Film Studies

Latinas in the United States: A Historical Encyclopedia records the contribution of women of Latin American birth or heritage to the economic and cultural development of the United States. This encyclopedia is the first comprehensive gathering of scholarship on Latinas. ...

This book documents in-depth the historical and socio-economic factors that created Latino and Latina images and stereotypes, beginning with the conquest of the American continent by Europeans followed by colonization and the creation of new nation-states in the early 1800s. These concepts were incorporated into the popular literature of the 19th century and then into the infant motion picture art form in the 1890s. ...

Latinx representation in the popular imagination has infuriated and befuddled the Latinx community for decades. These misrepresentations and stereotypes soon became as American as apple pie. But these cardboard cutouts and examples of lazy storytelling could never embody the rich traditions and histories of Latinx peoples. Not seeing real Latinxs on TV and film reels as kids inspired the authors to dive deep into the world of mainstream television and film to uncover examples of representation, good and bad. ...

A rogues' gallery of Mexican bandits, bombshells, lotharios, and thieves saturates American popular culture. Remember Speedy Gonzalez? "Mexican Spitfire" Lupe Vélez? The Frito Bandito? Familiar and reassuring--at least to Anglos--these Mexican stereotypes are not a people but a text, a carefully woven, articulated, and consumer-ready commodity. In this original, provocative, and highly entertaining book, William Anthony Nericcio deconstructs Tex[t]-Mexicans in films, television, advertising, comic books, toys, literature, and even critical theory, revealing them to be less flesh-and-blood than "seductive hallucinations," less reality than consumer products, a kind of "digital crack." ...

This work documents how Hispanics have participated in American film from 1894 through the contemporary period.

Heroes, Lovers, and Others tells the fascinating history of Latinos in film, from the birth of the movies to the present, through a series of stories about Hollywood's most famous and enduring stars. The book features such Latino legends as Dolores del Rio, Rita Hayworth, Ramon Navarro, Desi Arnaz, Anthony Quinn, Raquel Welch, Selma Hayek, and Antonio Banderas. ...

The Hispanic Image in Hollywood: A Postcolonial Approach offers an in-depth analysis of how Hispanics are represented in American cinema. Film production is a reflection of American historical processes that have defined Hispanics and American mainstream identity as oppositional forces in the domestic political establishment. Hispanic difference, as depicted in film, is understood as the by-product of Western philosophy, Western science, territorial expansion, colonialism and American nation building, wherein Hispanics have been identified as the antithetical, ubiquitous Other. ...

This book explores the role film and television stardom has played in establishing, reinforcing, and challenging popular ethnic notions of Latina/os in the United States since the silent film era of the 1920s. In addition to documenting the importance of Latina and Latino stars to American film and television history, Mary C. Beltrán focuses on key moments in the construction of "Hollywood Latinidad" by analyzing the public images of these stars as promoted by Hollywood film studios, television networks, producers, and the performers themselves. ...

The Bronze Screen honors the past, illuminates the present, and opens a window to the future of Latinos in motion pictures. From silent movies to urban gang films, stereotypes of the Greaser, the Lazy Mexican, the Latin lover and the Dark lady are examined. Rare and extensive footage traces the progression of this distorted screen image to the increased prominence of today's Latino actors, writers and directors.

Latino Americans, also termed Hispanics, as individuals with ancestry in the US Southwest, Mexico, Puerto Rico, or Latin American countries, are widely diverse, even while their cinematic and televisual representations have often flattened differences in their construction of an imagined, universal Latin-ness, or Latinidad. This representational history has its roots in social history and particularly the historical oppression of Mexican Americans. Mexican Americans also historically have been the largest US Latino group.

Filmmakers Miguel Picker and Chyng Sun examine how U.S. news and entertainment media portray -- and do not portray -- Latinos. They uncover a pattern of gross under-representation. They challenge viewers to think critically about the wide-ranging effects of these media stereotypes.