Friday, May 16, 2008
Aztec Children
Another one of the unwritten chapters of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America concerns the phenomena of "Aztecs" or "Aztec Children" in itinerant carnivals and circus "freak-shows" from the late 1800s to the 1950s. It is as if the pre-historic figuration of the "Mexican" in American mass culture (pre-bandit), was already pejorative--if crime, here, was not the focus of the trope, "retardation" or "deformity" was. More on this to follow.
The frame above is from Tod Browning's amazing Freaks.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment