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Spot the Scary Mexicans and the Saucy Latina Femme Fatales! ‘The Scalphunters’ Edition!

From the textmex obsessed imagination of Memo Nericcio

Hit the image, a scandalous movie poster for The Scalphunters, and see if you can spot the central casting “scary ‘Mexican’ bandits’ as well as the sexy Latina bordello types”……   no worries if these standard Hollywood Tropes can’t be found–hit the “key” below!!!

This article was first published in textmex gallerblog.

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.This article was first published in textmex galleryblog.

[Photo courtesy textmex galleryblog]

“Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla” to Premiere May 3

By Latino Rebels

It’s a start.

While most of the America will be donning silly sombreros, drinking cheap tequila and thinking that Cinco de Mayo is just another “Mexican St. Patrick’s Day,” Lionsgate and Televisa will be releasing a new film called “Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla,” this May 3 in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Finally, someone in Hollywood will try to present the real story of Cinco de Mayo. We haven’t checked out the movie yet (we will be writing our review later this week), but still. Promoting this sure beats writing about last year’s Mike’s Hard Lemonade “Be Mariach’d” fail, right?

As the movie’s official release states:

Cinco de Mayo, La Batalla chronicles the story of Mexico’s Battle of Puebla, the most important battle in Mexico’s history. When the unbeatable French army invades Mexico to set up a monarchy, General Ignacio Zaragoza played by Kuno Becker (Goal!, From Prada to Nada), must defend the city of Puebla, commanding a poorly armed and outnumbered troop of men. Meanwhile, two young Mexican lovers manage to find love amidst the chaos of war. Cinco de Mayo chronicles the bravery of a people pushed to the limit, fighting for their nation, their families and their pride.

This article was first published in Latino Rebels.

The Latino Rebels are a collective of social media influentials, bloggers, marketers, journalists, poets, writers, producers, photographers, and marketers. We use humor, commentary, opinions, independent stories, cross-links to others blogs, and our social media platforms to share our universe. 

[Photo courtesy Gala Films]

By Associated Press, Santa Fe New Mexican

WASHINGTON — The immigration overhaul pending before Congress is picking up more high-profile support as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs’ widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, bankrolls a new documentary to promote the effort, directed by Academy Award-winner Davis Guggenheim.

Guggenheim directed Al Gore’s film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, and 2010’s Waiting for Superman, on the wretched state of the nation’s public schools.

By Esther Cepeda, Washington Post Writers Group/Indianapolis Star

Hispanics, by virtue of their underdog status resulting from years of being painted as criminal immigrants by right-wing nativists, have become big-time parity scolds. Whereas not too long ago few complained about being absent in popular culture, today every little factual or fictional “first” is celebrated well out of its deserved proportion.

The first “Hispanic vice president in a movie” is seen by some as no less important a precursor to such a historic moment in real life than Morgan Freeman and Dennis Haysbert making the American public comfortable with the idea of a black president.

Worse than simply telegraphing laziness at getting casting choices right, such Hollywood oversights show a fundamental disregard for both Hispanic audiences — the Motion Picture Association of America recently reported that Hispanics buy a quarter of all tickets sold in the U.S., continuing a strong upward trend — and for the pool of talented Hispanic actors trying to find work.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by xornalcerto]

By Kristina Puga, NBCLatino

Miguel Picker was tired of working in the media and film industry for more than two decades and continually seeing Latinos being depicted negatively, and not enough in the important roles they play in real life. So he and a small crew decided to take matters into their own hands and make their own film. A little more than two years later, and “Latinos Beyond Reel” has been distributed by Media Education Foundation, to universities, high schools and libraries in more than 40 states across the country.  The film has recently had two screenings in New York City — with plans for more.

“We decided to make this film to understand who we are,” says Picker, the Chilean-born Emmy-winning filmmaker. “It is something I hope opens us as Latinos and can open a discussion of how we can change the media landscape — like a kick in the butt.”

The 80-minute documentary features interviews with myriad Latinos who are involved in education, Hollywood, and the media all over the U.S., including filmmakers Bernardo Ruiz andAlex Rivera.

Moctesuma Esparza, the CEO of Maya Cinemas, remembered watching a movie on television when he was a boy.

“I remember seeing this slobbering drunk who was supposed to be Pancho Villa…that was a complete lie and distortion of reality,” he said. “Pancho Villa didn’t even drink. He was an immaculately-dressed military general…an intelligent strategic figure who had an ideology and a purpose. This depiction that I saw in Hollywood…was poisoning my mind — distorting the image of what it was to be Mexicano.”

Edwin Pagan, the cinematographer of “Latinos Beyond Reel,” agrees on the power images in films and media can have over the viewer.

“People’s lives can be changed for better or worse, and we need to make a stand for better stories to be made about our communities, and take charge of the reigns to make our own stories,” he says. “We need to get positions of power and not become complacent.”

Pagan says that he’s beginning to see a push in the right direction in Hollywood.

“One person alone is not going to change its habits,” he says. “In addition to education, and saying this is not right…we need to get together and put a little pressure…things change. People can make a change.”

He points to how “Latinos Beyond Reel” might have played a part in Lupe Ontiveros’ image being added to the Oscars In Memoriam photo gallery. Pagan says although he doesn’t own a television, he saw the reaction of his fellow Latinos on Facebook, and decided to take action.

“I took a clip from the movie [featuring Ontiveros in her various acting roles] and added in the middle, ‘Shame on the Academy for not including her in the in memoriam gallery and observance,’” says Pagan about the short video he posted about the iconic Latina actress that got a lot of attention. “Two days later, they added her image to the gallery.”

Picker says that in his more than 20-year career in the industry, he feels it has improved a little, but not enough to balance the change in demographics.

“If you want to do a film on Abraham Lincoln, for example, I’m not going to get that job,” he says. “If I’m Latino, I can’t do something not about Latinos, but a program that’s done about Machu Picchu, the experts are Western, not Latino experts.”

Picker and Pagan say they want to build a website where this discussion can be channeled and create a dialogue between the Latino community, which will hopefully reach the national level.

“I would get e-mails saying, ‘Thank you for saying things how they are — for putting it in a historical context. The discussions were really nice,’” says Picker about the audience reaction after the screenings in NYC. “I want people to realize it’s not about us getting into the industry, but us changing the industry.”

This article was first published in NBCLatino.

Kristina Puga, Web Producer: A graduate of Barnard College and The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Kristina is the product of an Ecuadorian father and a Russian mother. Raised in culturally diverse Queens, NY, she has been covering the Latino community for about a decade for publications such as the New York Daily News, AOL Latino, NYRemezcla.com, and Urban Latino. She loves to travel and experience different foods and cultures while discovering interesting characters along the way and telling their stories. After a long stay in Oaxaca, Mexico, she now considers it her second home. According to legend, she will be back since she ate chapulines there.

[Photo by Karah Shaffer/BDC]

By Rachel Nuwer, The Credits

When population numbers are taken into account, Hispanics make up the heaviest percentage of moviegoers today. They represent 18 percent of the movie-going population but account for a solid 25 percent of all movies seen in theaters, and their attendance numbers are only going up. Hollywood, of course, has taken note.

“The overall trend is that Hispanics remain the best movie-going customers,” said Ray Ydoyaga, an executive at Nielsen, who helped put together the analytics company’s annual 2012 American Moviegoing report.  “I think by and large that studios understand that Hispanics are one of their most important customers.”

For the past five years, Latinos representation at the theater has remained consistently strong. Savvy studios are increasingly trying to appeal to this important group through culturally relevant advertising strategies in media, publicity and outreach, often issued in both Spanish and English.

“The Latino audience has been and continues to be an important segment of Universal’s domestic box office for all types of films,” said Fabian Castro, Vice President of Multicultural Marketing at Universal Pictures. Hispanics, he said, helped boost a number of recent Universal movies into box office success, including Fast Five, Ted, Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax and Mama.

Rather than push one genre of films over another to potential Latino viewers, Castro said, the studio develops targeted Hispanic outreach for at least 75 percent of its annual slate. “We know that Latinos don’t just go to films with Latino actors or only films with Latino themes,” he continued. “This audience has very broad taste and sees movie-going as a group event.”

That said, as a whole Latinos are drawn to certain genres more strongly than others. According to Nielsen’s survey, Hispanics reported that they most enjoy seeing action/adventure films, followed by comedy and sci-fi/fantasy. Horror ranked in a close fourth place, which is considerably higher than in non-Hispanic viewers, who ranked that genre eighth.

For horror movies, Latino support makes a considerable dent at the box office. Universal’s Mama, for example, grossed $32 million during its first 4-day run over Martin Luther King weekend. Nearly 50 percent of those sales, Universal soon discovered, came from Hispanic moviegoers.

“For whatever reason, Latinas love to be scared,” said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive officer of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. “My wife is one of them, she loves horror films.”

While Mama counts as a mainstream Hollywood film, it does contain strong Latino sensibilities, including a ghost story and supernatural themes familiar to Hispanic audience members. In addition, superstar Mexican director Guillermo del Toro mentoredMama’s Argentinian-Spanish director Andres Muschietti, lending the film extra credibility with the Hispanic crowd.

To better reach Hispanic viewers, Universal decided to debut Mama’s trailer with Spanish graphics on this Hispanic website Univision before its general release the following day. To the best of Castro’s knowledge, this was the first time a studio undertook a worldwide debut of a domestic trailer first in Spanish, and it became the most popular movie trailer in Univision.com’s history.

“The fact that we had such Latino-friendly creative influencing our mass approach paid off wonderfully, and Mama was a remarkable success with that audience,” Castro said. “I think Mama is the 21^st century benchmark case study of how to make and market a film that is for-and-by Hispanics but was always meant to attract a broad worldwide audience.”

For Latinos, it seems the movie-going experience, not just the film itself, plays into the theater’s draw. In their survey, Nielsen asked more than 3,000 random Americans between the ages of 12 to 74 who see at least one movie in the theater per year to rank a variety of statements from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree.” For the statement, “Going to the theater is important so I can spend time with family and friends,” 86 percent of Hispanics agreed versus 77 percent of non-Hispanics. Latinos also reported more enthusiasm for enjoying opening weekend crowds and are more likely to discuss a movie after seeing it than non-Hispanics.

“When these numbers first started to come out, it was no surprise to anyone who observes Latino culture,” Nogales said. “There’s a history of that in Latin countries, there’s a participation factor.”

One surprising finding Ydoyaga and his group uncovered was that Latino viewers who predominantly watch Spanish television are actually more frequent mainstream moviegoers than those who watch only English-speaking TV. “I think the stereotype might have been that those folks who are predominantly Spanish speakers and watch Spanish TV go to the movie theater less, but it’s just the opposite,” Ydoyaga said.

According to Castro, Universal Studios is also making a concerted effort to cast Hispanics in roles not specifically written for Hispanic actors, such as Genesis Rodriguez in Identity Thief, Michael Peña in Tower Heist, Dania Ramirez in American Reunion.

Universal is also the only studio with an executive dedicated exclusively to U.S. Hispanic audiences. “The fact that my job exists is a sign that Universal is serious about attracting this burgeoning audience,” Castro said.

Universal is not the only corporation attempting to include this audience. On February 25, Fandango, Telemundo and Mun2 launched the joint venture Fandango Cine, dedicated to ticket sales specifically for Hispanic audience members. The all-Spanish site is tailored specifically to serving Hispanics.

“As the industry opens its eyes to the potential and importance of the Latino audience, you’ll see the innovation of marketing tactics flourish exponentially,” Castro said. “As a Hispanic movie marketer, I can say it’s an exciting time to be in the business.”

Rachel Nuwer writes for venues such as the New York Times, Scientific American, Grist, Audubon Magazine, Popular Mechanics, ScienceNOW, OnEarth, NOVA, Scholastic, Edible Magazine, and others, and blogs for Smithsonian’s Smart News and Surprising Science.

[Photo courtesy The Credits]

By Nicole Sperling, Los Angeles Times

The National Hispanic Media Coalition issued an open letter Tuesday to the members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expressing their unhappiness that the late “Real Women Have Curves” actress Lupe Ontiveros was not included in the telecast’s “In Memoriam” segment.

Ontiveros died in July. She was 69.

The letter explains that Ontiveros was not a member of the academy, which was the reason for her omission, but it adds that the actress, sponsored by actors Miguel Sandoval and Edward James Olmos, was denied membership in the organization when she applied.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo courtesy Maldef.org]

Read more related stories HERE:

Hispanic media complain about Oscar snub of late Latino actress, Global Post

By Tony Castro, Voxxi

There were no political speeches pressing for immigration reform at Sunday’s 85th Academy Awards, but a documentary short about an undocumented immigrant was one of the big winners at the Oscars.

Inocente is a film that follows Inocente Izucar, a homeless, undocumented immigrant teenage girl in San Diego, as she relentlessly pursues her dream of becoming an artist.

At the same time, the immigration reform debate that has been swirling around undocumented immigrants was a foreign topic to Inocente.

‘We were taken with her’

“I didn’t understand that we were illegal,” she says. “My mom didn’t really tell us so we were left in the dark, which was a good thing ’cause no little kid wants to be scared that he’s gonna be deported.”

As a child, Inocente was constantly uprooted, moving more than 30 times in nine years.

She sometimes slept in crowded quarters beside her three younger brothers under one temporary roof after another, and sometimes even outdoors.

Inocente’s father was deported to Mexico for domestic abuse, and she once stood on a bridge and talked her mother out of jumping to her death.

Directors Sean and Andrea Nix Fine spent nearly two years filming the short documentary on the streets of San Diego. The Fines met Inocente three years ago when she was 15.

“She had something that was sort of childlike in her vulnerability and innocence,” says Andrea Fine, “and the way she dreamed about waiting for her life to start—as well as a beyond-her-years maturity.”

“We were taken with her,” said Sean Fine.

Despite the darkness in her life, Inocente painted brilliant flowers, rainbows and bold geometric designs—and her artistic eye makeup became her signature look.

“In the morning when I get up, it makes me happy just to paint on something,” Inocente told the Fines. “So, what better than my face?”

As a sign of the triumph of her spirit, Inocente, now 18, is no longer homeless.

She has rented an apartment and supports herself selling her artwork in shows often teamed with a screening of the documentary.

“It was a documentary,” she says, humbly discounting her own contributions to the project. “So I didn’t have to act out anything. They just followed me around everywhere.”

This article was first published in Voxxi.

Los Angeles based writer Tony Castro is the author of the critically-acclaimed “Chicano Power: The Emergence of Mexican America” and the best-selling “Mickey Mantle: America’s Prodigal Son.”

[Photo courtesy ARTS]

By Nina Terrero, NBCLatino

Lupe Ontiveros appeared in more than 100 films and dozens of television shows before passing away from liver cancer in July 2012 and was praised by members of the Latino community for helping carve out a Hispanic presence in Hollywood – making many feel that her absence from the obituary segment at the 85th Annual Academy Awards was glaring omission.

This year’s In Memoriam – an obituary segment which honors recently deceased movie talent – included luminaries the likes of filmmaker/screenwriter Nora Ephron, director Tony Scott and actor Michael Clarke Duncan. George Clooney introduced the emotional tribute (“So for those friends who are on this list tonight, and many others who aren’t, we thank you for the memories,” said Clooney) and following the video tribute, Barbra Streisand took to the stage to sing “The Way We Were,” which she dedicated to her deceased friend and composer Marvin Hamlisch.

And while the segment included nearly 40 members of the Hollywood community, the segment’s omission of Ontiveros – whose length list of film credits over a 35 year career including hits like “Selena” and “The Goonies” – sparked a near-immediate reaction from Latino movie goers and film fans on social media.

“Everyone in the audience would have recognized Lupe from one film or another had she been included in that tribute,” says Lalo Alcaraz, an award-winning illustrator and NBC Latino contributor. One of the first to tweet his disappointment over the Academy’s omission of Ontiveros, Alcaraz says that her absence is a reminder that the Mexican American actress may have died without finding acceptance from her peers in the industry.

“For the Academy to disregard her is a way of letting Latinos know that they never saw her as anything but a maid – that they didn’t find her important,” notes Alcaraz. “It’s a disservice to her great work.”

Oscars Academy: We didn't include Lupe Ontiveros in the In Memoriam segment because we thought she really was a maid!

February 25, 2013 12:49 am via TweetDeckReplyRetweetFavorite

@laloalcaraz

Lalo Alcaraz

Ontiveros, who once estimated that she had played a maid more than 150 times, was one of  Hollywood’s most popular Latina actresses, appearing in immigration films like 1983’s “El Norte” and movies as mainstream as “As Good as It Gets,” where the El Paso, Texas  native co-starred opposite two-time Oscar winner Jack Nicholson.

And while the tribute reel also failed to include high-profile entertainment talent such as Andy Griffith, Larry Hagman, and Phyllis Diller, movie critic and NBC Latino contributor Jack Rico says the situation is sadly reflective of the Academy’s lack of awareness regarding Latino talent.

“There’s still a struggle for the Hispanic actor and filmmaking talent to make a name for themselves in Hollywood,” says Rico, who explains that the Academy’s selection process is largely guided by measuring accomplishment and popularity, which lead to the decision to omit actress Farrah Fawcett from the broadcast tribute following her death in 2009. “But if you are Hispanic, Lupe’s omission rubs you the wrong way, because she was certainly talented but the Academy didn’t see her as a high-profile actress. Hopefully this won’t set a precedent where if the Academy could omit Lupe, they can omit wonderful character actors like Luis Guzmán andDanny Trejo in the future.”

Charles Ramírez Berg, a Latino film and media studies professor at the University of Texas-Austin, says that the omission is reflective of the Academy’s lack of diversity.

“I don’t think anyone really said, ‘Let’s keep Latinos off the list,’ explains Ramírez Berg. “I think that there simply isn’t a Hispanic presence in the Academy to advocate for Latino talent.”

A 2012 LA Times study of Oscar voters found that 94 percent of the Academy’s 5,765 members are Caucasian and 77 percent male. Black voters are estimated to be about 2 percent of its membership, while Latinos comprise less than that number. While the Academy – which prides itself on including “the most accomplished men and women working in cinema” – does feature members like actor Erik Estrada, the fact remains says, Rico, “there needs to be more Hispanics in these committees to reflect the diversity of the industry in general.”

While the Academy did create an online gallery of photos honoring those who didn’t make it on to the broadcast, Ontiveros was also omitted from the slide show as well, prompting Ramírez Berg to comment that Ontiveros being excluded from Academy Awards history deprives audiences of a story reminiscent of the industry’s best films.

“Hers is an inspiring story about a girl who made it from El Paso to Hollywood – that’s literally as good as it gets,” says Ramírez Berg. “It’s the quintessential American story about making it if you have the talent to back it up.”

“And if anyone had the talent, it was Lupe Ontiveros.”

This article was first published in NBCLatino.

Nina Terrero is a web producer at NBCLatino. She is passionate about social issues, health, education, discovering untold stories among U.S. Latinos and exploring Latino culture through food, literature, theatre and the arts, she holds a B.A. in Government from Cornell University. She is also a graduate of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Arts & Science, where she received an M.A. in Political Science. Of Puerto Rican and Dominican heritage, Nina worked at ABC News as a digital reporter before joining the team at NBC Latino.

[Photo courtesy Maldef.org]

By Maria Hinojosa, Latino USA

The new film Bless Me, Ultima based on the Rudolfo Anaya novel is out now in theaters. Maria Hinojosa speaks to actor Miriam Colon, who stars as the curandera, Última.

This article was first published in Latino USA.

Miriam Colon Valle is known as one of the pioneers of the Hispanic Theatre movement in New York City. She came to the United States with a scholarship through the University of Puerto Rico and later became the first Puerto Rican to be accepted at the Famed Actor’s studio. She was appointed to serve as the New York State Council for the Arts by former Governor Nelson Rockefeller. As the president and founder of the Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre Company Inc., she produced more than 100 plays.

[Photo courtesy Arenas Group]

By Adriana Villavicencio, Being Latino

Latinos don’t win Oscars. They star in movies, make movies, write movies, design costumes and write scores for movies, but very few have taken the coveted statuette home.

In the history of the Academy Awards, only 15 Latinos have been nominated in acting categories and only 5 have won.

Winners: The first winner was Jose Ferrer, a Puerto Rican stage actor who played Cyrano de Bergerac in 1950. Others winners include the beautiful Rita Moreno for West Side Story and the formidable Anthony Quinn for Viva Zapata! U.S.-born Cuban Mercedes Ruehl won Best Supporting actress for The Fisher King in 1991, and charismatic Benicio Del Toro (twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor) won in 2000 for his role in Traffic.

Nominees: Edward James Olmos was nominated for his unforgettable role inStand and Deliver and Andy Garcia for Godfather III (though he doesn’t like to consider himself a Latino actor anyways). Proud Latinas, Rosie Perez and Selma Hayek, were also nominated for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress respectively.European winners we like to claim: Both Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem have been nominated more than once and won one each in Best Supporting categories. They may be one of the most attractive couples who speak Spanish, but they’re technically Hispanic not Latino. Sadly, no Latina has ever won an Oscar for Best Actress.

We might have had some false hope in 2006 when 18 Latinos were nominated for various categories including Best Film (Babel), Best Director (Alejandro González Iñárritu), and Best Foreign Film (Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Laberyinth). None took it home and the next few years saw an even greater dearth of nominees.

The problem is bigger than the Oscars.

Partially to blame for the Oscar drought is the limited opportunities for Latinos in film. You can’t win an Oscar if you don’t get a chance to play an Oscar-worthy role. By and large, though, Latino roles are limited to archetypes and clichés – the poor maid, the gang member, the Latin Lover, the spicy temptress. And sometimes, when there are juicy roles for Latinos, it is a non-Latino who gets the opportunity to play them (see Al Pacino inScarface).

Hispanics and Latinos –  they are usually lumped together in the U.S. – make up more than 15% of the U.S. population, but they remain just as underrepresented in the film industry as they were decades ago (as are Asians and African Americans). This year in particular was heralded as “Hollywood’s Whiteout” by the New York Times film critics, who pointed out that the 2010 films nominated for best picture are even whiter than those nominated in 1940.

How many more decades will we be shut out and overlooked. When will the talent and vision of Latino filmmakers and actors be allowed to shine as brightly as the Oscars they undoubtedly deserve?

For a look at Latinos doing their thing in film, check out our series on Being Latino at the Sundance Film Festival.

This article was first published in Being Latino.

Dr. Adriana Villavicencio is the youngest child of Ecuadorian immigrants. She has moved 29 times in her life, taking her on a journey from California to Bangalore, India, and New York City, where she recently earned a Ph.D. in Education Leadership and works as a Research Associate at New York University. An avid traveler, Adriana has collected experiences in four different continents and 16 different countries.

[Screenshot courtesy Oscars.com]

By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic

A deeply satisfying feat of storytelling, “Bless Me, Ultima” makes a difficult task look easy. It combines innocence and experience, the darkness and wonder of life, in a way that is not easy to categorize but a rich pleasure to watch.

Taken from Rudolfo Anaya’s landmark book, perhaps the bestselling Chicano novel of all time, “Bless Me, Ultima” presented certain obstacles. Though its protagonist is a very young boy, what he observes of life is not exclusively kindhearted. The story has the honesty of emotion you’d associate with having a 6-year-old as protagonist, but likely material for a Disney film this is not.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo courtesy Arenas Group]

By Andrew Stweart, Variety

Hispanics continue to be America’s driving force at the multiplex, as the demographic accounted for 25% of Stateside admissions last year, according to a 2012 market report released Tuesday by Nielsen National Research Group.

Meanwhile, attendance per person for new releases saw a slight dip in 2012: On average, moviegoers bought 6.8 tickets per person vs. 6.9 in 2011.

Click on picture to read full story.

[Photo by blmurch]

From the textmex obsessed imagination of William A. Nericcio

La Cucaracha

In the film, memorable more for its contribution to the evolution of Technicolor technology than the script or the acting, Steffi Duna plays lead “Mexican”–the Hungarian actress made a name for herself in the first part of the 20th century playing “fiery Latina femme fatales.”

Most compelling of all? The words of the song itself, a paean to lost legs, marijuana, and much mas more–in addition, they provide a short course in cultural studies and the Mexican Revolution.

For more of the backstory on La Cucaracha, go here: http://screened.blogspot.com/2005/12/la-cucaracha.html

This article was first published in 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.

[Photo courtesy textmex galleryblog]