The Bronze Screen

I enjoyed this piece by Rosa Linda Fregoso. I have to be honest, I have seen a few Cheech and Chong movies and I never really considered Cheech Marin as a social commentator but after reading this piece I am convinced. The explination on how the film objectifies the French girl in red, white and green. I found that to be an interesting comparison to the tattoo of the inmates wife. How they objectify the French women and degrade the Chicano women. I was a little surprised that this essay dealt solely with Born in East L.A.

Political satire and symbolism is a common tool in film and art for that matter to express a particular view point in either a subtle or interesting way. Either way, after reading this I feel the need to rent Born in East L.A and give more consideration to the depth of Cheech Marin.

What other movies did Fregoso anaylze for this study?

I was reading some of the other posts and I agree with the student who was talking about the HOA. I too am a proud (not so much) member of the HOA. This allows other people to dictate what I can put on my porch and what color blinds I can have in my window, it is not a fun thing. I too can understand the association (no pun intended) to the rich landowners in LA.

I rather enjoyed If He Hollers Let Him Go. It was a vivid illustration of the treatment and inequality of African Americans in the 1940’s. Chester Himes paints a raw picture of the main character, Bob’s, struggle with American society. Himes manifests his inner battle through Bob’s haunting dreams. Himes portrays the white characters in the novel as almost oblivious to the maltreatment of African Americans. One of the underlying themes that Himes seems to express is that democracy and the American Dream obviously did not apply to the African Americans during this time period.

I find it sad though, that at the end of the book Bob joins the army. Its almost ironic that he will now fight for the country that he was constantly at odds with.

Like my classmates, I too found this article very challenging. So much so that I had to look up the actual definition of the word transnationalism.

Alright, the task at hand, the articles. The first thing that I noticed in Hall’s article was a continuation of our conversation Tuesday: Hegemony. Hall offers us a definition of culture by first explaining “this emergence is both a displacement and a hegemonic shift in the definition of culture”. I thought that this was an interesting segway from the Marxist theories of Tuesday discussion to the popular culture discussions of today. It seems to me that Hall is trying to convey that the frontier of culture is constantly changing with the ideologies of the times, a concept that we learned directly in the previous articles. I am glad to see this concept in a different context because I feel that it is easier to wrap my head around.

Hall talks in depth about the postmodernist movement. Merriam-Websters defines Post modernism as of, relating to, or being any of various movements in reaction to modernism that are typically characterized by a return to traditional materials and forms (as in architecture) or by ironic self-reference and absurdity (as in literature) b: of, relating to, or being a theory that involves a radical reappraisal of modern assumptions about culture, identity, history, or language. This seems like a rather sterile definition but Hall further clarifies Post Modernism as having a fascination with difference. For the purposes of his studies, Hall indicates that popular culture contains paradoxes. If popular culture is a shared experience of individuals believing that they are expressing themselves, then it seems odd that the same popular culture dictates the stereotypes that pigeon hold people.

Discussion

Is the frontier of culture constantly expanding and changing or are we just homogenizing globally?