Latina Bombshells Revisited: The Miracle Of Salma Hayek

From the textmex obsessed imagination of William A. Nericcio

One of the hardest chapters to write in Tex[t]-Mex was the one on Lupe Vélez (you may need to be logged into a gmail account to have the Lupe-link work)–there, late in the game, I try, a tad unsuccessfully, I fear, to fast-forward my study into the present, with lurid, 21st-century meditations on the ecstatic sanctity of movie and television Latina celebrities; in that chapter, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, and Eva Longoria make cameo appearances, with Salma doing yeoman’s work womaning selections from a complex Premiere magazine interview, an exchange wherein Hayek eloquently and diligently articulates the limbolandia of being a Latina sexpot and only being a Latina sexpot. Which brings me to this clip from The David Letterman show on CBS wherein we gather the difficulty of her conundrum/situation (watch also for her anecdote that blends Catholicism with tales of the miraculous, a combo that echoes Santa Lupe Velez’s situation as described in Tex[t]-Mex):

I love this photo of Salma–cigar smoking, strong, dynamic, and fierce, with eyes that confront the would-be watching subject with a post-Mulvey gaze that might paralyze. More food for thought as we consume our Tex[t]-Mex cuisine.

A page from the chapter on Lupe Velez in Tex[t]-Mex appears below–note the remarkable design/typography work by Lisa Tremaine:

This post first appeared in the textmex galleryblog.

William Anthony Nericcio, aka “Memo,” is the Director of San Diego State University’s ever-evolving MALAS program (The Master of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences)–a dynamic, interdisciplinary, cultural studies graduate program located near the U.S./Mexico border. Nericcio also serves on the faculties of the Chicana/o Studies Department, the Center for Latin American Studies and the Department of English and Comparative Literature at SDSU.