Chicanos With Moolah Doing Everything They Can With Their SuperPowers to Ingrain Specific "Mexican" Stereotypes

I am a huge fan of Tarantino and Rodriguez--but you've got to admit that the subversive agit prop semiotics of the original Spy Kids is not fueling his cinematic furnace these days! I know, color me pedantic Mother Superior, but you KNOW I have a point! At some point, faced with the pleasure of making cinema and the responsibility that comes with having been tapped as an outpost of Chicano-ness in Lala-land, you've got to find a way to make it work--elsewise, Robert Rodriguez becomes like Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory, the scene where he, in a scene of academic/existential malpractice, counsels Chicano undergraduates AWAY from academe. Ok, it's not really the same thing, but close. That piece is archived here. Meanwhile, Robert's got lots of other things on his mind as he conjures the bloody contours of Machete.

Kogi Korean BBQ-Xicanosmosis, Asian Edition

Thanks to John Paul Gutierrez, sage agent, for the link!

Millard Kaufman, RIP

Thanks to regular contributor Michael Wyatt Harper for the headsup.

Native Americans in the Comics!

El Chavo Del Ocho Rides Again...

Thanks to East Coast correspondent Daphne Strassmann who sends in this Chespirito update! Spanish language update here.



update:

Chespirito hates Carlos Fuentes's Aura! What a dope! Thanks to "anonymous" for the link.

Cool Texas Image Archive

From: "David O. Garcia"
To: "Bill Nericcio"
Subject: Texas History website Portal
Date: Sat, 14 Mar 2009 13:28:43 -0400

Hi Bill,

I found this site yesterday and it contains historical documents, and a few photos related to your topics. Check it out:

Hope things are going well,

David

Here's a search for Laredo, Texas.

Castro as Pundenda: Richard Phillips in Interview Magazine

Southland Ace correspondent Anabel Lima writes in to point our eyes to the latest works by Richard Phillips, East Coast art darling, and some recent works of his high art that are utterly predictable (not that that's always a bad thing) when it comes to the eroticization of Latina/o bodies. She sent along a recent issue of Andy Warhol's Interview Magazine so that I could scan and upload the striking portraits--Interview has the piece online as well now.

Castro 2009, from a recent show at the Gagosian, is easily the most provocative, the Marxist leader's signature beard refigured as a highly erotic mons pubis. No doubt the pages of my forthcoming edition, eyegiene, with UT Press will attempt to do justice to Phillips's evocative brush/canvas.

"Mexican" Sightings/Sitings from Seoul, Korea

Foreign correspondent Ashley Hart writes in with a posting from Korea!

Date: Mon, 16 Mar 2009 6:41:44 -0700
From:
To: "William A. Nericcio"
Subject: Tex[t]-Mex: Asia Edition?


Hi!

I saw this in a magazine on the subway and had to send it to you. The Mexican stereotype is alive and well (?) here in Seoul! Unfortunately, my Korean has not improved, at least not to up to translating ability, but I can tell you it's an ad for some new cactus drink (that apparently cures stomachaches, hangovers and hmm? old age? puffy eyes? not sure on that last one...).

Hope you have a great Monday!

Ashley

A big tip of the sombrero to Ashley for zapping us this image from across the Pacific--be sure to snag a hard copy so that I can put it up in my office!

Cool Lucha Libre Graphic on FFFFound.com

original posting: 1/13/09 @ 1:49pm


Gracias to "anonymous" for the i.d. of the Blue Demon!

update 3/16/09

...and a shout-out to alexis ziritt, the artist, who has just checked in with a credit! nice work!

Love Commune, aka Ghetto Freaks: Next Up in the Screening Room at the Institute of American Stereotypes

...a rad schlock gem.

Ersatz Caucasians!

Amazing Archive of Kitschy and Dazzling Movie Posters

Semiotic spelunker of the visual, dadanoias.net finds the most amazing thing on the internets; for instance, this archive of movie poster scans--one of the best I have seen!

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth: A Thank You to Barbara Leaming

Though I credit her cool biographies in the notes of Tex[t]-Mex, it's time I gave a loving shout-out to Barbara Leaming, author of If This Was Happiness: A Biography of Rita Hayworth and of Orson Welles: A Biography; I don't know if Tex[t]-Mex would have worked if I had not stumbled upon Leaming's writings. Biographical gleanings dot the pages of the first two chapters of my book, "Chapter One. Hallucinations of Miscegenation and Murder: Dancing along the Mestiza/o Borders of Proto-Chicana/o Cinema with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil" and "Chapter Two. When Electrolysis Proxies for the Existential: A Somewhat Sordid Meditation on What Might Occur if Frantz Fanon, Rosario Castellanos, Jacques Derrida, Gayatri Spivak, and Sandra Cisneros Asked Rita Hayworth Her Name at the Tex[t]-Mex Beauty Parlor." Yes, the titles are too long! Thanks, I've heard it before!

In any event, here are two images off the Heritage Auctions site that are really amazing--as with most images on this blog, merely click the picture to be treated to a high-resolution image:

The Aztec Children: Prehistoric "Mexican" Stereotypes

"Mexicans" in the American imagination* is the province of these blog postings; one of the shortcomings of Tex[t]-Mex is that I failed to really provide the 19nth century backstory for Mexican figuration in the 20th and 21st century. I had meant to do a sustained piece on this phenomena above (microcephalic individuals clothed as "Aztecs" for itinerant shows in the U.S. from coast to coast), but never really got around to it save for a flash late in the footnotes. In any event, Eyegiene will probably devote a few pages to this phenomena, an entry in the history of entertainment in the Americas and the history of "Mexican" figuration as well.




*nota bene, I did not write "imaginary"--while I can be justly chided for my Jacques Derrida fetish, no one will ever confuse me with acolyte of (the other Jacques) Jacques Lacan.