Eva Longoria, Marionette? Ethnic Mannequins Series 7: I/Eye, Eva

ne of the most popular American stars in television in the late 20th and early 21st century, Eva Longoria re-embodies the form and allure of the Latina bombshell, born in the early days of Hollywood. Like some reincarnation of Rita Hayworth, Raquel Welch (not dead yet, thank you very much), or Dolores del Rio, Longoria's sultry satin/Latin allure tempts the eyes of spectators and Nielsen ratings mavens from coast to coast.

One of my more recent pieces of digital art, I/Eye, Eva picks up on the idea of the "ethnic mannequin" that I toyed around with in Tex[t]-Mex--there, in a mad synthesis of ideas lifted from Gayatri Spivak (the subject-effect), Jacques Derrida (the trace), Frantz Fanon (darkness and psychopathology), and Edmundo Desnoes ("Cuba Made Me So" | Latina/o objectification), I tried to document the dynamic processes wherein Latina/o archetypes transmogrify/evolve.

I/Eye, Eva

2012, Guillermo Nericcio García
digital collage

What's special about Eva (and what she has in common with Rita Hayworth), is that she is the head of her own production companies and businesses--not all too successful if wikipedia's resources are accurate (look up her Beso restaurant biz based out of Vegas--here's a Wall Street Journal piece).

This connection between the star (the "victim" in the familiar objectification of woman argument) and the semiotic means of production surrounding her (graphic) reproduction complicates things for the contemporary arbiter of Latina semiotic signage.

The piece above, crafted for the OSU show in Columbus, Ohio,  grafts together photography by Chilean camera wizard Nino Muñoz, in British lads' magazine Arena's January 2007 issue, as well as work from the June 2009 issue of GQ Mexico (still looking for the photographer's identity). Two years apart, a 20th century ethnic mannequin stars in two photoshoots that feature images with ropes and chains, each image evoking unseen puppeteers of sorts.

Coincidence? I would have to ask Eva and am till waiting on a callback!

Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race: Eva Longoria, Severo Sarduy, Veruschka, Camouflage, and More

I am doing some preparation for a week on the writings of Severo Sarduy in my graduate seminar, an introduction to cultural studies. One of the moves I am going to try is to move in time from Veruschka to Eva Longoria, with specific regard to issues of identity, representation, camouflage, and transvestism. To your right appears a montage of shots of Eva by Ruven Afandador, disguised, from fashion magazine Citizen K; below, a photograph by Franco Rubarteli of Veruschka from Playboy, 1971. More to come.

{Countess Vera Gottlieb von Lehndorff (a.k.a. Veruschka) photographed by Franco Rubartelli}

Latina Bombshells Revisited: The Miracle of Salma Hayek

originally posted: 5/6/08 6:16 PM
updated: June 16, 2012 @ 12:19PM

One of the hardest chapters to write in Tex[t]-Mex was the one on Lupe Vélez (you may need to be logged into a gmail account to have the Lupe-link work)--there, late in the game, I try, a tad unsuccessfully, I fear, to fast-forward my study into the present, with lurid, 21st-century meditations on the ecstatic sanctity of movie and television Latina celebrities; in that chapter, Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, and Eva Longoria make cameo appearances, with Salma doing yeoman's work womaning selections from a complex Premiere magazine interview, an exchange wherein Hayek eloquently and diligently articulates the limbolandia of being a Latina sexpot and only being a Latina sexpot. Which brings me to this clip from The David Letterman show on CBS wherein we gather the difficulty of her conundrum/situation (watch also for her anecdote that blends Catholicism with tales of the miraculous, a combo that echoes Santa Lupe Velez's situation as described in Tex[t]-Mex):

I love this photo of Salma--cigar smoking, strong, dynamic, and fierce, with eyes that confront the would-be watching subject with a post-Mulvey gaze that might paralyze. More food for thought as we consume our Tex[t]-Mex cuisine.

A page from the chapter on Lupe Velez in Tex[t]-Mex appears below--note the remarkable design/typography work by Lisa Tremaine:

PROGRESS..... er Progress... er progress? LATINA MAIDS ON TV, REDUX... Or Eva Longoria has an idea and Susan Lucci might be along for the ride...

original posting: March 27, 2012...

Update: Monday, April 9, 2012 | thanks to UT Austin genius Jaime Puente, for the headsup!

