INFORMES USA
Nº29. Septiembre, 2014
The Rebel of Chicano Cinema:
Anglo-Mexican Intertextuality in Robert Rodriguez’s Films
Noelia Gregorio
Latinos are established as an essential part of both demographics and cultural networks
in the United States. Nevertheless, in the last few decades, especially due to the so-called “Latino
Boom” of the 1990s, the media interest in this ethnic group has dramatically increased, mainly
due to the demographic growth and upward mobility of Latinos. In this context, my dissertation
explores the cinema of Robert Rodriguez, as both harbinger and main practitioner of a significant
change in trend, in which Latinidad spreads, to a greater or lesser extent, through the Anglo
community of the United States, while at the same time embraces postmodern views such as
hybridity and transnationalism.
Since movies are direct and indirect reflections of the historical moments in which they
are made, the representation of Chicanos in U.S. films also follows these trends. Film scholar
Richard Dyer (1998:8) explores the importance of cultural studies and the politics of film regarding
the ideological textual analysis. In order to fully understand a cinematic work, the aesthetic and
the cultural cannot stand in opposition. That is why, for Dyer, the aesthetic dimension of a film
never exists apart from how it is conceptualized, how it is received, being closely linked to his
historical or cultural particularity. Therefore, contemporary filmic trends focus on the particularities
of culture founded on social divisions of class, gender, race, sexuality, and so on.
The medium’s traditional representations of this ethnic group indulged in negative
stereotypes. As film scholar Charles Ramirez Berg claims, the history of Latino images in U.S.
cinema is in large measure a pageant of some basic stereotypes such as the harlot, the greaser
or the Latin lover (2002:66). In opposition to these traditional mainstream Hollywood conventions,
we find the Latinos’ own view, in particular that of the Mexican American filmmakers. This Latino
ethnic group, especially since the creation of Chicano cinema in the 1970s, has explored and
analyzed their own experience and their coexistence with the Anglo community by rejecting
Hollywood mainstream visual techniques and narrative patterns.
Within this context, which brings together two apparently divergent cinematic realities
such as mainstream Hollywood and independent Chicano cinema, Chicano filmmaker Robert
Rodriguez puts forward a syncretic discourse that combines certain characteristics from both
cultures. Chicano filmmaker Rodriguez’s cinema maintains the Chicano’s “strong connections to
both their nation of origin and the one to which they have migrated” emphasizing “a two-way
movement across relatively fluid national borders” (Kanellos 1164). Thus, in his filmography, there
is no place for exclusion as both ethnic realities, Chicano and Anglo, are intertwined in order to
strengthen the mainstream ties and the Latino visibility.
Hollywood films have been far more interested in Mexicans and their US descendants
(Chicanos) than in any other ethnic group from Latin America, providing a stereotyped version
based on their culture, language and national origins. Mexican American characters have been
limited to a few specific formulas, such as the social problem film, the western or the gangster
movie, limiting the representation of Chicano identity to specific roles. (Berumen; Noriega;
Ramirez Berg).
As Robyn Wiegman points out, the history of the study of stereotypes in films has traced
issues about “representation and difference, the political economy of the industry, spectatorship
and identification […] and the relationship between film and culture” (161). Despite the enormous
attention stereotype theories have gained over the last decades, my ultimate aim is to move the
conversation of Latino representation and Chicano cinema from a traditional view of negative
representations to new discourses based on the crossover of two cinematic realities (ChicanoAnglo U.S) that situates itself not in the margin-centre opposition but as a de-centred,
transnational polyphony.
Charles Ramirez Berg describes some of the strategies used by the movie industry in
order to "deslatinizar" the contents of their products and how these can be subverted in many
ways:
One way to counter attitudes such progressive politics is to slip into mass-mediated genre
formulas - Cheech Marin as eleven o'clock put it, "So that they [the viewers, but, presumably,
producers as well] do not taste it, but they get the effect. It's not a bad tactic”. As Armond White
has noted, speaking of recent African American cinema, there is much to be said for films that
choose not to "objectify their politics as an issue" but instead make their subversive statements
"inherent in the very presentation of character and setting, and in the manipulation of
images”. (219-220).
The stereotype represented by any of the characters in a film production is and has been
the most obvious resource that filmmakers have used to show a certain type. But the tools used
to display the stereotype not only come from the characters but aesthetically from some formal
devices (mise-en-scène, camera movement, music or the script), elements that will support the
filmic process in order to reject or embrace a particular ideology.
During the 1990’s, as the Chicano Movement became more globalized and
internationalized, Chicano filmmakers began to represent Chicano ethnicity without the
complexities of the past. Chicano film topics such as the border region or immigration began to
serve as a “metaphor for identity in transition, an identity rooted in conquest and bi-cultural power
shifts” (Christine List 10). This understanding of the Chicano self as a hybrid, transnational
process led to the production of Chicano films that go beyond a one-dimensional depiction of
Chicanismo. Although Robert Rodriguez leads this innovative and subversive trend, which
explores and undermine assumptions of identity in Chicano culture and cinema, some filmmakers
paved the way some years before Rodriguez’s arrival. In 1987, Born in East L.A (Cheech Marin)
and La Bamba (Luis Valdez) championed the beginnings of this dialogue between both cultures,
transgressing borders not only but Hollywood but by Chicano cinema itself.
The incorporation of Chicano cinema into the mainstream of American culture has been
analyzed as well by Kyle David Wegner (2006), who coins the term post-chicano in order to
describe those artists who were born after 1960, coming into maturity during the Reagan era or
later and embody their Chicano-ness “without any nostalgic allegiance to the past but with an
understanding of the harsh realities of the present” (12). Hence, Robert Rodriguez fits in a Latino
generation who is far from being ashamed of their U.S. roots, renewing and transcending the
norms that narrowed the traditional conception of Chicano identity.
Robert Rodriguez has become, in his twenty-year-long cinematic career, one of the
highest grossing directors of the U.S. cinema landscape and the champion of a third generation /
wave of Chicano filmmakers that from the 70’s bounced into the U.S. industry. I have mentioned
above that the desire of this generation of artists is not so much social claim by docudramas,
movies pamphleteering or revolutions, but their aim is to get the message from within the
Hollywood industry itself. That is, they slowly insert Chicano elements in movies and thus subvert
stereotypes. Thereby the message is less explicit but no less shocking.
My dissertation explores how Robert Rodriguez‘s films both challenge established
stereotypes and promote the crossover narrative in mainstream Hollywood cinema. His work can
be divided into film “cycles” presented as remakes, sequels and trilogies. Rodriguez’s process of
remaking one film into the other (El Mariachi-Desperado) and the revisions of his own stories (the
crossover between characters in Spy Kids- Machete) serves as a strategy to enhance the movie’s
intertextuality. Combining each of these strategies with allusions, quotes and parodies of previous
works or even from his own films emphasizes the postmodern way of filmmaking that Rodriguez
has shown over his cinematic productions. Postmodernism that affects not only the Anglo reality
but, as Hector A. Torres points out, “the Mariachi-Desperado pair speaks of nuestra postmodern
America” (159), referring to Latino’s own reality.
Rodriguez’s highlights can be gathered in:

El Mariachi trilogy ( El Mariachi 1992; Desperado 1995; Once upon a time in Mexico
2003) (Figure 1)

The Horror cycle ( From Dusk till Dawn 1996; The Faculty 1998; Planet Terror 2007)
(Figure 2)

The Family-Adventure Films ( Spy Kids 2001; Spy Kids 2 2002; Spy Kids 3D: Game Over
2003) (Figure 3)

Machete Trilogy ( Machete 2010; Machete Kills 2013 ----- ) (Figure 4)
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
These films show an interesting and original mixture of two artistic realities such as
Chicano and Anglo realities. A pluralism latent in this type of work, which produces, as detailing
Subervi-Vélez, a process of "ethnic differentiation and heterogeneity sustained, implying practice
of one culture while participating in the majority society" (qtd. in Valdivia 24). When the focus is
on the Mexican and Latino side of Rodriguez’s work, we find traditional topics as Chicano folklore,
pre-Columbian myths, identity questions and social issues concerning gender and immigration.
On the other hand, the Anglo side of his work is underlined thanks to the use of U.S. genres
(action films, neo-noir, blaxploitation), visual patterns (Greyhound style), the extreme use of
violence and the insertion of postmodern allusions (parody, intertextuality, pastiche, mixture). This
betwixt and between cultural practice makes Rodriguez’s work universally acceptable to all kind
of audiences and, at the same time, prove a high commitment to his ethnic Chicano roots.
