Personal Reflection on Chicano Film

Film has the potential to provide multifaceted multimedia insight into a culture and community. Mexico has a rich and varied cinematic history, and the traditions and themes of Mexican filmmaking have naturally spilled across the border to influence Chicano-made films in the United States. When Chicanos produce, write, and direct their own films, they remain firmly in control of the ways their people and community are portrayed. Thus, film can become a medium of political and social empowerment even when the film is not directly about a political issue.

Many Chicano films do, however, directly address social justice like Luis Bunuel's classic Los Olvidados. Los Olvidados continues to have an important message about class conflict in Mexico. As such, Los Olvidados is much more about class-based social justice than it is about Chicano culture. Similarly, Harry Gamboa's short film "Baby Kake" is less about Chicano culture than it is about gender issues. Gamboa does, however, use some common tropes in Mexican filmmaking like magical realism and surrealism.

Not surprisingly, Edward James Olmos's American Me is the most Anglo-American in style of these three films. As a crime drama, the film does capitalize on audience hunger for mafia movies and inevitably draws on stereotypes of the Chicano criminal underground. Yet American Me is a Chicano-produced film and its entertainment value far outweighs any potential problems with focusing on this true part of Chicano history. In fact, the filmmaker does illustrate how Chicano gangs like La Eme formed in response to systematic discrimination.

Watching all three of these films on a personal computer rather than in a theater allows the viewer to take notes and reflect while pausing the film. This method of watching also permits multiple viewers to pause the films and discuss the issues or ask questions during playback, which would not be possible if viewing in a theater. Regarding Gamboa's short, few film venues show shorts and one of the only ways to distribute and watch them is online. The online format also allows for cross-referencing and fact checking.

For example, I was able to look up key vocabulary words in both English and Spanish, which inspired me to learn more about old Chicano slang words like those used in American Me and also English idioms and phrases. I also started to research more about the Zoot Suit Riots and La Eme from a sociological perspective. Film viewing online therefore provides an active, engaged audience experience.

Two of these three films reveal the Chicano experience in Los Angeles, whereas one focuses only on Mexico, and even then mainly Distrito Federal. American Me is a historical drama that captures a pivotal moment in Chicano history. Like many of the mafia movies depicting Italian-Americans, American Me shies away from too much political and social commentary and thereby misses out on the opportunity to explore the reasons for gang formation.

Gangs have torn apart many communities in America, but they originally existed as an alternative social structure in areas that lacked access to the social and cultural capital available to members of the dominant culture. Los Olvidados also shows how criminality is often a response to economic disparity and social injustice. Both Olmos and Bunuel use violence judiciously, to drive home the extreme measures members of an underclass sometimes go when their opportunities to succeed in legitimate ways are met with continual frustration or failure.

In a more comical manner, Gamboa reveals the frustrations of the mother who laments the birth of her monstrous baby. She blames the baby for keeping her trapped and dependent on monthly child support from the deadbeat dad and is relieved when both baby and husband both die. "I don't have to depend on anyone. At last I'm free, at last I'm happy." Of the three films, this is the only one to explore gender issues in any detail.

Watching films like these three enhances my understanding of Chicano and Mexican arts and aesthetics. Film is a unique medium because of the way it can be completely literal or wholly surreal. Of these three films, "Baby Kake" proves to be the most surreal, with elements like the adult baby and the "Marie Antoinette" character. Like other shorts I have seen, this film focuses on one issue or character, in this case the issue of gender roles.

Surreal elements imbue "Baby Kake" with humor, making it so that the message of gender equity is delivered in a fresh way rather than using cliches. On the other hand, the surreal elements present in Los Olvidados, such as the scene where the bird flies through the window, have a more sinister feel. The juxtaposition of humor with cynicism is present in both films on some level, and provides a rich viewing experience for the audience.

It is important to explore the social justice issues and when they become particularly painful as they are in all of these films, to detach with humor, irony, or surrealism. Chicano cinema has long been characterized by its willingness to address deep social issues but to use symbolism and surrealism rather than simply bleak realism.

American Me could be criticized for its cliche portrayal of Latino gang culture, and yet because the situations depicted in the film were based on real people and events, Olmos cannot be criticized for taking on this subject matter. Life for Chicano people has often been gritty and occasionally violent, and Bunuel shows the same through youth in Mexico City.

Bunuel paints a bleaker portrait of life for the poor in the city, but Olmos does show how different social classes emerged and how the poor empowered themselves, albeit in criminal ways. Olmos also shows how codes of honor do exist among gang members and especially those connected by blood, whereas Bunuel does not depict such nuanced morality.

Having seen Chicano/a people and Mexicans being portrayed in stereotypical and offensive ways on screen, it is more than refreshing to watch films that have been written and produced by Chicanos and Mexicans, about Chicanos and Mexicans. An interesting and humorous example of Chicano self-portrayal is Cheech Marin, who write and directed Born in East LA. This film evokes almost every stereotype about Chicanos, from illegal immigration to the slang and the lowriders.

Yet because Cheech Martin is in full creative control, the film ends up being inoffensive and funny. Comedy is a tricky medium, and I usually enjoy watching how comedy writers and actors can make fun of themselves. When we use art (including film, music,.