Eva Longoria defends her choices on DEVIOUS MAIDS...

Eva, thank you! Your point is well taken and maid, um, er... made! 

We DISHONOR our criada abuelitas when we simple-minded bloggers take you to task for executive producing a network series focused on Latina maids.  

Honor the servant class!

I am with you!

All hail the brown-skinned gals of a domestic Downton Abbey!

Huzzah!

....  But actually, er, NO.  Of all the storylines to greenlight in Hollywood, now, Devious Maids is the worst of the worst shows to greenlight.  Finally, a Latina/Tejana from Corpus is in a position to influence mainstream entertainment and you go with this.

THE WORST OFFENDER stereotype for female Latinas in Hollywood, the maid? the domestic?

We do not dishonor our working class ancestors when we protest, we honor them because you could have easily done better.

Devious Hackers

....follow the exploits of four Latina computer nerds (from Berkeley, MIT, Cal Poly, and Stanford) as they work covertly (in spandex, for the ratings, 'natch) for Uncle Sam

Devious Agents

...follow the tales of four Latina agents in New York, working with top models....

I give up.

Reread my section on "Marias" and Maids from Tex[t]-Mex and call me in the morning....

Thanks to profe Rich Yañez for drifting this past my facebook scanning ojos! In case the googlebooks reader insert above is broken, here's a Maria the Maid page from textmex...

updates....

 take the new poll!

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latest update

june 10, 2012....  

the maids show WAS NOT PICKED UP!

progressive hollywood?

more here....

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Latina Hegemony, Eva Mendes Edition 2008

Though I had hinted at it on my amazon.com Tex[t]-Mex image page, I am just getting around here to chronicling sordid semiotic tales of Latina sexual hegemony in 20th and 21st century mass culture--Sacher von Masoch is smiling somewhere--especially about the 3rd image of Mendes below; first the images... discussion to come:

compare this last one to the infamous 

eva longoria chains/puppet

shoot linked here.

Holy Chicana Superhero, Murciélago-Man! Eva Longoria as the WASP?

New Textmex Galleryblog Logo

My inspiration for my Eva Longoria, Chapulin Colorado logo? Schlock Hollywood Cinema, of course!

Henry Louis Gates! English Professor and DNA Detective!

Eva Parker Longoria's Trip to the DNA Parlor

Telegenic Chicana/o Studies Advocate! Eva Longoria

The Tex[t]-Mex Caravan is Packing Up and Moving to DC for This Weekend

I am really looking forward to participating in my first national American Studies Conference meeting this weekend in Washington, DC--my panel is hyped opposite (click to enlarge). Back in the day when I was an undergraduate at UT, the American Studies program there offered me a posting in their graduate program--one that I passed up to drink of the heady waters of Cayuga Lake. Alfred Crosby ran the show back then (1984) and I always wonder what my academic fate would have been if I had stayed there in the lands of the Armadillo World Headquarters, Club Foot, Zilker Pond, Waterloo Records, and more. If you are at ASA, drop by the panel and say hi (yes it is at 8am in the morning! set that alarm!).

I will be sharing some of my more recent eyegiene-laced ruminations on Latinas and Latinos in US mass culture--including musings on Eva Longoria's and Shakira's recent embrasure of all things academic (and, additionally, Eva's penchant for acting out allegories of the Ethnic Mannequin--see the images below; Shakira has a thing for ropes as well) Hit the labels there below to your right for more info.

Xicanosmosis: White House Style

Here's a cool medley LOS LOBOS played for the President and his guests.

High Fashion Chicana Metamorphosis: Eva Longoria in Citizen K Magazine

There are high-resolution scans of the fashion spread here (other versions are here). The most curious image for the purposes of Eyegiene is the one above. It is a montage of three shots of Eva, as "patient," "doctor/cinematographer (16mm, no less)/voyeur," and gurney attendant. Most of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America was a meditation on the history, consequences, and legacy of Mexican figuration in the mass media--Ruven Afanador, an illustrious fashion photographer from Bogotá, Colombia, has, with his brilliant lens and his equally compelling Mexican-American model/actress, said all I said there, and all I can hope to say in my next volume, Eyegiene, with a few snaps of his camera and maybe a quick session with photoshop.

First Shakira, