By Rose Cohen ’22
Arts & Entertainment Editor
In honor of National Hispanic/Latine Heritage Month, Mount Holyoke News asked Bianka Ballina, Mount Holyoke Fellow and Visiting Lecturer in the department of film, media and theater, to recommend five movies by Latine and Hispanic directors. According to Ballina, all of the films listed below revolve around Latine narratives and “take into account more recent representations of the Latinx community, particularly made by female directors, in order to account for the long history of male-centric narratives.”
In April 2021, the University of California Los Angeles released their annual Hollywood Diversity Report and acknowledged there was an increasing number of people of color who worked as directors last year. Despite this reported rise of a racially diverse group of filmmakers in 2020, the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, a think tank studying diversity in entertainment, reported in their 2021 study, titled “Hispanic and Latino Representation in Film: Erasure On Screen and Behind the Camera Across 1,300 Popular Movies,” that only 4.2 percent of directors working on top-grossing films were Hispanic or Latine.
“Zoot Suit” (1981)
Hank Reyna (Daniel Valdez), the young leader of the 38th Street gang in Los Angeles, has recently been accepted to the United States navy. Throughout the movie, he has to navigate these two worlds clashing in the midst of a legal battle. The drama film, based on a true incident and a play of the same name, takes place during World War II and follows the wrongful conviction of the aforementioned gang. Directed by Luis Valdez, brother of American actor Daniel Valdez, it keeps viewers interested by blending suspenseful courtroom scenes and glimpses of romance. At times, the combination of violence, dance sequences and lively, upbeat Spanish music creates an atmosphere that feels like a fever dream, prompting the viewer to question whether what they’re seeing on screen, or the narrator himself, can be trusted.
“Mosquita y Mari” (2012)
Yolanda (Fenessa Pineda) is a quiet fifteen-year-old who gets good grades in school and has a close relationship with her parents. Meanwhile, Mari (Venecia Troncoso) has a rebellious streak and worries about her family’s financial future. The two do not know one another, even though they live across the street from each other. When Mari winds up in Yolanda’s geometry class, Yolanda notices Mari needs help studying for exams. The girls become close friends, but the lingering glances shared between the two suggest they have romantic feelings for one another. Viewers get to see the relationship between Yolanda and Mari unfold as the story progresses. Part of the film’s beauty lies in its richly developed atmosphere, shown over numerous picturesque shots of Huntington Park, California, where the story takes place.
“Selena” (1997)
In this American biographical film, Jennifer Lopez, an iconic Latina singer and actress, delivers a stellar performance as Selena Quintanilla, the “Queen of Tejano Music.” “Selena” follows the pop star’s childhood and adolescence with a focus on her complicated yet tight-knit relationships with her family and her husband, guitarist Chris Pérez. The movie does not dwell too centrally on Quintanilla’s brutal murder, and viewers only learn of Quintanilla’s death toward the end of the film. In an interview with NPR, Deborah Paredez, cultural critic and author of “Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory,” spoke about the film. “We learn about how [Quintanilla] ascended to fame as both a Tejana superstar, but also as an international superstar,” Paredez said.
“Beatriz at Dinner” (2017)
In this comedy-drama, Puerto Rican director Miguel Arteta provides an insightful commentary on the privilege enjoyed by wealthy white Americans. The story centers around the relationship between Beatriz (Salma Hayek), a health therapist, and a pair of her clients, a husband-wife duo (Connie Britton and David Warshofsky). When Beatriz’s blue Volkswagen breaks down at the couple’s lavish mansion, the wife invites her to stay for a dinner party that will be attended by their wealthy friends in the business world. Hayek steals the show, especially when delivering poignant lines about the duality of life and death. In one particularly intense scene, Hayek says, “You think killing is hard, huh? You wait in the bushes, the animal might outrun you or charge you. It’s not easy to get your shot, hm? Try healing something. That is hard.”
“Real Women Have Curves” (2002)
A young America Ferrera plays Ana, a Mexican-American teen who excels in high school but cannot afford to attend college. While her old-fashioned mother shames anyone with a little fat on their stomach, Ana promotes body positivity and rejects gender stereotypes assigned to women. Once Ana begins working at her family’s sewing factory in East Los Angeles, she becomes more confident in herself and realizes her self-worth, when it comes to relationships with boys. This comedy-drama, directed by award-winning writer and producer Patricia Cardoso, captures the struggles and triumphs of a teenage girl in the process of finding herself.