep doing it because money is easy and money what does it give you? It really doesn’t give you the power. You see he has new clothes (Pedro) because he has money. I mean he didn’t get this because he was honest but for doing other kinds of jobs (drug-dealing). What do you think is going to happen to him? He is going to die because of what he is doing (still talking about Pedro). His friends are selling drugs and he is getting things the easy way. With friends like that nothing good can happen. But can you see that the things that he does (Rodrigo) are not really justified because even though he is helping his daughter he is also poisoning many other people. He can justify it. He has his reasons but what about the rest? Do you think that those who do drugs don’t have a choice? M: They have the option to say no. He has no choice. He has to help his daughter but what he is going to do is not justifiable because he is going to kill many more by smuggling drugs. M: I don’t like the new movies that are coming out because there are naked women. Back then you didn’t see that much of that. Like in this movie you don’t see that. Now you can see a movie with your family because you have to keep stopping it or watch it alone. The is no more respect for the family. You can’t enjoy a film because of the vulgarity the way they treat women. There were many movies that were made back then that were very vulgar. What can you say about that? M: Yes there were many movies that showed nudity but there were more choices and sometimes when there were bad stuff there was a reason for it and not just because it was 180 there for people to watch. Many of those movies made you think. Now they are all the same? (Missed opportunity. I should have asked for him to describe some of the new movies and why are they still very popular?) are the four characters good or bad? M: For the life that they have they are good people but at the same time the same life begins to push them to do those kind of things. Everyone of them has their own problems and reasons for choosing to get into that. Or better said they all have their justifications. How have drugs been shown throughout the film? M: They have not shown the drugs and back then many movies didn’t show the drugs. Everyone knew what it was about but many never showed the drugs. Now you can even see them doing lines of cocaine with cases full of drugs in the background. How about the firepower? M: In this movie you can see the guns but they are small guns (pistolitas). Now what they have is machine-guns. Why do you think that changed? M: I stated to see that that change from the 80s to now. It was at around the mid 80s, like 85. During this time there was more and more armament in the movies. There used to be pistolitas and not all you see is machine-guns and even grenades. Even the corrido has become more and more violent. The more violent the more it gets played on the radio. Also, before the corridos didn’t have any swearing and now there are corridos that have lots of swearing. And all for what? Do you think that the radio stations are rejecting any of these corridos? No, because these kinds of themes are making money. But people continue to buy these… M: Yes, people continue to buy them and they generate lots of money. There are people who will buy anything for example, I like corridos but the ones that don’t swear and like the movies. I like those types of movies but I don’t like the ones that have nudity. My friends and I tend to prefer the movies we watched when we were growing up in the 70s because they were movies from the golden era. Do you think these movies are well made? M: I think so. Even though these films look very low budget, like they were very cheap to make they do a good job presenting issues that those in power would like to keep in the 181 dark so the world won’t see what is really happening out here. I also like the actors and they do a good job in their roles. The stories good and they reflect their times. They are based on what was happening back then. I this movie (La Banda) was made now it would more violent. How? M: More armor, more firepower. Like bigger guns. This is a movie about smuggling but it was not as obvious like today’s movies which now show everything. How do you read the character Boom? M: He is a drug addict and has been for a long time. He looks like he has been here in the US for a long time. He is like a pocho (derogatory referencing someone who was born in the US but is of Mexican descend and has lost or rejects his identity). Mario and Fernando they are Mexican. Pedro he is an illegal and from Mexico. He is naive and lets his friends tell him what to do. Did you go to see movies alone? M: No, I went with friends. The theaters would fill up. There would be one full show and then another. I would go with Ramona (his wife). I stopped going to the theater because they closed them down and now where do you go? Do you think people would go to the theater if they showed this type of movies? M: Yes, but it all depends on what kind of movie. Now, whatever movie is shown will have nudity and women being treated bad. Can you imagine going to the movies with your family and watching this kind of stuff? The theater is familial and I think that if you took your kids what kind of stuff you would see. That is why I don’t rent or buy most of the new movies. For example, this movie is about drugs but we never see it. They all talk about it but they never specify. When he says 100 of the big ones, that must mean cocaine. M: Have you noticed that in the movies they show it (drugs) and if you see the news you will see it. If the police caught some drug-smuggler they will show whatever they got them with coke, marijuana, guns. Why do you think they show them? M: I don’t know why they show them because the news is enough but they have to show the drugs. I think the message is stronger when you don’t show everything. For example, if you never seen coke in movies you will say, that is the way it looks. I have 182 never seen coke in real life but I know how it looks like. If it’s marijuana, I can recognize it because of the movies. They show the plants. M: A movie like this one always give you a message. That the drug-smuggler or criminal will always end up in bad shape. In the end they almost always die. People also watch these movies because they like the actors. They like the way they act and also the music, the corrido. Back then they were very popular. They were the Almada brothers and people would say, oh it’s the Almada brothers and they’re good so this movie must be good because they are good actors. People would then see it because of them. (Mario laughs when in the scene Lino tells Pedro that if they get out of this, he has to go his own way) M: See it’s a message. He tells him that what they are doing is not good. This movie is not exaggerated like many of the movies that are done today. Before, the messages were to discourage people to not get into that but now it’s almost as if it is good to get into it (drugs). In La Banda they don’t have a really good car or have great houses with servants and parties. Now you see so much of that in the movies. M: You know, I think I saw that movie here (Madera) with your mom and dad. I remember them going with us to see it. I just remembered when I saw that guy (in the white jacket) and your mom said he looked like Beto my brother. (The last scene, the shoot out and while the corrido plays in the background) M: They prefer to die than go to prison. He never turns anyone in. Have you seen the second part of this movie? I think, it is called El Regreso del Carro Rojo or La Muerte del Soplon. He doesn’t die and Los Tigres del Norte take help him escape from the hospital. In the movie the car is buried because it has the drugs inside it and Los Tigres get him out because he is going to prison and then he goes out to kill the whistleblower. In this movie Los Tigres also have guns and they act in it. I think the movie came out in the 80s. M: There is another movie that is very similar to this one. It is called “Thirty Seconds to Live.” Have you see it? It is also with Los Tigres and they also never show the drugs. Well, that’s it. Movie ends and I thank Mario for helping me out. I turn off my recorder and as I begin to leave he goes to another room and comes back with a box of DVDs. There must be at least 50 movies. He tells me that these are the movies he watches and that they are not like the bad ones of today. I quickly recognize many of them. Most of them are naco westerners with Antonio Aguilar. There are a few that revolve around corridos but most of them are from the late 70s to the mid 80s. He tells me that I’m welcome to borrow them any time. 183 Interview with “Elena” and “Jaime”: Translated in English but some in Spanish What do you see is the current condition of film production in Mexico? Jaime: There aren’t many films being produced in Mexico. All that has slowed down. It’s pretty much dead. All they do know is they buy American films and they dub them. It’s not like back then when there were many classic films. There were many great films. I think that all ended by around 1980. A: But there are still producing films in Mexico. J: Yes, but they are not the same. Elena: Before there were films from Hollywood that would be shown in Mexico but not that many. There were more movies that were made in Mexico. People preferred those films (Mexican films). That is were we need to see the good and bad side of the free trade agreement (NAFTA). A: What do you mean? E: This opened up Mexico to be exploited and to loose movies and that is just one thing. There are many things that happen and continue to happen that are not good for us. It’s like a monopoly. They (US) control the movies we watch. All the movies are taken over there and there is no competition. A: How about movies like La Banda del Carro Rojo? J: That is a good movie… E: Yes, you see that movie was popular then and everyone watched it. They don’t make movies like that. The movies that they make I don’t like. Well, I don’t go to the movies anymore. A: How often and why did you guys stop going out to see movies? J: We used to go to the theater often. Almost every weekend we were there watching the new movie. That was when we were dating. E: By the time we were dating that movie (La Banda) was a classic. During that time I was not allowed to stay out that late. We used to go to the movies early. Back then there were movies playing all day long. So, that is why we would go early so that we would get back home early. A: Why did you like these types of films? E: The music, it’s the music. 184 J: We like movies that have action like karate movies… E: The music was what attracted many people. That is the number one reason why we went to see this movie. By then they (Los Tigres) were very popular and the corridos they sang were huge. A: Do you think corridos are based on reality? J: All the corridos are based on something that really happened. They tell the stories of people and what they went through. Things are a bit exaggerated but they are still true. (Los Tigres are playing in the background and Elena begins talking about them.) E: During that time, we the teenagers were in love with them (Los Tigres). We each had our favorite. A: What kind of movies do you guys watch? J: We watched a lot of karate movies. E: By Bruce Lee and by El Santo but those were your favorite. (A masked wrestler who was and still is very popular in films. Most of all his film are about him having to wrestle with evil in between his wrestling matches.) J: El Santo, The masked silver wrestler against the mommies. (a movie title) E: Sometimes, I used to pick movies that he didn’t like but I did and also he used to pick movies that I didn’t like. What movies did you all agree on? E: We both liked the Almada brothers. We used to watch all of their movies. As soon as they would come out we would go see them. Their movies were good and I still like them. J: They made many movies and were great actors. They looked like people we know. We saw so many of their films that I feel we got to know their real personalities. Fernando is younger but now I guess they are both old. They still make movies. A: What were some the themes for the films you guys watched? J: They were action. With lots of bullets and guns. They were great at it (Almada brothers). You know, with one bullet they would kill someone (laughing). E: We also watched movies that were about crossing the border. Those were very popular back then because that was the reality of many. Many people were poor and wanted to work. They would come to the north and their families would never know anything else about them. (talking about the men) That happen in my mom’s family. One would see those movies because we wanted to understand why they would not come back. We wanted to learn what happen because if it happen to one of the characters then that might of happen to someone we knew and got lost over there. A: Those films were based on reality… 185 E: Yes, yes they were. During those times those types of films were popular because that is what the people were going through. It was a reflection of those times. Many times that my family and I would see these movies we would comment on people we know that would come to the US and then we would never hear anything of them. When I see people in the streets and under a bridge I wonder what their story is. There are people who die in the streets and the movies showed all of that. Many of these movies are also about crossing illegally into the US. They really opened the eyes of a lot of people because when people would come back to Mexico after they were in the United States for years they would always tell us great stories of how simple it was to work up north. They would basically tell us that it was a place where money grows on trees and all you have to do is go and get it. I now understand why people would make up stories because it must have been difficult to tell the truth because they didn’t want to be seen as failures but this movie is showing that things are not as easy as they seem. A: Was drug smuggling a popular theme in those movies? E: Yes. During those times there were many stories of drug smuggling of smuggling marijuana. The movies dealt with that. I believe that that most of those movies were about marijuana. That was the drug that was used. It was popular and you didn’t hear of other drugs not until now. There was cocaine but not as common. E: There were many songs made that talked about that. They glorified the drug and also the drug dealer. J: There were many different corridos. In general, corridos are made of every possible subject but the corridos that dealt with drugs were and still are the most common and very popular. E: The movies glorified all of this and they were very macho. J: There is this movie called Entre Yerba, Polvo y Plomo and it is about the same thing. (Between Weed, Powder and Lead – in this case powder is cocaine and lead is bullets. Norma Iglesias used this title for her first book on border cinema.) E: In the end, like this movie they die even though they are glorified. It’s a macho thing to be valiant. A: How are women treated in these films? E: Like always, she is the good woman who stays at home. She always had to be supportive and keep her mouth shut. There you see (points to the movie) there is your proof. It was like the men would say “you shut up. I can do what I want and you stay there” just like the movie. That was common and I didn’t like it. Women were always either prostitutes who are there to entertain or like the good woman that is in the house quiet and waiting for her man. There was no balance in the movies. My mom would say that movies show the extremes. 186 A: Many people say that these movies treat women as victims… E: Not all victims. You are only a victim if you allow yourself to be one. In this case (La Banda) Boom’s sister (Teresita) is not always a victim. She is rebelling. J: Have you seen Lola la Trailera? She was also good with guns (Lola the Truck Driver is an action movie where the main character, Rosa Gloria Chagoyan, is the hero who goes after the mafia when her father who was a truck driver is murdered. She is best remembered for this role and for the reviling clothes that she wore.) E: She was like an idol to many women. She fought many men and beat them all while she drove a big rig. The first time I wore a short skirt my dad said that I looked like a prostitute and slapped me. My skirt was above my knees but it was rebellious to dress this way. In the movie (La Banda) Teresita is not only a victim. She has some freedom and you can see that by the way she is dressed and by the her make-up. Those are sings of liberty and rebellion. It was a sign of liberty being able to dress that way because it meant that you had control and could decide to do whatever you wanted. You could come home at whatever time you wanted. Men didn’t have to worry about that. They could come home at whatever time they wanted and dress how they wanted. It is sad that Teresita did not have parents and even sadder that she had an abusive brother. But even though of her situation she still had a freedom that many of us did not have, so we could look at her as a model and someone we could emulate. A: Why does Pedro come to the US? E: He wants to come and work. He thinks it is going to be easy because he can only see the successes of others. He is not seeing that they also suffered. J: People who come back home say things are easy out here but that is not the case. People don’t tell you how it really is. This movie is doing that. It is showing that things are not easy. Pedro thinks that he is going to come and be an actor and that Hollywood is open but he doesn’t know that you have to work to get there. He thinks that crossing was the hardest thing to do and now that he is here he thinks that he has made it. He even says that in Hollywood they recognize talent. E: He is ignorant. Things are still the same. If you ask an illegal that barley came to the US why he will tell you the same thing. He wants progress and an opportunity to succeed. J: In Mexico, even if you are a good worker and know how to do things there are no jobs. The jobs that are there are for little pay. It’s not like here. Here there are opportunities and better jobs that pay well. A: What did you think it was going to be like when you got here? E: I thought it was going to be easy. That’s the way many people thought it would be. J: This woman (his wife) thought that I was just going to pick money from the streets. 187 A: In the film Rodirgo tells Pedro that all his life he has struggled. What do you think that means? J: He says “look at what I have and I still owe everything.” Pedro just got here and he wants to go right to the top and be in Hollywood. He wants to be successful without working at it. E: He doesn’t know that things aren’t that easy. You have to work hard to get what you want and even when you work hard that doesn’t mean that you will make it. Rodrigo has worked all his life to have his ranch and his dream is still unrealized. A: Can you guys tell me more about Boom? E: He wants simple money and could care less about others. He is willing to kill to get what he wants. He is a drug addict and is selfish. He takes advantage of everyone. He probably charges them outrageous fees to bring them to the United States. He is a coyote and took Pedro’s money even though he knows that Pedro needs it even more than he does. J: He is a bad guy but I ask why he is the way he is. It seems that he has no family. He lives with his sister and probably had to support her when she was small. I don’t know what happened to his parents. Maybe they are still in Mexico but I think they died. He is lost. It’s hard but life is hard for everyone. He made bad choices and I don’t think that he even thinks about it. He actually was probably a nice guy and a good worker who somehow got lost while trying to achieve his goal. A: How about Lino Quintana? J: Well, he owns the bar and has a gambling problem. A bad one. He looses $15 thousand. That was a lot of money back then. Even now that is a lot of money to loose in a game. E: Lino is not bad but he has a problem and that is what eventually kills him. He is doing fine. He has things but he has a problem. I know people like that. A: Like corridos, are these films based on some reality? J: When I used to watch these movie I imaged that there were people that were going through these things. I would keep all these things in mind. I believe that they are based on some reality. Things like that do happen. Corridos are true and this movie is based on a corrido that is true but I’m sure that there is some of it that is not true. It’s a movie and it has to be entertaining so I’m sure some of it is exaggerated. A: Why do you no longer watch these types of films? Jaime Jr.: When we started to watch what we wanted. We started to choose movies that we liked that the kids liked. 188 E: We started to watch what they were watching and since they were kids they wanted to watch cartoons and American movies. J: Once in a while we still watch the films of Vicente Fernández, Antonio Aguilar and also those of Cantinflas. A: In the film, what are the changes that each character goes through? J: Lino has to get into drugs because he is broke and needs to pay for his vice. Rodirgo is a good person that gets into drugs because he has to help his sick daughter. Pedro is ignorant but gets street smart. Boom is a leach. He just lives off of others and doesn’t care how he gets the money. E: Boom is well aware of what he is doing. He gets into drugs for the easy money unlike the others who have real reasons for wanting the money. Well, Pedro also doesn’t need the money but he is naïve and should know better. He lets himself get taken in by the people he is with. A: How exactly does Pedro change? E: He changes his clothes and he gets tougher by the end of the movie. Boom never changes and if you compare them you will see that Boom starts a criminal and ends as a criminal. He never even changes his clothes. J: At first he wanted to be a movie star and by the end all he wants is to be with his friends. He is the first to say that they should all form a gang. The red car gang is what he says after they all go and beat up that guy (Cantu). E: He forgot why he came here in the first place. J: Because of the easy money. E: They said that to be a star you need a lot of money so he feels that he has made it. With his new suit he looks like a star. A: Why does Rodrigo decide to get into this? J: Because he has a sick daughter. He wants to have money so that he can afford to send her to the best hospitals and find a cure for her illness. SPANISH not translated. E: De que servía sabiduría si no hay dinero. Todo se define en eso en México. Puedes trabajar todo el día pero igual no consigues lo que quieres. Puede que haya muchos tratamientos pero si no tienes dinero no hay nada. A: ¿Entonces por eso se mete Rodrigo en eso, para poder salvarle la vida a su hija? 189 E: Sí. Como le dijo el otro… todo es negocio y el negocio da dinero. ¿Ya no hay honor… hombres honestos? J: Sí. Ya se acabó la honrades. 0:14:25 E: No, son palabras nadamás. Siempre han habido personas honradas. J: Sí. Siempre hay habido lo mismo. Hay gente que es honrada y hay gente que no. E: Ese es el equilibrio de la vida, eso no va a cambiar. Siempre va a ver gente mala y gente buena. 0:15:29 J: Pues de una ves que se meta bien. Si se va a arresgar por una libra o por dos de una ves todo. Cuando los agarren de todas maneras los van a joder igualmente. 0:18:48 E: Es bueno que en estas películas no les enseñaban como se hacía las drogas para que no agarraran más ideas. Ahora es explicitamente como lo fuman… como lo queman. En ese tiempo no se enseñaban ese tipo de cosas, simplemente uno se iba imaginando… no estaba tan explicito el sexo ni la manera de drogarse. Yo tomo en cuenta eso… que ahora muchas veces es la rebeldía y otra que ya les enseñan como se hacen. A: ¿En esta película han enseñado la droga? E: No tanto como ahora. Como enseñan como ponerla, hacer lineas. Aunque creo que el que quiere hacerlas las busca. Pero ahora ya ponen tantas ideas que esto va escalando. 0:20:14 Elena: Después de esta del carro rojo salió la de “Camelia la Tejana”. A: ¿De qué era esa? E: También, igual. Pero era de una mujer. La mujer era la que tenía el poder? J: Sí. Era la competencia de los otros. 0:21:34 E: Ahí cuando dicen “la grande” era la cocaina. No mensionan las palabras. 0:21:59 E: Si hubiera sido película de ahora lo hubiera habierto, le hubiera dado un dedazo y lo hubiera probado. Por eso ya no me interesa ver las películas que hacen ahora. Las de antes no son tan explisitas. A: Pero son populares. ¿Quienes piensas tu que las mira ahora? E: Las de antes, uno mismo las vuelve a ver nuevamente. Pero la gente las sigue mirando. Aunque a mi nunca me a gustado que glorifican a estas personas en estas películas. 0:26:55 190 A: ¿Porqué decidieron salir si ya sabían que los iban a matar? J: Ya sabían que no iban a poder escapar pero querían hacer un último intento. Ya estaban decido a todo. Sabían lo que iba a pasar. E: De alguna manera, eso del contrabando, alguien se beneficia. El que se beneficia es el mero mero, el que nunca mira uno. En realidad así es, se matan estos y aquen sigue ganando? A: ¿En la película, quién fue el que cambió más? J: El Boom nunca cambió… se quedó igual (drogadicto). El que más cambió fue Pedro… es el que miré que cambió más. 0:32:29 E: El de Rodrigo realmente fue una cosa muy triste porque de ser una persona tan honesta… terminó dando un giro tan fuerte de un momento a otro mentiendosé en lo malo. El Lino no estaba tan seguro de lo que quería al último… se dió cuenta de la vida que llevaba. Dijo, “Ya me dí cuenta que elegí mal camino pero estoy adentro.” A: ¿Entonces el que miraron que cambió más fue Pedro? ¿Cuales fueron los cambios? ¿Cuándo notaron que cambió más? J: De querer seguir un sueño a seguir el dinero fácil. El cambió que miré fue cuando empezó a juntarse con ellos… cuando se fueron de primero a vengarse lo que les hizo aquel hombre. De ahí en adelante que les dió el dinero, ya empezó a cambiar. Ya su pensamiento era otro… de ganar más dinero. A: ¿En qué otras formas miraron que cambió? ¿Visualmente miraron que cambió? E: Sí. Visualmente empezó a vistirse como penso que se vestía un artista (consiguiendo quizás un cuarto del sueño que tenía)… con dinero, bien vestido. Me hizo pensar que tarde o temprano si lucha uno consigue uno aunque un pedazito del sueño que uno perseguía. A: ¿Entonces el si lo consiguió un poco? E: Pues de alguna manera consiguió un pedazito del sueño que quería. Pero no llegó a su sueño. Por la manera que empezó a ganar el dinero. J: El soñaba muy grande… de llegar a Hollywood, de ser un artista. La perdición de el es que llegó con gente equivocada. E: No es que llegó con gente equivocada… es que se dejó llevar por la ignorancia y las ansias con la gente con quien llegó. Pero cada quien tiene la oportunidad de decir que 191 aquí no… esto no es lo mió. Simplemente lo dislumbró el dinero y un poco la ignorancia para decir que aquí lo consigo para seguir mi sueño. 0:36:00 E: Esta película me hizo pensar bien serio. ¿Recuerdas tus ilusiones por las que te veniste… era conseguir dinero nadamás para qué? J: Mis ilusiones eran de venir para aca (a los estados unidos) para comprarme unos pantalones Levi’s. 0:36:17 A: ¿En serio si pensaba eso? ¿Cambiar de ropa? ¿Qué significaba eso de la ropa? E: Simplemente esa era el sueño de el. Porque era la marca y aya era más cara y exportada. Era algo que ayá costaba mucho dinero. Para mi la ilusión era de venir porque aquí no se les compraba lapiz, libros y les daban hasta de comer en la escuela. Como vez, la ilusión de una persona puede ser tan grande o tan chica. Aunque mi gran sueño era tener y vivir en mi propia casa… la motivación de imigrar a este pais fue que no se necesitaba dinero para que mis hijos fueran a la escuela. El sueño puede ser algo tan tonto como de unos pantalones, de que le den libros en la escuela. Por eso el sueño de este muchacho de llegar a Hollywood me parecía que tenía que recorer tanto y escogió el camino equivocado. A: ¿Entonces tu cuando miras que compró su ropa fue una cosa muy grande para ti? J: Sí. Porque en México unos zapatos no los podía comprar… y compraba ropa usada o le regalaban. Por eso era mi sueño que cuando me viniera me iba a comprar unos Levi’s y una chamarra. 0:39:47 E: Yo también creo que en donde cambió mucho fue cuando le dieron el dinero en la meza y le dijeron que se comprara ropa. Como que el mismo pensó que ya empezó a lograr un poco de su sueño porque el quería ser algo en Hollywood y se supone que tenía que estar bien vestido. A: ¿Como son las películas de hoy? E: Para mi son más violentas, más vulgares. Mas antes aunque habia muchas peliculas de pistolas y mujeres sin escrupulos igual podiamos ir al cine y escojer una pelicula romantica. Pero ahora no creo que hacen peliculas romanticas, creo que ya todas son de matar. A: ¿Pero qué pasó, porqué piensas que empezaron a ser películas así? 192 J: Yo pienso que fue la misma gente que pide más y más… quieren ver más violencia y más sexo. En el tiempo atras, todo era más recatado… la gente no hablaba tanto así con la juventud. Yo me acuerdo que antes cuando iban a hablar de alguna cosa a los niños los corrían para afuera. Pero ahora en la televisión estan enseñando más cosas. Nadamas hay que prender la television y en las noticias hablan de que encuentran mas cuerpos sin cabezas cerca de la frontera, hasta puedes ver los cuerpos. En la television podras ver la realidad de Mexico y pore so es representada asi en las peliculas. E: Es cierto, por ejemplo nadamas mira esta pelicula y otras que hicieron en esos tiempos, aunque fueran gente mala siempre querian hacer cosas buenas pero hoy ya no miras eso, ahora ya nadamas ensenan a los narcos matandose por algo que ni se. A: ¿Las películas reflexionan los tiempos? E: Sí. Aunque yo también le hecho la culpa al consumismo. Entonces las películas están enseñando ahorita lo que la gente quiere ver. Si les pones a eliguir a personas dentro de esta película y una de ahora… supongo que va haber muy pocas que se pongan a ver esta. Muchos más quieren la nueva. 0:46:29 A: ¿Entonces hay diferencia de generación? J: Sí. Depende de gustos por generaciones. Los más jovenes quieren mirar cosas más fuertes. 193 Interview with “Luz”: In Spanish A: ¿Dónde mirabas estas películas? Luz: En México y aquí en Madera también. A: ¿Con quién ibas a mirar las películas? Luz: Con Carolina. A: ¿No iban con otras personas? Luz: No, casí nadamás Carolina y yo. A: ¿Porqué se interesaban en las películas? Luz: Nos gustaba ver películas… era la diversión que teníamos. A: ¿Iban cada semana? Luz: Casí cada semana íbamos. A: ¿Qué es lo que te gustaba de las películas? Luz: Nos divertíamos con los actores y con los corridos, las canciones que habían. A: ¿Entonces las canciones y los artistas las atraía? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Los artistas llegaban también al cine? Luz: Sí, los presentaban también. A: ¿Cómo sabían que iban a ir artistas? Luz: Los anunciaban por el radio… anunciaban por la televisión o hay veces cuando ibamos al cine tenían cartelones anunciando que iban a estar. A: ¿Los posters o cartelones enseñaban algo de la película, de lo que se trataba? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Los cartelones llamaban tu interes? ¿Cómo se miraban? 194 Luz: Sí. Se miraba de lo que se iba tratar y nos gustaba. A: ¿En qué año iban al cine? Luz: En el ’89? A: ¿Todavía iban el el ’89? Luz: Sí… no en el ’78 y ’79… era cuando íbamos. A: ¿Como en el ’85 pararon? Luz: Sí, ya no íbamos. A: ¿Porqué no iban ya? ¿Porque ya no había cines? Luz: Cerraron los cines donde las ponían y ya no presentaban películas de esas… se acabó eso. A: ¿La música de las películas era reconocida? Luz: Sí, muchas canciones que escuchabamos eran de las películas. A: Se a hablado mucho de como en las películas representaban a las mujeres como víctimas o como un objetos… ¿Cómo mirabas que trataban a las mujeres en las películas? Luz: A mi no se me hacía que las trataban mal. Adán: ¿Había diferente clases de películas, verdad? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Piensas que la mujer tenía poder o elegía hacer lo que quería? Luz: No, siempre dependía de alguien. Casí todo el tiempo el hombre era el que tenía el poder. A: ¿Había películas en donde la mujer era fuerte y donde era la que mandaba? Luz: No, la única yo creo era la de “Camelia”. A: ¿Te acuerdas de “Lola La Trailera”? 195 Luz: “Lola La Trailera” también. A: ¿Cómo era ella, de qué se trataba? Luz: No me acuerdo mucho de eso pero si me acuerdo que miré esa película. Ella era trailera… no me acuerdo mucho. A: ¿Te acuerdas como se vestía? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Cómo se vestía? Luz: Con pantalones, botas… así como hombre. A: ¿Ella era la “jodona”? Luz: Era como la “jefa”… era la de la película. A: ¿Entonces si había personajes de mujeres que eran fuertes? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Con qué te indentificabas, con las historias de las mujeres o de los hombres porque eran experiencias que tu mirabas? Luz: No te se decir. A: ¿Entonces dejaron de ir al cine porque los cerraron? Luz: Sí, porque ya no había… quien sabe porque los cerraron… ya no hicieron películas. A: ¿De cuales actores te acuerdas que mirabas en las películas? Luz: De Los Hermanos Almada, Valentín Trujillo, Pedro Infante Jr… esos era los que más miraba… Rogelio Guerra. A: ¿Y de las mujeres? Luz: Ana Luisa Pelufo, Flor Sylvestre… varias, no me acuerdo mucho… sólo cuando veo las películas. A: ¿Y los cantantes? 196 Luz: ¿De los cantantes de antes? Vicente Fernández y Antonio Aguilar. A: ¿Salían en las películas? Luz: Sí, salían en las películas también. A: ¿En la mayoría de las películas, había mucho gente en el cine? Luz: Sí, sí había bastante gente. A: ¿Cuándo ibas al teatro México, te acuerdas que había alguien arriba que les ayuda? Luz: Sí, el notario público… como de la inmigración. A: ¿Qué es lo qué hacían ahí? Luz: Yo nunca llegué a ir ahí (con el). A: ¿Cómo era, pagaba la gente y luego iba para arriba? Luz: Pues entrabas a ver la película y ibas para ayá… pero yo nunca llegué a ir pero si sabía de eso. A: ¿Fuiste al cine aquí en Madera? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Mirabas películas de acción o de drama? Luz: De acción, más de acción. A: ¿Eran más de acción? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Pero también había películas de cruzando? Luz: Sí, sí había bien muchas. A: ¿De como sufría la gente? Luz: Sí. A: ¿De qué otros temas te acuerdas, de narcotráfico y de karate? 197 Luz: De karate, sí. A: ¿Cuales mirabas de karate? Luz: Las de kungfu… no me acuerdo pero fueron muchas de esas. A: ¿De Bruce Lee? Luz: De Bruce Lee, sí. A: ¿Cuando iban a ver las películas, platicaban sobre las películas después? Luz: Sí, después nos quedabamos platicando de lo que había pasado… pensando en la película. A: ¿Piensas que las películas estaban basadas en la realidad? Luz: Yo pienso que sí eran cosas que pasaban… eran como historias, cosas que ya le habían pasado a alguien. Yo pienso que eso si era. A: ¿Y los corridos también? Luz: Los corridos también los componían para alguien. Como ahorita compen muchos corridos. A: Si has escuchado el corrido de La banda del carro rojo? Luz: Si, si me acuerdo de esa cancion, la pasaban mucho en la radio. A: Y la pelicula? Tambien te acuerdas de la pelicula? Luz: La verdad es que me acuerdo un poco nadamas. Unos detalles. A: Como que es lo que recuerdas? Luz: Pues que cruzaban unos para los estados unidos y se metieron en contrabandando drogas porque necesitaban dinero y no habia trabajos buenos. A: Piensas que en estas peliculas demonstraban la realidad de cuando la gente cruza la frontera? Luz: Si, bueno hay veces si exageran un poco de cuando cruzan pero esas peliculas demonstraban lo dificil y peligroso que era de llegar para aca sin papeles. 198 A: Te acuerdas de algunas razones por las que se metieron a las drogas? Luz: Creo que por muchas razones, no? A: Pero cual es una de las razones o unos de los personajes de el que recuerdas? Luz: No estoy muy segura, pero creo que habia uno que se metio porque necesitaba dinero porque tenian una nina enferma. Si, me acuerdo que se llamaba Quintana, creo, estaba bien desesperado por no tener dinero y lo necesitaba para curar a la nina. A: Algo mas que recuerdes de La banda del carro rojo? Luz: Pues que se meten en las drogas como te dije por la necesidad de dinero. Como el personaje de Pedro, no creo que era alguien malo, era bueno con talento como un muchacho que conocia que al fin se da cuenta que lo que hacia estaba muy mal y fue a prision. A: ¿Qué es la diferencia de las películas de ahora a las de antes, de los ‘70s y ‘80s? Luz: Ahora ya es como más falso todo… más fantasía y antes era como más real todo. A: ¿El enfoque antes, lo que se mostraba más, era cosas más del tiempo (de lo que estaba pasando)? Luz: Sí, es como todo, antes era de los ’60s, ‘70s, y ahora ya va cambiando todo. A: ¿Entonces reflexionan los tiempos en las películas? Luz: Sí. A: ¿Ahorita qué clase de películas están saliendo? Luz: Yo ahorita la verdad no miro casí películas. A: ¿Pero de las que escuchas? ¿De qué son los temas? Luz: Películas hay puras de terror… yo casí no veo películas. 199 Interview with “Manuel” and “Ramiro”: In Spanish A: ¿Miraste las películas de Mario Almada? Manuel: Las e mirado… pero nadamás por mirarlas, no tanto por analizarlas… nomás por estar mirando algo. A: ¿Nadamás por entretenimiento? Manuel: Sí, nadamás para entretenerse. A: ¿De qué son las películas? Manuel: La mayoría son de puro balazo nadamás… puras venganzas, del narcotráfico y todo eso. A: ¿Piensas que las películas están basadas en la realidad? Manuel: Yo creo que sí. A: ¿Porqué te llaman la atención? ¿Porqué miras estas películas? Manuel: Nadamás para desenfadarme… como no tengo que hacer, miro lo que sea. A: ¿Salen en la televisión o las rentas? Manuel: Salen en la tele. En el canal 22 es donde pasan todas esas películas. A: ¿Las mirabas cuando estabas en México o las empezaste a mirar aquí (en los estados unidos)? Manuel: Las miraba muy poco en México. A: ¿En México en dónde las mirabas? Manuel: En la casa también. A: ¿Entonces nunca fuiste a un cine a mirar estas películas? Manuel: No. A: ¿Todos las miran en tu casa? 200 Manuel: La mayoría de gente las mira en su casa, sí. A: ¿Porqué mirabas estas películas y no las de “Hollywood”? Manuel: Pues como te digo, hay veces uno no encuentra que mirar y le deja en el primer canal en el que encuentra algo. A: ¿Has mirado muchas películas de Mario y Fernando Almada? Manuel: Sí, e mirado varias… como te digo, nadamás por estar mirando. A: ¿Y todas se tratan de lo mismo, como dices tu? Manuel: Sí, se tratan de lo mismo. A: ¿Del mismo tema? Manuel: Sí. A: ¿Qué significaba la música en estas películas? Manuel: Nadamás que les cantan los corridos a todos los narcotraficantes… a todos los que andaban en la droga. A: ¿Qué es un “corrido”? Manuel: Un corrido se basa en una persona famosa que ya está metida en la droga o en cualquier otra cosa… le hacen su canción de lo que el a hecho en toda su vida. A: ¿Los corridos nadamás son de drogas? Manuel: De drogas, de matanzas. A: ¿Son para la gente que ya es famosa? Manuel: Sí. ¿Conoces a Los Hermanos Carrillos? ¿El Señor de los Cielos? A: No. Manuel. Era un Colombiano famoso… según andaba moviendo droga para todos lados… le hicieron su corrido. A muchas personas de este tipo les han hecho sus corridos. Los Originales de San Juan (de Fresno) hacen corridos a muchas personas. A: ¿Los corridos son basados en la vida real? 201 Manuel: Sí, en lo que pasa. A: ¿Como tratan el tema de estas personas en los corridos… los glorifican o los condenan? Manuel: De como es la persona. A: ¿Pero glorifican lo que han hecho los narcotraficantes? Ramiro: Unos sí y otros les cantan a sus enemigos, como Valentín Elizalde. Manuel: Sí, como Valentín Elizalde… por eso dicen que lo mataron. Ramiro: “El Corrido A Mis Enemigos” se llamaba la canción. A: ¿De qué era la canción? Ramiro: De que Valentín es grande y superior… de que el no le teme a nada… que sus enemigos nadamás hablan mal pero no toman acción. Después de ese corrido lo mataron. Manuel: Tocó ese corrido una vez en un concierto y uno de los mismos narcos le digo que no lo volviera a tocar. A la última canción el la volvió cantar y por eso lo mataron. A: ¿En dónde lo mataron? R: En Sinaloa. A: ¿Se supo quién lo mató? Manuel: No, pero todos saben que es el narcotráfico. A: ¿Entonces los corridos si dicen la realidad? Manuel: Sí, lo que está pasando. A: ¿Son como las noticias? Manuel: Sí, como si fueran… te están diciendo todo lo que han hecho. A: ¿Hay películas que usan mucho los corridos… son realidad las películas? Manuel: Son realidad unas o las graban más o menos de lo que está pasando. 