After the data analyzed, and since academic studies are unquestionably part of society
and culture, it is inevitable that Chicano studies and consequently Latino studies will dramatically
increase due to the upward mobility that Latinos are experiencing within the U.S. both in media
and in other areas such as politics or music, make of the Latinos issue in the media a subject
absolutely relevant and contemporary. Robert Rodriguez's figure stands as one of the leading
figures in American mainstream cinema, opening an interesting dialogue between the culture of
origin, the Mexican culture, and the host one, the American culture.
As Clara Rodriguez proclaims in Heroes, Lovers and Others (2004), in contrast with what
was observed in early Chicano cinema, in which filmmakers established an opposition against
U.S. culture, this new generation of artists are willing to enter into the coordinates of the American
mainstream cinema. In this process, the director will be able to insert their message through genre
cinema, which does not mean that the message is less effective, but the wrapper fits perfectly
with This research understands the work of Robert Rodriguez as a turning point in contemporary
Chicano cinema. In order to explain that, this dissertation suggests that it is possible to enter
mainstream media institutions and maintain one’s ethnic identity, focusing in this case in the
Latino community. The choice of mainstream cinema to do this research, to the detriment of more
committed social cinema stems from the importance of current mainstream cinema, speaking in
social terms. Within this type of filmmaking, messages can reach wider audiences, and are
consumed by both Latino audiences as the general audience, so that their effectiveness is higher
compared to films made by and for some communities compartmentalized. The film productions
are developed in a particular historical and cultural space and, therefore, tend to reflect the values
and the prevailing ideology even when we are talking about genre cinema.
Robert Rodriguez’s work represents the integration within Hollywood mainstream cinema
of a new cinematic tendency that defies the current national borders and, at the same time, joins
together Hollywood dominant norms and the social pattern of independent Chicano cinema.
Following the Latino representation theories initiated by Charles Ramirez Berg and Chon Noriega,
I expect to offer a specific interpretation of a relevant part of Rodriguez’s films that has not been
explored yet and, generally speaking, to contribute to the current debate on the history and
evolution of Latino representation in mainstream Hollywood films.
To conclude, the pluralism of these productions, which are based on the heterogeneity
and multiplicity, not only provide entertainment but lead to debates on transnationalism,
hybridization, gender, class and immigration, among others. Therefore, the intellectual sensibility
of Robert Rodriguez opposed in many ways to that of their predecessors, but at the same time,
analyzes the same issues from a different perspective. Rodriguez introduces the universality of
Latino issues in the "anti-ethnic" world of Hollywood, thanks in part to the growing Latino demand
in America.
In this context, the mainstream is forced to give Latinos their own space to talk about their
experiences from their own point of view. Therefore, Latino invisibility slowly disappears, so to
show to Anglo society its vital part in the society and culture. This transnational willingness, as
we said, to openly embrace both cultures, the Mexican and the Anglos, break intentionally the
national boundaries of current U.S. cinema and opens to a hybrid cinematic response to the
monolithic mainstream cinema structure.
1. References
Berumen, F. The Chicano / Hispanic Image in American Film. New York: Vantage Press, 1995.
Print.
Dyer, R. “Introduction to film studies”. Hill, J. and Gibson, P. The Oxford Guide to Film Studies.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Kanellos, N. The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Latino Literature. Westport: Greenwood Press,
2008. Print.
List, C. Chicano Images: Refiguring Ethnicity in Mainstream Film. New York: Garland Pub, 2014.
Print.
Noriega, C. Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Print.
Ramirez Berg, C. Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance. Austin: University
of Texas Press, 2002. Print.
Rodríguez, C. Heroes, Lovers, and others: The Story of Latinos in Hollywood. Washington:
Smithsonian Books, 2004. Print.
Subervi-Vélez, F. “Mass Communication and Hispanics”. Padilla, F. Handbook of Hispanic
Cultures in the United States: Sociology. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1994. Print.
Torres, H. “Chicano Doppelgänger: Robert Rodriguez’s First Remake and Secondary
Revision.” Aztlan, 2001: 159-70. Print.
Valdivia, A. Latina/os and the Media. Malden: Polity Press, 2010. Print.
Wegner, K. Children of Aztlán: Mexican American popular culture and the Post-chicano aesthetic.
Diss. State University of New York at Buffalo, 2006. Print.
Wiegman, R. “Introduction to film studies”. Hill, J. and Gibson, P. The Oxford Guide to Film
Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos “Benjamin Franklin”
Universidad de Alcalá
www.institutofranklin.net