202 A: ¿Entonces les ponen de más a las películas? Manuel: Yo creo que sí. A: ¿Pero están basadas en la realidad? Manuel: Sí, en algo que estaba pasando. A: ¿De qué otros temas se tratan las películas de ese tiempo (de Los Almadas)? Manuel: Casí siempre se tratan de eso… no tienen historias diferentes, siempre son las mismas historias de venganza… que matan la familia de alguien. Ramiro: Si no son de amores, que la mujer engaña al hombre con su mejor amigo y después se vuelven enemigos… y empieza la venganza. A: ¿Todavía hay películas que se tratan de cruzar de México para los Estados Unidos? Manuel: No e mirado mucho de eso. A: ¿La mayoría de películas que has mirado son de acción, de matanzas? Manuel: Sí, pura acción y narcotráfico. A: ¿Cómo se trata a la mujer en esas películas? ¿Qué significado tienen? Ramiro: La verdad, no mucho. El hombre es siempre superior a la mujer en esas películas… la tiene como el quiere. Manuel: Hace lo que el quiere y todo. Ramiro: Por eso hay veces ella lo engaña con el mejor amigo. A: ¿Piensan que así es en realidad… qué así es la gente? Manuel: Para los narcos sí… traen a una y a otra y las tratan como si fueran cualquier cosa. A: ¿Cómo tratan a los narcos en las películas? ¿Como que son buenos o malos? Manuel: Que son respetados. Todos les tienen respeto porque saben quien son. A: ¿Cuando uno los mira, los mira como buenas personas que tratan de ser bien? 203 Manuel: Uno siempre los quiere hacer ver como que son malos pero son personas como uno nomás que están metidos en otros negocios. A: ¿Cómo son personas como uno? Manuel: Es un persona normal que está metido en negocios que uno no. A: ¿Tienen los mismos problemas que tienen todos? Manuel: Sí, nadamás que ellos tienen más poder en todo. A: ¿Cómo se mira a la policía en estas películas? Ramiro: Unas veces corruptos también. Manuel: Casí siempre los miras corruptos. Los mismos narcos los compran para poder mover todas sus cosas (las drogas). A: ¿Entonces la policía es igual? Manuel: Creo que muchos tienen que ser derechos, pero a otros los compran los narcos para pasar todas sus cosas. A: ¿Las películas son basadas sólo en México o también en Los Estados Unidos? Manuel: Hay unas que están hechas aquí y otras ayá. A: ¿Los temas son iguales? Manuel: Vienen siendo lo mismo, nadamás que pasan la droga para el otro pais… de Estados Unidos a México o de México para Estados Unidos. A: ¿Has mirado películas que se tratan de “la migra” o de la gente cuando cruza? Manuel: No, no e mirado. A: ¿Cuánto tiempo tienes mirando estas películas? Manuel: Ya tengo mucho que no e mirado estas películas. A: ¿Quién miraba estas películas en tu casa, toda tu familia? Manuel: No, nadamás mi papá. 204 A: ¿No es algo familiar? Manuel: No, nadamás para los que les gustan este tipo de películas. A: ¿Mirabas películas de “Hollywood”… en español o en ingles? Manuel: Sí, ayá las pasan en ingles pero les ponen los subtitulos en español. A: ¿Los Tigeres Del Norte son populares? Manuel: Sí, son populares pero no se mucho de eso… casí no escucho música de ellos, una o otra nadamás. Pero si son populares. A: ¿Cómo se visten en las películas? Manuel: Lo que es normal… los narcos con sus sombreros y sus botas… y su pistola. A: ¿Qué carros usan? Manuel: Usan carros nuevos… lo más reciente, ya no usan carros viejitos, como la Dodge Ram. Con sus celulares. A: ¿Han visto películas donde se usa mucho el celular? Manuel: No, Méxicanas no. Casí siempre en esas películas los usan para hablarse que ya va la mercancia a un lado. A: ¿Qué es la diferencia de las películas nuevas a las de antes? Manuel: Pues no son igual como las de antes… estan mal actuadas y otras estan bien. A: ¿Entonces miras la diferencia en como las filman? Manuel: Sí. Adán: ¿Entonces hay diferencia en que unas historias son más simples? Manuel: Sí, aunque unas enseñan más como está todo ahorita en México, la corrupción, como la película “Todo El Poder”. Ramiro: Hay una que se llama “Matando Cavos” que se trata de secuestros y pura vida Méxicana. A: ¿Comparando esas películas a estas no crees que enseñan lo que está pasando? 205 Manuel: Sí, porque ahí también compran a los policías. Ramiro: Ellos mismos también estan metidos en eso…también tienen sus negocios. A: ¿Entonces en las películas son las mismas historias, el tema es igual? ¿La corrupción? Manuel: Sí, vienen siendo lo mismo. A: ¿Porqué miraraste estas películas? Ramiro: Porque, pienso que eran como Van Dam, como Rambo… eran los “chingones”, por eso los mirabamos. A: ¿Porque eran las películas de acción… por eso las miraban? Ramiro: Sí, exactamente. Manuel: Porque cuando iban a pelear sabías que ellos iban a ganar. A: ¿Pero tu crees que las películas están basadas en la realidad? Ramiro: Yo pienso que es pura ficción, no es nada realidad. A: ¿De qué eran los temas que se trataban? Ramiro: Por ejemplo esta, “Lola La Trailera”, se trataba de que la mujer era trailera y que andaban peleando con unos narcos. La de “Quintero” se trata de lo mismo, de los narcos… matan a su papá y el hace venganza para quedarse con el poder. A: ¿Miraron la película “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Manuel: Si pero hace mucho tiempo, cuando estaba chico en los 70s. A: Que te acuerdas de la pelicula? Manuel: Sabes que recuerdo que mi papa cuando regreso de los estados unidos nos dijo le paso como a Pedro de la pelicula. A: Como? Manuel: Nos decia que su experiencia cruzando de illegal a los estados unidos fue igual que en la pelicula, aunque fue mas intensa y peligrosa. 206 A: Y tu tambien te acuerdas de que era la pelicula? Ramiro: Sí, era de contrabando. A: ¿Piensas que de esé tema (contrabando) se trataba mucho en ese tiempo? Ramiro: Pueda que sí… para que entendieran que andar en el narcotráfico es malo. A: ¿En las películas, hacían que los narcotraficantes aparecieran buenos o malos? Ramiro: En realidad lo que mirabamos era como… como que eran idolos de uno porque uno de ellos iba a terminar con todos los narcos, que era “chingon”… el ganaba siempre. Hacían ver “chingones” a los narcos. A: ¿La gente los miraba como heroes? Ramiro: ¿A los narcos? Hay veces que si los ven como heroes y hay veces que no porque son muy malos. A: ¿Enseñaban la corrupción de México, de los policías? Ramiro: Sí, todo eso es lo que se miraba. A: ¿Te acuerdas mirar películas de la experencia de cruzar a los estados unidos? Ramiro: Miré una como Roberto “Flaco” Guzmán… se trataba de las matazones que hacen con los que vienen cruzando. Miré varias películas de eso. A: ¿Miraste esas películas ántes de haber cruzado para acá? Ramiro: Sí. A: ¿Cómo crees que trataban el tema de cruzar, en una forma real? Ramiro: Se escuchaban historias de que sí mataban a gente así… yo pienso que si exsiste todo eso, que si exsistía… en algo se basaban. A: ¿Cómo presentaban a “la migra” en las películas? Ramiro: Siempre los enseñaban como unos racistas… y otros ayudaban. Los que eran más malos eran los “polleros”. A: ¿Porqué son tan populares estas películas? 207 Ramiro: Populares populares no son… no sé, yo pienso que por las pistolas. Manuel: Son populares para unas personas pero a otras no les gustan tanto. Ramiro: Antes sí eran más populares porque no había tanta película americana con tanta publicidad… era un nivel que se balanciaba más o menos… ahorita ya es más para acá que para ayá. A: ¿Cómo más para acá? Ramiro: Ahorita se ven más las películas americanas que esas… antes no había tantas películas buenas americanas y por eso alomejor mirabamos esas. Por ejemplo, ahorita el nuevo cine Méxicano muchos preferimos ver esas que las de acá. A: ¿En dónde miraste originalmente esas películas? Ramiro: En el cine de Tinguindín. A: ¿En qué año ibas al cine? Ramiro: Hace como unos 20 años. A: ¿Iban cada semana al cine? Ramiro: Sí, cada semana. En el cine no eran estrenos, eran películas que ya habían salido. Posiblemente ibamos porque muchos no teníamos televisión. A: ¿No tenían televisión, no era tan popular? Ramiro: Exactamente. No teníamos cable nosotros. Quizás los que tenían no iban pero nosotros no teníamos y por eso ibamos… era la atración de cada fin de semana, de ir a las películas. A: La mayoría de las películas están basadas en corridos. ¿Porqué piensas que los corridos son tan populares? Ramiro: Los corridos… no sé. Son hechos que pasaban supuestamente… se hacían populares por la promoción que les hacen. A: ¿Cuando iban al cine, iban familias, hombres, mujeres? Ramiro: Sí iban mujeres pero la mayoría en pareja (con sus novios). Las familias iban como cuando pasaban a La India María, a Cantinflas, películas cómicas. 208 A: ¿En ese cine todavía pasan estas películas? Ramiro: En realidad ya el cine en Tinguindín ya ceró… hace como unos 15 años. Ahorita ya la hicieron una disco. A: ¿Entonces ya no hay cine? Ramiro: En Tinguindín ya no. A: ¿Si la gente quiere mirar películas donde las mira? Manuel: A otro cine cerca de ahí. Ramiro: Cuando es nueva se van a otro cine cerca de Tinguindín. Pero la mayoría para ver películas se esperan a ver “piratas”… llegan ahí como si fueran estrenos. Se venden muchas películas “piratas”. A: ¿Entonces la mayoría de la gente las compra o las renta? Ramiro: Sí, la mayoría de la gente las compra… valen 10 pesos, un dólar. Ya no es tanto de ir al cine… al menos cuando sale un estreno que la quieren ver en una pantalla grande. La mayoría las ven en dvd, en la computadora si tienen. 209 Interview with “Mauricio”: in Spanish A: ¿Conoces las películas en donde salen los actores Mario Almada, Fernando Almada, Pedro Infante Jr., Jorge Rivero o Andrés García? Mauricio: Sí, también Sergio Goyri… Miguel Angel Rodríguez. A: ¿Entonces has mirado esas películas? ¿En dónde miraste esas películas? Mauricio: Sí. En Concord. A: ¿En el cine? Mauricio: No, las rentaba. A: ¿Ibas al cine antes? Mauricio: En México nadamás, aquí nunca me a tocado ido al cine. A: ¿Como cuando llegaste aquí, a los estados unidos? Mauricio: En el ’89. A: ¿En dónde vivías en México? Mauricio: En Jalisco. A: ¿En una ciudad grande o en un rancho? Mauricio: No es grande ni tampoco chico, está más o menos. A: ¿En Jalisco, en donde vivías, había cines? ¿Qué películas enseñaban cuando ibas tu? Mauricio: Ahí… de las de antes y de las de Gerardo Reyes. Ya hace bastante años de eso… salían de las más viejitas… de Los Almada daban ahí. A: ¿De qué temas se trataban la películas que mirabas? Mauricio: Como las de Los Almada se trataban de pura violencia… las de Gerardo Reyes de puro drama o algo así. A: ¿Muchas son de pura mafia, de contrabando? Mauricio: Sí, como las de Los Almada. 210 A: ¿Muchas de estas son basadas en corridos? Maurico: Sí. A: ¿Has escuchado la música antes de ver la película? Mauricio: Pues… los que sacaban películas basadas en los corridos eran como Antonio Aguilar o Vicente Fernández. A: ¿”La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Maurico: Sí, como te digo, casí la mayoría fueron ellos… como Antonio Aguilar sacó muchas películas basadas en corridos. A: ¿Porqué te gustaba ir al cine en ese tiempo? Mauricio: Porque era como un descanzo después de trabajar. El fin de semana en México es diferente que aquí… entre la semana trabajas y el fin de semana te vas a divertirte… al cine o a otro lado. A: ¿Tu ibas al cine cada fin de semana? Mauricio: Sí. A: ¿Ibas con amigos, novia o con familia? Mauricio: Con familia. A: ¿Entonces las películas eran familiares? Mauricio: Sí, las podían ver toda la familia. A: ¿Pero si había películas que no son familiares? Mauricio: Sí. A: ¿Entonces esas películas no las miraba la gente? Mauricio: No es que no las miraba la gente, nadamás no te dejaban entrar con un niño. A: ¿Porqué dejaste de ir al cine? 211 Mauricio: Porque me vine para acá (a los estados unidos) y también cuando llegas acá no hay muchos lugares que pasan cine de ayá, y como no sabes el idioma cuando vienes de ayá… todo eso se pone en medio y da la opción de no ir al cine A: ¿Qué opciones tienes si no vas al cine? Mauricio: Pues ahorita ya tengo rato que no voy a mirarlas. A: ¿En dónde miras las películas entonces? Mauricio: En video, las rentabamos… pero al cine ya no. A: ¿Notataste un cambio en el cine Mexicano, con las películas Mexicanas… de los ‘70s/’80s a las de ahorita? Mauricio: Yo pienso que es un cambio muy grande el de antes al de ahorita porque ahorita ya es puro narcotráfico lo que sacan. Ya no hay peliculas de un corrido o de un caballo, como las de Pedro Infante… el se llevava enamorado, y hoy es pura violencia de lo que se trata. Yo pienso que es grande el cambio de antes a ahorita. A: ¿Entonces por eso ya no te interesa el cine Mexicano? ¿Todavía te interesa? Mauricio: No es que no me interesa o que me interese porque hay veces aquí no tengo ni tiempo de ver algo… lo único veo es lo que sale en la televisión. A: ¿Los corridos son basados en la realidad? Mauricio: Yo pienso que sí, como los corridos que cantaba Antonio Aguilar, los de caballos son cosas que si exsistieron porque eso era de carrera de caballos. Ahorita tanta película que sacan de mafiosos… también pueda que si exsista pero ya no es tan real como lo de antes. A: ¿Tu piensas que exageran? Mauricio: Sí, ya ahorita exageran más de lo que es realidad. A: ¿Entonces dices tu que los corridos si tienen algo de realidad pero le exageran… no son como antes? Mauricio: Sí pero ya le ponen mucho de más… y pues a veces nos la creemos. A: ¿Piensas que las películas que mirabas antes eran basadas en la realidad? ¿Cómo han cambiado? 212 Mauricio: Pienso que sí tenían algo de realidad antes… como Pedro Infante, en todas las películas llevavá serenata y ahora en las películas ya no sale eso. A: ¿Tu cresiste en la ciudad o en un rancho? Mauricio: En un pueblito chiquito. A: ¿En un pueblito chiquito cerca de la cuidad? ¿De qué parte eres? Maurico: Sí. Se llama San Isidro (Jalisco). A: ¿Llegaste a mirar películas que trataban de cruzar la frontera? Mauricio: De esas no e mirado ninguna. A: ¿La música de las películas era muy reconocida? Mauricio: Era música reconocida por los mismos intrepretes de las películas… ellos mismos eran los que las cantaban. Como Los Tigeres Del Norte, ellos mismos eran los que las cataban así que ya eran reconocidas… también como todas las películas que hacía Gerardo Reyes, igual que Pedro Infante. A: ¿Te acuerdas de la película “Maldita Miseria”? Mauricio: No recuerdo. A: ¿Y lo “Negro Del Negro”? Maurico: Sí, no me acuerdo mucho. A: ¿Quién era el negro? Mauricio: No sé, no me acuerdo muy bien… pero si me acuerdo que la llegué a mirar. A: ¿Te acuerdas de “…Quintero”? Maurico: Sí, ya la ví… pero ya en esa película es pura mafia lo que se mueve, no es como las de antes. A: ¿Entonces las de antes tu las mirabas mejor? Mauricio: Como te digo, en estas ya es pura violencia lo que exsiste y en las de antes no. A: ¿Porqué piensas que cambiaron, cambiaron los tiempos? 213 Mauricio: Yo creo que las películas cambiaron por lo que se está viviendo en México… no exsiste otra cosa, pura mafia… todas esas estan basadas en eso. Como el personaje de Pepe Aguilar en “…Quintero” es de los más fregones de la mafia en México. A: ¿Reflexiona la realidad de lo que está pasando en México? Mauricio: Sí, por eso es lo que está. A: ¿Enseñan muchas pistolas? ¿Qué clase usan? Mauricio: Sí, mucha violencia. Ahorita se usa mucho los “cuernos de chiva”… son los mismos que usa la mafia en la vida real. Son los mismos que usan en las películas también. A: ¿Y antes? Mauricio: Antes… en una película, ¿Cuándo mirabas que sacaban algo? Era raro cuando sacaban un arma. Si sacaban era pura pistolita y ahora ya no… ya es más grande la violencia. A: ¿O peleaban? Mauricio: Sí, a puño limpio. A: ¿Cómo representan la droga las películas de ahora en comparación de las películas de antes? Mauricio: Yo pienso que antes, lo que pasaba tal vez, no había tanta o tal vez mucha gente tenía mucha precaución en andar haciendo ese movimiente adelante de la gente. Ahora, ya ves, adelante de quien sea hacen esos movimientos. Ahorita ya es de chiquillos… ya saben lo que es una cosa y otra, la gente. Antes era raro la gente que sabías tu que movía algo así y cuando lo hacían lo hacían con mucha precaución. A: ¿No era tan obvio? Mauricio: Tal vez por eso yo creo que la gente no estaba tan metida en cosas de esas. Ahorita ya toda la películas que salen nuevas es puro de eso lo que te enseñan… quizás no es real pero de todas maneras de puro de eso te habla… es lo que enseñan, cosas de droga. Antes en las películas no te enseñaban una cosa así. A: ¿No lo enseñaban? Mauricio: Nunca llegué yo a ver una cosa así en una película de antes. 214 A: ¿Nomás hablaban sobre la droga pero nunca la enseñaban? Mauricio: Sí, nomás lo hablaban y nunca la enseñaban. A: ¿Cómo representan al criminal o el que hacía cosas malas en las películas de antes? ¿Enseñaban las razones por cuales las hacían? Mauricio: Ya no recuerdo… como sucedía al última. Un castigo recibía el malo… si era el malo tenía que tener un castigo. A: ¿Cuándo miraste la película, “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Mauricio: Como en los ’90s, ’92… no la miré cuando salió. A: ¿Porqué la miraste, la rentaste? Mauricio: Sí, la rentamos. A: ¿Porqué la rentaste? Mauricio: Por la música que escucha uno y hay veces quieres verlos (a los artistas) si eres fanático de ellos. A: ¿Cuando ibas al cine, ibas en grupo, con amigos? Mauricio: Sí, hay veces con amigos. A: ¿Ustedes platicaban sobre la película cuando se terminaba? Mauricio: No, nadamás ibamos a mirarla… a divertirnos un rato. A: ¿Nunca las analisabas? Mauricio: No. A: ¿Cómo es Pedro, qué son los pensamientos de el? (Mirando la película “La Banda…”) Mauricio: Sus pensamientos de el son… sus pensamientos no son de quedarse a trabajar con el…lo que quiere es sacar más dinero. A: ¿Entonces el lo que piensa es que es fácil aquí, verdad? 215 Mauricio: Sí, según el. A: ¿Qué le dice Rodrigo? Mauricio: Que está equivocado. A: ¿Tu piensas que Rodrigo ya tiene más tiempo aquí en los estados unidos? Mauricio: Pues sí, a lo que se ve sí. A: ¿El le dice que tiene mucho? Mauricio: Sí, el le está diciendo que el ya tiene tiempo aquí… pero no a progresado. A: Ahí están los cuatro del carro rojo… los dos hermanos, Rodrigo y Lino, y Pedro y Boom… son los que van a ser la banda del carro rojo. ¿Con cual de los cuatro de indentificas más? ¿Te has sentido como uno de ellos antes? Mauricio: ¿De lo necesitado? No, no, todavía no. A: ¿Cuándo llegaste aquí, tu ya sabías lo que ibas a hacer? Mauricio: Cuando yo llegué aquí, en ese entonces, no estaba como ahorita… yo ya casí llegué con el trabajo en la puerta. No me a tocado ese sufrimiento (de estar necesitado). A: ¿Qué dice? (En la película.) Mauricio: La mercancía. Es lo que te digo, antes no hablaban claramente como lo hacen ahorita. Si fuera una película de ahorita le hubieran dicho “en donde viene la droga” o algo así. Mauricio: ¿En dónde has mirado que se las enseñen (la droga)? Todo estaba más seguro antes. Mauricio: Ahí según ellos son los guardaespaldas y ¿En dónde miras que traen armas como en las películas de ahorita? A: ¿Pero según traen algo? Mauricio: Sí, sí traen, pero como puede ser que traen o no… ellos nomás hacen las señas de que traen… no enseñan nada. Sin embargo una película de ahorita es lo primero que se ve. 216 A: Tampoco nunca miramos “el jefe”. ¿Porqué crees que nunca miramos la cara del jefe? Mauricio: Porque había más precaución antes… no estaba tan exagerado eso a como está ahorita. Mauricio: Eso de la droga todo el tiempo a exsistido. A: ¿Entonces qué a cambiado? ¿Porqué las películas antes no enseñaban y ahora si? Mauricio: Eso si no te sabría decir porque será el cambio. A: ¿Piensas que la gente quiere mirar más? Mauricio: Tal vez sí, pueda que sea que sí. A: Que mas diferencias miras en las peliculas de antes a las de ahora? Mauricio: Bueno, antes habia muchas peliculas rojas, como en los 70s y 80s, la diferencia es que en esas peliculas estabamos bien contentos de ver muchas piernas y unos pechos una o dos veces, pero en las nuevas de ahora ya ensenan todo. A: ¿Porqué piensas tu que Pedro se metió en la banda? Mauricio: Por necesidad. A: ¿Y Rodrigo? Mauricio: Por la venganza. A: ¿Y Boom? Mauricio: Porque es compañero de este, de Quintana. A: ¿Qué es la diferencia? Mauricio: Que ahí traen pura arma corta y los policías traen arma larga. A: ¿Y hay diferencia en las películas de ahora? Mauricio: Sí, hay mucha diferencia. A: ¿En las películas de ahora qué es lo que traen? 217 Mauricio: Todo armamento es mucho mejor el de ahorita que el de antes. A: ¿Porqué no trataron de escapar del carro? Mauricio: Porque ya estaban perdidos, no tenían otra opción… ya los habían descubierto. A: ¿Prefirieron la muerte? Mauricio: Sí. A: ¿Qué cambios miraste tu en Pedro? Mauricio: De que no llegó a realizar el sueño que llevaba… el que llevaba en la mente. Iba con la intención de llegar a Hollywood pero nunca llegó. El cambió que pasó fue que se le atravesó el trabajo ese (las drogas)… de querersé ayudar el mismo es por eso que entró el a eso, para sacar dinero. A: ¿Miraste que eran honestos y cambiaron? Mauricio: Sí, eran honestos pero la necesidad los llevó ahí a todos. A: ¿Qué necesidad tenían, cada uno? ¿Cuales era la necesidad de Pedro? Mauricio: La necesidad de Pedro era de agarrar dinero para llegar a su sueño. A: ¿Y la necesidad de Rodrigo? Mauricio: La niña. A: ¿Y de Lino? Mauricio: El era el grande… el ya estaba el grupo, en eso… ese era su trabajo. A: ¿Y de Boom? Mauricio: El vicio. A: ¿Piensas que en esta película todavía se trataba de contar una historia y ahora se trata más de enseñar violencia? Mauricio: Pues sí. Como en la película le dijo el que nomás saliendo de este trabajo (la droga) que buscara otro trabajo… el quería enderesarlo por el camino bueno para que no anduviera en eso. El trataba de ayudarlo. 218 A: ¿De dar un consejo? Mauricio: Sí, de dar un consejo. Ahorita es raro la persona que te lo da así. Al contrario, en de vez de dartelo te quieren meter más en cosas de esas. A: ¿Entonces las películas de ahora en de vez de darte un consejo bueno te dicen lo opuesto? Mauricio: Sí. (Meterse en esto) te conviene mejor. A: Despues de haber mirado la pelicula que piensas de los personajes? Mauricio: Pues es como que conocia a cada uno de ellos, como que fueran primos o gente de mi barrio. 219 Interview with “Francisco”: in Spanish A: ¿Te acuerdas de la película “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? ¿Cuándo fue la primera vez que la miraste? Francisco: Si la hicieron en el ’76… yo creo que la miré cuando salió en los cines… como en el ’77. A: ¿La miraste en el cine? Francisco: Sí, en el cine ayá en México. A: ¿Porqué te interesó la película… porqué la miraste en ese tiempo? Francisco: Pues en ese tiempo porque… primero porque era una película de Los Tigeres Del Norte y el corrido que habían sacado se hizo muy famoso. Como la canción dice del “carro rojo” se me hizo interesante la película. A: ¿Entonces habías escuchado el corrido antes de que miraras la película? Francisco: Sí, antes de mirar la película. A: ¿Entonces la canción ya era conocida? Francisco: Sí, la canción ya era bien conocido. A: ¿De qué se trata el corrido? Francisco: De los hermanos… de Lino y Rodrigo que necesitan dinero los dos… A: ¿Porqué necesita dinero Lino? Francisco: Lino porque debe mucho por el juego y Rodrigo porque quería ayudar a su hija… extenderle la vida y los demas porque nadamás querían dinero. El Boom por la droga… estaba visioso y el otro porque quería ser famoso… quería el sueño americano el Pedro. A: ¿Crees que los cuatro personajes principales en la película son basados en la realidad? Franciso: Es historia real… es historia real lo que pasó ahí. A: ¿Tu piensas que así le a pasado a otra gente? Francisco: Sí, sí le a pasado así a otra gente. 220 A: ¿Cuál personaje crees tu que es más parecido a ti? Franciso: Yo creo que de los que salieron ahí… como el que cruzó el rió es con el que me puedo indentificar más porque pasé yo por eso. A: ¿Cómo pasaste? Francisco: Pase igual… yo pasé también por Tijuana. Cruzé las Aguas Negras… las aguas sucias… granaje. A: ¿Qué pensaste? ¿Cómo Pedro, pensaste que ibas a llegar aca y conseguir trabajo… que iba ser fácil? Francisco: Sí… mucha gente piensa… es mas, toda la gente piensa que viniendo para aca enseguida van a hacer su sueño realidad pero no. Para eso se toma tiempo. Para mi, yo anduve solo y batallé mucho tiempo… especialmente cuando te agarra la inmigración y te regresa para atras. Se toma tiempo no es como lo pinta la gente de México que no sabe nada todavía. A: ¿Entonces el personaje de Pedro crees que fue basado en la realidad? Francisco: Sí. A: ¿Qué pasó? ¿Llego a lograr su sueño el? Franciso: No… lo que pasó es que como mucha gente en de vez de ser su sueño realidad terminan en bandas y en la droga… es como piensan que van a ser sus sueños realidad pero en realidad no les funciona. A: ¿Piensas tu que la mayoría de la gente hace eso? Francisco: Yo diría que la mitad… yo pienso que si… o un 25% se mete en eso. A: ¿Piensas que los personajes son buenas o malas personas? Francisco: De primero eran buenas personas pero ya después cuando se metieron fueron malas personas porque el dinero fácil los hizo llegar a ese extremo. Les cambió la vida totalmente. A: ¿Pero lo hicieron por diferentes razones? 221 Francisco: Sí, por diferentes razones. Uno porque necesitaba el dinero para su hija, el otro porque debía mucho dinero, muchas deudas… el otro por visioso… y el otro porque quería ser su sueño americano. Hay diferentes razones. A: ¿Cuál sueño americano… qué es eso? Francisco: El sueño americano es que viene y que va a hacer dinero un luego luego… que va a tener dolares. Pero hay veces no consigue uno trabajo… en este caso el no consiguio trabajo y se metió en lo de la droga. A: ¿Qué otros temas miras tu en la película? ¿Qué piensas tu de los temas? La droga, narcotrafico, de familia… Francisco: De familia. De que vino a trabajar… como Rodrigo que estuvo mucho tiempo aquí, se la pasó toda su vida aquí y no pudo hacer nada. El tenía drogas (“debt”), debía todo lo que tenía… no podía pagar. El tenía mucho tiempo aquí y no había progreso nada… por eso el se metió en eso. A: ¿Qué le dice Rodrigo cuando Pedro le dice que el ya tiene su rancho? Francisco: El le dice, “No sueñes tanto porque yo ya tengo toda mi vida aquí y el rancho que tengo todavía lo debo, ni siquiera lo eh pagado… mejor regresate de donde veniste.” Le regresó su dinero para atras para que no esté soñando que todo es fácil. A: ¿Piensas tu que mucha gente está en esa misma situación… que tiene mucho tiempo aquí pero no es dueño de nada? Francisco: Sí. Yo he mirado en el tiempo que tengo aquí que así es la vida en los estados unidos… que la gente para tener algo o tener poquito se meten en muchas deudas y después terminan en otros problemas que no pueden pagar, que no pueden sacar adelante a la familia… unos se suicidan o otros terminan en la droga por el diner… o pierden todo. A: ¿Qué pasó con Quintana… con su vicio? Francisco: Con el vicio, lo hizo que al final se metiera en eso para poder tener dinero. Pierdo en antro… tenía su antro y lo perdio nadamás por el juego. El vicio que tenía era de estar jugando. A: ¿Qué piensas tu que pasó al última? ¿Porqué decidieron ellos no entregarsé? Francisco: Ellos decidieron no entregarse porque esa era la ley de ellos y la ley de la banda…de la droga. Pienso que si hubieran decidido entregarse los hubieran hecho que dijeran algo… para quien estaban trabajando y mejor decidieron no “cantar” como dice el corrido “lo siento pero no ser cantar”. 222 A: ¿Qué piensas tu que hubiera pasado si “cantan”? Francisco: Pues hubieran estado en la cárcel… puede ser que por vida o les hubieran dado una oportunidad de salir. Aunque creo que en ese negocio no los dejarían salir. La ley de la droga es todo o nada. A: Ellos ya etaban atrapados en la última esena… ellos se sentían atrapados y decidieron escapar en la muerte. ¿Piensas tu que ellos estaban atrapados desde antes? Francisco: Sí… pienso que ellos ya estaban atrapados y pienso que ellos hicieron un pacto que mejor era todo o nada… decidir no entregarse. Y pues al final terminaron muertos. A: ¿Pero la muerte los liberó? Francisco: Sí, la muerte los liberó porque ya no hiban a tener que hacer nada ni decir nada. A: ¿Has mirado películas como esta, de narcotraficantes, más recientes? Francisco: Pues ahorita si he mirado pero en ingles… más o menos todavía es lo mismo… ahorita la gente que se mete en eso es ambisiosa al dinero. Siempre terminan en la cárcel o muertos… todo narcotraficante de los que se escucha siempre terminan igual, los matan o van a la cárcel. A: ¿Entonces no han cambiado mucho las historias? Francisco: No han cambiado mucho las historias. Todo sigue haciendo lo mismo… por la droga. A: ¿Las películas como han cambiado? Francisco: Las películas han cambiado… yo digo en la nueva tecnología, mejor sonido, mejor imagen, mejor video… ya es mejor todo con la nueva tecnología. A: ¿De qué otras formas han cambiado? Por ejemplo, ¿Las armas que usan han cambiado? Francisco: Sí, han cambiado bastante porque antes usaban “pistolitas” y ahora usan “cuerno de chivo”… hasta granadas… eso se oye en los corridos. Ahorita tienen hasta bombas. A: ¿Entonces se han puesto más violentos? 223 Francisco: Sí, ahorita las batallas contra los narcotraficantes deja más violencia y más muertos que antes. Por los mismo de las armas nuevas. A: ¿Y la droga? Francisco: La droga antes nomás era cocaina y marijuana. Ahorita hay pildoras, acido, meth… muchas clases de pastillas que se meten los chamocos. A: ¿Las enseñan en las películas? ¿En “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Francisco: En “La Banda Del Carro Rojo” nunca se miro la droga. En las películas nuevas si se mira, ahorita en estos tiempos si se mira que enseñan la droga… las pastillas, el polvo y la hierba. En las de antes no enseñaban de eso y ahorita si… yo pienso que está mal que enseñan todo de eso. A: ¿Cuándo fue que paraste de mirar esas películas? ¿Porqué paraste de mirarlas? Francisco: Yo pienso que las dejé de mirar cuando tuve mis hijos para que ellos no miren eso… para que no agarren ideas… desde que tuve a mi familia para que no agarren ese ejemplo y llegen a eso. Basicamente hoy en dia no puedo ver peliculas con mi familia porque todas son vulgares and no les tienen respeto a las mujeres o a las familias. A: ¿Las películas más recientes son peores? Francisco: Sí, siempre. Enseñan mujeres encueradas y el especialmente el sexo… enseñan como usan las drogas, las geringas, el polvo y las pastillas. Antes nunca se miraba nada de esto… nomás la mercancía o el cargamento. Mas antes las peliculas eran mas reales y demonstraban lo que sucedia, bueno en mi caso creo que reflejaban mi realidad, no eran nadamas de pistolas y de mujeres desnudas. Adan: Pero si habia violencia y esenas de desnudos antes? Francisco: Si, es cierto, pero mas antes cuando habia desnudos o balaceras es porque habian razones, un propocito, no como en las peliculas de ahora en donde hay tantas mantanzas sin motivo. Si te fijas en la pelicula de Dos Plebes hay una gran diferencia en las pistolas que cargan. En La banda del carro rojo miras que traen pistolas chicas pero en la de Dos Plebes traen pistolas muy poderosas y cuernos de chivo. Adán: ¿Todavía es popular el corrido de “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Francisco: Sí, todavía se sigue escuchando en las estaciones… nunca han pasado de moda porque todavía sigue pasando lo mismo. 224 A: ¿Las cuatro historias que miraste, de los personajes, todavía siguen pasando? Francisco: Esas historias todavía están presentes…todavía sigue lo mismo. Cuando no hay una persona que está envisiada, hay una gente que quiere tener el dinero fácil, rapido. Pienso que en este tiempo es más peligrosa la droga porque le revuelven cosas… antes no le hechaban tanto quimicos como ahora. A: ¿Miraste a los personajes como buenas o malas personas? Francisco: Al principio eran buenas personas pero yo digo que cuando se meten a eso ya se van malas para poder hacer esa clase de trabajo. A: ¿Entoces había diferentes niveles, miraste tu como eran buenos y luegos malos? ¿Y en las películas de ahora? Francisco: Sí. Pero en las películas de ahora hay mucha violencia en las películas y cuando se meten a eso enseñan como hacen las drogas… hay mucha fácilidad para los chamacos. A: ¿Entonces los miran más como heroes, a los narcotraficantes? Francisco: Sí, como que son heroes. Les sacan corridos y películas. Es más o menos como heroe… pero heroe cruel que mata gente. A: ¿Y antes los miraban diferentes? Francisco: Sí, diferente porque casí no se oía…uno que otro se oía… ahora ya se escucha más. A: ¿Cómo son los corridos de ahora? Francisco: Con maldiciones… son más violentos los corridos de ahora. Con más maldiciones, más de droga y unos narcotraficantes pagan para que les hagan corridos. A: ¿En “La Banda Del Carro Rojo” los cuatros personajes pagaron por su crimen? Francisco: Sí… pagaron por meterse a ese negocio. A: ¿En las películas de ahora piensas que pagan? Francisco: Lo hacen para ser reconocidos y tener dinero. A: En “La Banda Del Carro Rojo” todos no lo hicieron nadamás por el dinero… 225 Francisco: Lo hicieron por otras cosas… para sacar adenlante a la familia. A: A cual personaje comprendes mas? Francisco: Yo creo que a Rodrigo. Como padre entiendo que feo puedo ser tener un hijo enfermo y no tener dinero para su tratamiento. No poder salvar la vida de una hija seria horrible. Como Rodrigo tengo deudas y apenas puedo hacer mis pagos. Tambien como el mi sueno era como el sueno de muchos de venir aqui a progresar. Creo que Rodrigo intento trabajar duro para vivir una vida honesta pero cuando siente que no es suficiente es cuando decide unirse con su hermano y vivir una vida deshonesta para tener no que lo pudo con su vida honesta. 226 Interview with “Carolina”: Translated from Spanish A: I remember going to the movies with you when I was a kid. Could you tell me the names of some of the theaters that you used to take to and why you went there? Carolina: We used to drive to Fresno almost every weekend when you were small. We would go to el Teatro Crest, Teatro Mexico and there was one other one that I can’t remember but it was in the same area. They were all in the Fulton Mall in downtown Fresno. They are all closed now but back then they were full. I think that they are now iglesias de hermanos (churches). We would see the movies of Valentín Trujillo and we liked going there because they always brought the movie stars and we would get to see them in person. I remember seeing Joan Sebástian, Beatriz Adriana and Zepellín. The would come and promote the films. Sometimes they did not act in them but their songs were in the movies so we got to hear them sing their songs in the theater. A: Were there other reasons why you would go to the theater, especially el Teatro Mexico? C: Yes, we would go to see Tirado, Arturo Tirado. A: Who was he and what did he do? C: He would help us fill out immigration forms. He was very helpful. We would pay the entrance for the movie and once inside the theater we could go upstairs and ask him for help. If it was a simple question he would not charge us anything but if he had to help us fill out anything he would charge us very little. That is way this theater was more popular than the others. In the weekends there was always people waiting outside so that they can go and talk to him. Just by paying the entrance you could get help. After you talked with him you would go and see the movie. A: What year was that? C: It was around ‘78 or ’79 but I still remember that in the ‘80s people would still go and see him. I remember that later on it was his son who started to help people. Tirado was old. I think he is dead but I’m sure his son is still around. His name is also Arturo. I don’t know his age but I’m sure he is alive. (If I had all the time in the world I would look him up and interview him.) A: Did you guys go every week? 227 C: Almost. We would go all the time. We would love to go see the movies there. We loved the movies and every time that we would go we would see the trailers for new movies and that would get us excited to come back and see them. C: I also remember going to the movies with my mom. We went to a theater in Mexicali…that time we watched Kaliman. I remember that my mom took me to the eye doctor so that he could examine my eyes and after that we went to the theater. A: What was wrong with your eyes? C: She took me because my head hurt. We went to see if I needed eyeglasses. He told me that I didn’t need glasses. All he said was that my eyes were irritated and that was the reason that my head hurt so much. He just gave me some eye drops. He prescribed some glasses but we never bought them. I think that they were expensive so we never got them. I think that back then I was not thinking of the glasses. All I wanted was to see Kaliman. The doctor put some drops in my eyes and I couldn’t see especially outside. My eyes were very sensitive to the light and I could not open my eyes that much. I didn’t care and I wanted to see Kaliman so when we were in there my eyes were better but things were a bit blurry and my eyes were still watery. It was exactly as I remember him. Kaliman was like the radio described him. He was tall and had blue eyes. He was dressed in white and had a thing in his head (turbine). I was happy because I was only about 15 years old and this was the first time that I was in a theater and watching Kaliman who all everyone heard on the radio. A: Why was Kaliman so popular? C: I think it was because we all grew up hearing him in the radio. Everyone listened to the show. When the show would come on all the people would gather around the radio and hear the stories. We also didn’t have a TV. There were not many people who had TVs so that was a way that people got entertained. They were novelas and people would work around the radio. People would wash their clothes and hear the novela. I was around ten during that time. A: Did you guys also listen to music? C: We did listen to music. Corridos were popular back then but I don’t remember liking them too much but my dad did. He would always listen to them and he would buy tapes. As I got older I remember that I liked the stories they told. The stories were real. The songs were based on things that happen to people. There were songs about people crossing the river and how they would get here and things were hard. They would always talk about dollars and I thought that it was scary to come here. My dad never told us how it was out here (US) but I know that he went through things the songs talk about. A: What do you remember about Los Tigres del Norte? 228 C: They were popular and everyone liked them. They talked about things that were happening in real life. Their songs were about coming to the US and about people who get into drugs and have guns. I don’t think that their songs glorified drugs like the corridos of today. Even though they sang about people drug smuggling they told why people got into it and most of the people who they sing about die. Now, I hear that the drug dealers never get caught because they pay off everyone, even the police. A: Can you tell the names of those new songs? C: I can’t remember but a lot of them are by Chalino. All he sings about is drugs and about killing. A: What movies do you remember watching? C: I do remember watching La Banda del Carro Rojo but it has been a long time. I remember the song. It is about drug smuggling and how all the people in the car die. The Almada brothers come out in the movie. Back then we would watch all there movies. They made good movies in the 80s but now they make the same kind of movies. They always have guns and they never die. You can shoot them over and over and they never die. They also never run out of bullets. In La Bada del Carro Rojo they are brothers and they get into drugs because they need money. I think that one of them has a sick daughter. I don’t know what she is sick of but he needs money. A: Do you remember the other two characters in the movie? C: I think one was Pedro. I liked Pedro Infante (Sr.). He was great and Pedro Jr. was also good but not like his dad. Pedro Jr. is the one who wants to go to Hollywood. He is poor but wants to do whatever it takes to make it. I also remember a bit about Teresita. She plays a traditional role in this movie but she is able to do what she wants, she dates whoever she wants, she dresses how ever she wants so I see that as empowering because if she can do that then maybe we will someday be able to do the same. I don’t remember more about the movie but I did like it. I saw it many years ago. When I see it I can tell you more about it. A: What movies do you remember? C: I remember a movie with Yolanda del Rio, I am not sure if it was called “La Hija de Nadie” but this movie was really good. It is different in several ways, one of them is that in this movie it is the men that come and go, while Yolanda enjoys her time with them and by the end she is better off than any of the men who pursue her. It is really good, she is a very strong female. A: What other types of movies do you remember? 229 C: I remember that there were many movies about crossing the border. They are based on real events that is way they are made. Some of them are made up but most of them are true. Have you seen Maldita Miseria (Dammed Misery)? A: Yes, I remember going to the theater and watching it with you but can you tell me about it? C: We saw it a el Teatro Mexico. It was about a man that comes to the US to work and send money back to his family. The money he sends never gets back to her because his compadre looses it in the game (gambling). His wife is in Mexico and has to steal to feed her family and the boss wants to rape her. In the end he dies and then the compadre comes back and brings her a lot of money and toys for the kids. She starts to cry. It’s a good movie because things like that do happen. The movie also had good songs. A: Do they sing in the movie? C: You remember? They sing good songs about love and leaving Mexico and about going back. When their compadre comes back and brings her all the money all she wants is her husband. That part is very sad. She still doesn’t know what happen but she has a feeling that something is not right. She says that she doesn’t want any money. All she asks for is her husband and he tells her that he is dead. She then runs to the fields and begins to sing “Maldita Miseria”. It is a sad song. The movie made everyone cry because we all know that things like that are true. A: Did the songs distract you from the movie? C: No, the songs told you about the movie. When people were happy the songs were happy and when they were sad the songs were sad. The songs helped the movie. We had heard them in the radio so we knew what the movie was going to be about. I think the songs help tell the story in the movie. A: Why do you think these movies were so popular? C: Because they were common stories that everyone knew. People were very poor in Mexico and they would risk everything to come here and work so they could send money back home. These movies are real…they really happen. When we were in Mexico we never went without eating but we didn’t have all the food we wanted. We didn’t have milk or other things that we needed. My dad would go once a week to buy food but sometimes when he didn’t have work he would get some food on credit. He would only by the basic necessities. This movies show that. Most of these movies show how it was. A: Who are some of the actors that you liked to watch? 230 C: I liked to watch movies with Pedro Infante Jr., Valentín Trujillo, Andres García, Sergio Goyri, Los Almadas, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, Lucía Méndez, Sasha Montenegro, Vicente Fernández, Antonio Aguilar, El Santo y Blue Demon. I liked how they acted. There are some movies that would make you very tense and nervious but I preferred the ones where they would sing. Back then there were more movies like that. They were movies that you could see with the family but then they began to be more sexual. There began to be too much nudity and violence. A: Is that why you don’t see movies? C: Yes, I don’t like to watch these new movies because they are all about naked women and men with big guns, killing everyone. They are all about drugs. I don’t like them. A: Weren’t movies back then also about drugs, naked women and violence? C: Well, they were a lot of them that showed bad things but that was not the only focus. They had something to say. Most movies now don’t say much. If they do I don’t get it because all I see is people killing people for no reason. A: Do you think that the movies are a reflection of the times? C: Yes because that is what you see on the news. You see more now than you did back then and that’s what we see in the movies. The movies show what people see everyday. A: What are other reasons you don’t see these movies? C: Well, like I said I don’t like what they show but also because I don’t have time. I used to go see them when I was dating. We would go out to see movies at the theater but even now if I wanted to go there are no more movie theaters. I also have too much work at home. It’s not like before. Sometimes I see parts of some movies on TV but I don’t care much for them. I like to see novelas. That is the only thing that I watch on TV. (There is about three more pages of this interview but I begin to move away from movies and ask more personal questions about what she remembers when we first got here to the states.) 231 Interview with “Sandra” and “Jose”: In Spanish A: ¿Si miraron esta película? José: Yo lo miré cuando estaba chiquillo. Sandra: Sí la miramos… hace bien mucho. José: Tenía como unos 9 años cuando la miré. A: ¿Pero ya la miraste más grande también? Sandra: Cuando salía en la televisión. José: Sí, después… cuando la daban, pero pudos pedazos nadamás. A: ¿Antes miraban películas de esta clase? ¿Cuando iban al cine… al de Madera (California)? Sandra: En Fresno (California)… en el ’85… como en el ’86 epazamos a ir. A: ¿A cuál iban? Sandra/José: Al México. A: Al Teatro México. ¿Ustedes no iban al Teatro México cuando iban a arreglar ahí arriba… donde les ayudaban a llenar papeles? Sandra: Sí, cuando andaba arreglando José… cuando estaba Tirado. A: ¿Cómo se llamaba? José: Se llamaba Arturo Tirado. Sandra: Primero fuimos a meter la aplicación para residente… para José y después ahí me llenaron la aplicación para hacerme ciduadana. Después cuando yo me hize ciduadana ahí llenaron otra aplicación para el porque ya estaba aplicando yo por el por ciduadana… era en el segundo pizo. A: ¿Iban ahí para que les ayudara a llenar la aplicación? Sandra: El llenaba las aplicaciones, las formas… el nos la llenaba ya después nos las daba para que las mandaramos. 232 A: ¿Cuando iban, tenían que pagar la entrada para entrar al cine? José: Pagabamos para entrar al cine… entrabamos al cine y ya después íbamos a donde estaba el. Sandra: Primero íbamos casí todo el tiempo para arriba (donde estaba el)… pero ya pagando la entrada podías ir a hablar con el y entrar al cine. Pero tenías que pagar la entrada, no importaba si nadamás ibas para hablar con el. A: ¿Sí iban a mirar las películas que presentaban ahí? Sandra: Las dos cosas. A: ¿Se acuerdan de las películas que miraban… los títulos? ¿Los actores que miraban? Sandra: Mirabamos películas de Los Almadas, Mario y Fernando Almada… de Valentín Trujillo… miramos una con Valentín Trujillo y Daniela Romo en donde andaban en un carrito… José: En un carrito… “Frontera”? A: Si hay una película que se llama “Frontera”. José: Era Daniela Romo y otro… no era Valentín Trujillo. A: ¿También miraban películas de Andrés García? Sandra: Andrés García… salía mucho Isela Vega. A: ¿Qué se acuerdan de Isela Vega? Sandra: Que todo el tiempo salía desnuda (laughing). José: Salía en puras películas de esas. A: ¿De qué eran los temas de las películas… de la mayoría? José: De puro contrabando casí. Sandra: Y como veganza cuando mataban a una familia. José: Veganza… se vegaban de los que mataban a su familia, al papá o a su hermano. Pero todo tiempo ponían drogas y eso. Era casí lo que había, puras películas de eso. 233 A: ¿Había otro tema popular… de inmigración? José: “La migra” también. Sandra: Que se los llevaba, verdad. A: ¿Piensan que las películas de ese tiempo reflexionaban lo que estaba pasando en ese tiempo en realidad? José: En ese tiempo cuando salían esas películas era cuando “la migra” andaba en las calles aquí. Tal vez por eso están esas películas. Aquí en Madera no podías salir antes de medio día… ya el sábado y domingo ya podías andar bien… pero entre semana no podías andar en las calles… levantaban de la calle los inmigrantes. A: ¿La gente salía en fin de semana? José: El sábado ya podían salir. A: ¿Porqué? José: Porque no trabajaba “la migra”… “la migra” no trabajaba los sábados ni domingos. A: ¿Por eso la gente iba al cine? José Sí, por eso daban esas películas… es lo que estaba pasando. A: ¿Entonces los temas eran de veganza, de mafia, de contrabando, de cruzar la frontera? ¿Piensan que los temas los trataban muy violentos comparado a las películas de hoy? Sandra: Nada. José: O no, ahorita están violentas. Antes no eran violentas… no te pasaban tanta cosa como ahorita… tanta cosa que sale ahorita… antes no salía tanto así. A: ¿Nadamás lo hablaban? José: Sí, puro hablar… decían que pasó algo pero no lo enseñaban. Sandra: Y luego también cuando se les metía el demonio… ¿Te acuerdas? Como el “Hijo Del Sheriff” con Erik Del Castillo. José: Sí, era con Erik Del Castillo y salían unos cuatitos… los separan cuando nacen… el que se muere es el que anda haciendo desorden. Esa película está bonita. 234 A: ¿Cómo se llama la película? José: “El Extraño Hijo Del Sheriff”. Mira esa película está bonita. Sandra: Sí, es con Erik Del Castillo. A: ¿Era de terror? José: El chamaquito se aparecía porque se murió… al separarlos (a los cuates) el chamaquito se murió. Sandra: Según el lo dejaron murir… al separarlos porque venían los dos juntos y para separlos tuvo que murir uno. Entonces el que se murio era el que hacía según los males. José: Fernando Allende… ese es el que salía en la otra película (“Frontera”). A: También me dijo Carolina que llegaban artistas al Teatro México. Sandra: Cantaban ahí. José: Iba mucho Felipe Ariaga y Lorenzo De Monteclaro… puro artista de eso. Lo que hacían antes era que los contrataban… como cuando salió una película de Yolanda del Rió de la inmagración , de “la migra”…a ella la contrataron (para presentarse ahí). ¿Te acuerdas de “La Hija De Nadie”? Esa película está bonita también. A: Sí, también Carolina me comento de esa. José: En esa salía Yolanda Del Rió… lo que hacían antes sacaban la película y llevavan el artista que salía en ella. A: ¿La promovian? José: Sí, las estaban promoviendo. Sandra: Cantaba después ahí. José: Si era actor nadamás se iba a presentarse, pero si era cantante iba y cantaba después de la película. A: ¿Entonces eran popular las películas de cantar, de música? Sandra: Se trataba mucho de eso. 235 A: ¿Y las de narcotraficos se trataban mucho de corridos? Sandra: Sí, tenían corridos. A: ¿Como “La Banda Del Carro Rojo” y otras películas así, mucha genta ya conocían las canciones? José: Sí, ya las cantaban. Como Los Tigeres Del Norte cantaban esas canciones… ellos mismos salieron en esa película… en “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”. Ellos son los de la película con Pedro Infante Jr y Los Almada también. Sandra: Ellos eran los que andaban mucho (Los Almada), casí todo el tiempo salían. A: Y si recuerdan cosas de la pelicula “La Banda Del Carro Rojo”? Jose: Si, recuerdo algunas cosas porque el corrido todavia lo escucho y pues el corrido habla de lo que sucedio en la pelicula. Sandra: Yo tambien recuerdo unas cosas. Recuerdo unos detalles de los personajes. A: Como que cosas o detalles recuerdan? Jose: Cuando yo pienso en esa pelicula recuerdo mucho el final que tubieron, como mueren al final. Sandra: Si, eso es lo que impacto mucho, el final. Aunque tambien la recuerdo mucho porque ellos se vienen a los estados unidos para progresar. Para mi Pedro reprensenta la gran mayoria de inmigrantes que se vienen a los estados unidos con la idea de que cuando lleguen aqui todo sera bueno y seran truinfadores. Mucha gente que se viene a los estados unidos se sienten igual que los personajes de la pelicula, se consideran trabajadores muy buenos pero no saben que tan dificil es encontrar un bueno trabajo sin tener papales. Jose: O si, asi es, todos los que nos venimos para aca somos muy buenos trabajadores aunque cuando llegamos es mucho mas dificil de lo que pensamos. A: De que mas se acuerdan? Sandra: Pues basicamente eso, tenemos mucho sin mirarla pero cuando la veamos otra vez te podrimas contar mas sobre ella. Jose: Si, es una pelicula que si la empezamos a ver en seguida recordaremos mas detalles. 236 A: Hay otros actores o peliculas de las que se acuerdan? José: Sí. También salía Andrés García… pero Andrés García sacaba más cosas el. Sandra: Más desnudos… como en casí comedias. A: ¿Sexy-Comedias? José: Sí. Sandra: También Rafael Inclan… ese también casí pura de eso. A: ¿Comparado ahora, se pusieron las películas peores? Sandra: Es que ahora es más gráfico todo y enseñan más violencia, más ideas. Antes era como puro balazo, puro con cuchillo y ahorita es explosiones… José: Más cosas... les ponen hasta de más en las películas. Antes estaba bien porque eran más historias… por decir de los que pasaban para acá… como “Tres Veces Mojado”, esa película también es buena. Sandra: Pero también como ahorita ya están los tiempos así por eso los sacan… ya ves tanta cosa, tanta explosión… porque ahorita todo eso lo hacen, como en las torres. A: ¿Entonces son los tiempos? José: Cada tiempo va camiando. Sandra: Antes era más bonito, más calmado. José: ¿Quién va al cine ahorita? El cine ya se acabó aquí. Sandra: El Mexicano. A: ¿Porqué no va al cine el Mexicano ya? José: Porque ya las películas las ponen en dvd. Hay veces salen directamente en dvd… no las ponen en el cine. Sandra: También ya no compiten con las películas de acá (de los estados unidos). A: ¿Si las quisieran sacar en el cine, dónde las podrían poner? Sandra: Hay veces que sí sacan en español… una que otra. 237 A: ¿Como de estas películas, si las quisieran poner en el cine…dónde están los cines? Sandra: No hay cines. El cine de Madera ya ves no está. José: Aquí también estaba el cine de Madera y lo borraron, porque mirararon que no... hay drive-in y otro pero sacan puras películas de aquí. Sandra: Y que chistoso mirando que hay tanta gente Mexicana aquí, tanta gente que habla español. José: Se acabaron porque no iba la gente. Sandra: Pues por que no hicieron también cine de ayá, de México. A: ¿Y en Fresno qué pasó? ¿Porqué piensan que cerraron los cines? Sandra: De repente, verdad, el cine México. José: Estaba El Crest y El México. Sandra: ¿El México ya no es cine, ahí? A: El México, ni El Crest. También estaba el otro, El Tulare… habían tres. Sandra: Yo nadamás conocí El Crest y El México. José: Estaba El México y El Crest, y otro más adelante por la misma calle (en el area del Fulton Mall). A: ¿Iba mucha gente? José: Sí, el domingo. Sandra: Se llenava. Hay veces se vendían las películas (sold out). José: Daban “matinees” en la mañana, a las once… en la tarde se llenaba más porque era cuando la gente que iba a misa salía de misa. Sandra: Ahí daban dos películas todo el tiempo. José: Daban dos movies, de veras. Sandra: Daban una que era nueva y otra de las que ya habían salido. 238 A: ¿Una nueva y otra que ya habían estrenado antes? Sandra: Por eso ponían la que ya había salido para que mientras llegara la gente y luego ya ponían la estelar, la nueva. A: ¿Qué es lo que pensaba la gente de los temas que pasaban y porqué les interesaban? Sandra: Se indentificaba con los temas… ayá venían del rancho y ayá así pasaba. José: Cuando uno llegaba de México, de un rancho, llegaba a un campo donde habían puros hombres… ahí una familia te abordaban… te hacían “lonche”… y así cuando mirabas las películas era como si te estabas mirando ahí. A: ¿Entonces la gente reflexionaba en su vida? A: ¿También las películas estan basadas en fantasía, verdad… le ponen de más? Sandra: Sí, muchas cosas de más. Ahorita ya son de puras gangas, de pura droga. A: ¿Ustedes ya no reflexionan en eso? José: No, eso ya no es para nosotros. A: La gente que está ahorita llegando es la vida de ellos, ¿Verdad? José: Sí. Sandra: Sí eran las películas así… que muchos “polleros”, que pasaban gente… era lo que hacía la gente antes. José: Como lo mirabas en una película y dices “yo casí pasé por ese mismo lugar”. A: ¿Cómo hacían ver el hombre en las películas? Sandra: Bien machistas, que era el que mandaba todo. Así eran todos los hombres entonces, ¿Verdad? José: Que nadamás ellos… que la mujer tenía que estar en su casa nadamás y el hombre podía andar donde el quería. Todavía hay gente así aquí, si se pone uno a mirar. Más si vienen de ayá, la misma historia, porque el tiempo ayá como que se quedó atorado. A: ¿Había películas donde la mujer también tomama control? Por ejemplo la película “Lola La Trailera”. 239 José: Sí, pero esa era una que salió de tantas… ahora es cuando quisieron cambiar las cosas pero antes nadamás era el hombre. A: Pero de vez en cuando si hay una película o en las películas hay veces la mujeres trataban de hacer cambios. José: Como “Juan Gallo”… una película de más antes, me acuerdo que la nombraban la gente… era de una señora. A: Esa es de María Félix. Anda de soldada. José: Esa es! Sandra: María Félix era una de las que salía en las películas de “jodona” (fuerte). José: Andaba vistida de soldada. No la miré toda pero me acuerdo. A: ¿Cómo trataban a las mujeres, pensaban que era realidad? Sandra: Para mi no porque yo no viví en México. Yo cuando me casé ya estaba acá. José: Casí la mayoría (de las películas) eran de cuando pasaba la gente para acá. A: ¿Cuando miraban la gente esas películas, se educaban pensando que así era? (Not only as entertainment?) ¿Las películas tiene el poder de enseñarte algo que no sabes tu? Sandra: Yo pienso que nadamás por mirarlas… para mirar los artistas. José: Nadamás por mirarlas… para agarrar ideas no creo porque eso (que pasa en las películas) ya casí lo viviste. Es como nadamás recordar lo que pasaron/pasaste. A: Son tan poplulares Los Tigeres Del Norte y los corridos… hicieron muchas películas sobre los corridos, los temas. ¿Antes de qué salieran las películas la gente ya sabía de lo que se iban a tratar? José: No, lo que pasaba es que cuando salía la película en ese mismo tiempo también salía la canción... por eso no sabías tu ni que. Sandra: Primero salía la canción. José: Sí, pero salía casí en el mismo tiempo… no salía mucho tiempo antes la canción, casí lo hacían a la vez. 240 A: ¿Cuándo salió Chalino Sanchez, cómo cambió el corrido, las películas? José: Cambiaron porque ya había más drogadicción y empezaron a agarrar más gente, y empezaron a hacer más películas de esas. Agarraban gente y sacaban corridos… como la de Carlos Quintero, lo agarron, sacaron corrido, y hicieron película. Porque estaba pasando eso en ese tiempo… se basan en eso los que están haciendo películas porque saben que ahí hay dinero porque… el es el que está en el periodico… de ahí sacan la película o el corrido. José: Muchos corridos están prohibos… ya no quieren que toquen corridos los artistas en México… no los pueden tocar. A: ¿Porqué están hablando de lo que pasa? José: Porque los mismos narcos piden que les hagan corridos… si no los hacen te “quebran” (te matan) y tienen que hacerlos… y si no les pareció como quedó también te “quebran”. A: ¿Hacen corridos de los políticos? José: Andale, esos son otros… nos los dejan que les pasen en México. A: ¿Creés que la gente hay veces usan los corridos como noticias… como leer un periódico? José: Sí, como esa la de Carlos Quintero… desde la cárcel está manando gente. Es pura mafia, todo eso es pura mafia. A: ¿Entonces cómo en que año dejaron de ir al cine? Sandra: Ya hace… desde el ’88 se me hace. José: Como en el ’88 dejamos de ir al cine… y después se empezó a bajar, ya no era lo mismo. Sandra: Como que ya no traían películas. José: De primero ya no traían películas y ya después la gente dejó de ir. Luego después salieron los videos (movies). Sandra: Ya después uno rentaba más películas en casa. José: Como en el ’88 empezaron a bajar y después quitaron los cines poco a poco. Podías rentar una película, agusto en la casa, por unos dolares y las mirabas las veces que 241 querías y ayá (en el cine) tenías que estar ahí a la hora… por eso la gente mejor empezó a rentarlas. A: ¿De qué se trata la película “Maldita Miseria”? José: De que no tienen dinero… se me hace que el señor se viene para acá (a los estados unidos)… no se pero está bonita. Sandra: Está triste. José: Está triste, tiene historia… es película de antes. Es como una canción ahorita, ¿De qué te habla ahorita? Que “gasolina”…esas canciónes no tienen historia ahorita. Antes un canción te contaba como una historia y ahora cualquier cosa ya es canción… nadamás ponen una palabra o dos y ya, ahí está la canción. Fijate las canciones del Buki que cantaba antes, los grupos de antes… bonitas cosas que te decían en la canción, te cuentan una historia chica en ella. Con las películas es la misma historia, antes estaban bonitas, te daban historia… si eras sintinmental te hacían llorar. Y ahorita, pura matazon, pura sangre o puro desnudo. 242 Multi-Group Interview: In Spanish Rogelio, Jesus, Arturo, Carlos, Ruben, Amalia, Felipe, Javier, Victor, Luis A: ¿Han mirado las películas de Mario Almada? Carlos: Yo si las miro de vez en cuando. Amalia: En mi casa las mirabamos mas como en los 80s. Nos entretenian mucho. Rogelio: Yo tambien, me gustan mucho las peliculas de los Almada. Ruben: Si pero ya tengo un tiempo que no miro una. A: ¿Nadamás por entretenimiento? Jesus: Pues cuando estabamos mas chicos nadamas era para pasar el rato. Amalia: Yo por pasar el tiempo pero tambien porque me gusta mucho lo que ensenan. Arturo: Tambien a mi. Victor: Yo apenas empeze a mirar ese tipo de peliculas porque me parecen que hay unas que si tienen mensajes reales. A: ¿De qué son las películas? Carlos: Pues muchas se tartan de cruzar la frontera…de como llegan y que pasa cuando llegan a los estados unidos. Victor: Si, son de eso…de cruzar la frontero de lo que sucede en los estados unidos. Luis: Si, es cierto, yo tambien creo lo mismo. Aunque tienen tienen mucha violencia pero si se ve mucho lo de cruzar. A: ¿Piensan que las películas están basadas en la realidad? Por ejemplo de la que les he presentado, La banda del carro rojo? Luis: Algunas si, no todas. Amalia: Estoy de acuerdo. Jesus: Yo digo que si. Yo en realidad he mirado varias peliculas que tratan el tema de cruzar la frontero, como el el comienzo de “La banda del carro rojo”. Yo no cruze como 243 esenan que Pedro nada el Rio Grande para cruzar. Pero si al mirar esas peliculas alguien me dice que eso es falso…yo les diria mi historia y eso los callaria porque yo camine por dos dias…hasta cambiado como Pedro y sin agua. Arturo: Yo tambien estoy de acuerdo. Yo creo que asi como en el corrido de la pelicula, todos los personajes estan basados en personas reales…aunque hay veces que estan algo mas dramaticos. Rogelio: Si, si…ponle que pueden ponerles un poco de mas porque son peliculas pero si estan basadas en la realidad. Por ejemplo, yo he mirado varias peliculas asi…donde ensenan gente que cruza y ya jamas sabe sus familias en Mexico de ellos. Yo conoci gente que cuando se vinieron para aca se perdieron y ya nunca supimos de ellos…como que la tierra se los comio. Felipe: Eso si, suceden muchas cosas al cruzar la frontera…como demuestran en las peliculas. A: ¿Porqué les llaman la atención? ¿Porqué miras estas películas? Amalia: A mi me entretienen mucho. Luis: Si, a mi tambien…y me gusta la accion. Arturo: Tambien el mensaje que traen..te hacen recordar. Carlos: Si, te hacen recordar…aunque hay gente que nos les gustan…creen que son falsas. Quizas porque miran casi los mismos personajes y historias en tantas peliculas que hasta parece pura imaginacion pero son verdad. Esos personajes y historias son tan comun que nosotros hay veces imediatamente creemos saber sus historia en cuanto los vemos. Ruben: Y no solo creemos saber sus historias de los cuatro personajes de la pelicula…sabemos sus historias como si fueran las nuestras…tanto que aunque no hay quizas tantos detalles de los personajes nosotros sabemos lo que sucede con ellos que quizas hasta demonstralo en la pantalla seria como si fuera muy repetido. Amalia: Estoy totalmente de acuerdo. Como dice Ruben, nosotros sabemos sus historias y finales aunque no todo sea presentado en la pelicula...uno puede darse cuenta quienes son asi que no hay necesidad de que te presenten lo que ya sabes. A: Hay alugien que pueda comprender porque toman las deciciones de entrar a las drogas? 244 Felipe: Yo si. Yo comprendo porque estan ahi haciendo lo que hacen y porque tienen que tomar esas decisiones duras. Si yo tubiera una hija enferma y no tubieras dinero yo haria cualquier cosa para salvarle la vida. Amalia: Yo creo que yo haria lo mismo…mi familia es lo mas importante. Javier: Yo creo que todos tubieron sus razones para entrar a la banda. Uno no puede pensar que esta justificado pero que harias si tu estubieras en su misma situacion? Yo creo que harias la misma cosa. Luis: Si yo estubiera en una situacion dificil…como en la pelicula…saben, creo que quizas tambien le entrara…o almenos haria lo que fuera necesario para conseguir dinero. Carlos: Bueno, en esta pelicula, yo creo que ellos tienen muy pocas opciones…la sociedad aqui no les a dado tantas opciones…ellos tienen que hacer lo unico que pueden para sobrevivir como sea. Al final cuando estan rodeados…ellos saben que si se entregan iran a prision y ellos se sienten como si siempre fueron prisioneros asi que su unica opcion es terminar a su propia manera. A: Y que creen mas en detalle sobre algunos de los personajes? Arturo: No te sabria que decir…no recuerdos tanto detalles de los personajes. Amalia: Yo recuerdo de Teresita…era rebelde…pero igual era un papel fuerte en su tiempo. Luis: A mi la verdad que el Boom no me parece bien. Creo que el no es alguien agradable. Pero si miras la pelicula y la analisas puedes quizas cuestionas muchas cosas…mira, aunque el Boom no agrada mucho por drogadicto, tendriamos que preguntarnos porque llego a eso. Creemos que el quiere estar ahi? A mi no me cae bien pero creo que hay mucho mas de su historia que no se ve en la pantalla…el ha sido pateado tantas veces que quizas por eso sea asi. Victor: Yo recuerdo sobre Quintana. Sabes, Quintana puede parecer alguien no agradable y egoista por su problema…pero es un hombre fuerte que se enfrenta a las autoridades…y hay problemas mas grandes que el. Yo nunca podria ser alguien quien vende drogas pero no creo que la culpa este en Quintana. …el problema es de nuestra sociedad quien pide las drogas. A: Porque crees eso? Victor: Porque si esta nacion…esta gran nacion se enfocara en resolver el gran deseo por obtener drogas entonces las personas como Quintana no tubieran otra opcion que encontrar otra manera para salir de deuda o cualquiera problema que tubieran. 245 A: Tu has conocido a personas como Quintana? Victor: En realidad si. Yo conosco a unos como el que son considerados heroes en sus casas…aunque hacen algo illegal…ellos hacen lo que pueden para la estabilidad de sus familias y comunidads…como dicen el la pelicula, con dinero puedes hacer lo imposible. A: Hay otras observaciones de los personajes? Victor: Si…lo que creo sobre Boom tambien. Para mi Boom era un pocho…de seguro esta todo jodido porque quizas fue a la guera de Vietnam y miro cosas horibles. A: Como es que llegaste a esa conclusion? Victor: Bueno…miras como siempre usa esa chamarra del army…todo desgastada…y hasta tiene un cuadro del retrato de Kennedy…creo que lei algo que decia que el habia empezado la guerra donde muchos Chicanos murieron. Luis: Ahi…ven que hasta se compra un traje nuevo Pedro...ya saben que algo malo le va a pasar a el porque a llegado a donde esta en una manero deshonesta. A: Podrias explicar un poco mas sobre lo que dices? Luis: Si, claro…Pedro cre que a logrado el Sueno Americano pero esta bien equivocado…todo lo que tiene es una ilusion que pronto se terminara. A: Como es que sabes eso? Luis: Bueno, cuando miras a alguien como Pedro quien acaba de llegar y es ilegal…y de repente tiene ropa nueva y bonita y cosas como joyas..un carro…te puedes dar cuenta que andan en algo ilegal y que pronto los atraparan y terminaran el la carcel o muertos…eso lo digo porque yo conosco a gente que les paso lo mismo. Rogelio: A mi todos me caen bien…creo que son buenas personas que tienen que hacer cosas malas porque asi es es la vida…quieras o no, muchas veces uno tiene que hacer lo que sea para salir adelante. A: Que creen sobre las nuevas peliculas? Felipe: No me gustan tanto. Ruben: La verdad a mi tampoco…la miro porque no hay nada mas que mirar pero no me parecen muy buenas. 246 Amalia: Tiene tanta violencia nada mas por tenerla…y no se diga que salen muchas mujeres desnudas…muy vulgares. Rogelio: A mi si me gustan, estan mas o menos…aunque es dificil mirar peliculas asi. Carlos: No me gustan mucho…bueno, casi no me gustan nada. Yo conozco a un chavo…es mecanico el…ahi en su taller tiene una caja de dvds de una pelicula en la que hizo y actuo…el otro dia me dio una copia pero solo vi el comienzo porque se miraba muy mala. Yo se que no esta basada en una historia real porque todo lo que se mira es gente matando a otra gente y muchas mujeres encueradas…no tiene sentido…no tiene sentido mirar eso. Jesus: Yo ahora casi veo mas de las que hacen aqui…de Hollywood. Javier: Yo veo un poco de ellas…y si estan major las de antes. Luis: Las clasicas de antes son mas divertidas…y tienen mas sentido.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Avalos, Adán (author)

Core Title ¡Que naco! Border cinema and Mexican migrant audiences

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Cinema-Television (Cinema Critical Studies)

Publication Date 09/01/2012

Defense Date 08/31/2012

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag audience studies,border cinema,exploitation,Mexican cinema,migrant audiences,nationalism,neoliberalism,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Marez, Curtis (committee chair), Hondagneu-Sotelo, Pierrette (committee member), Lippit, Akira Mizuta (committee member), McPherson, Tara (committee member), Seiter, Ellen (committee member)

Creator Email adanavalos@gmail.com,ebavalos@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c3-94763

Unique identifier UC11288958

Identifier usctheses-c3-94763 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-AvalosAdn-1181.pdf

Dmrecord 94763

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Avalos, Adán

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA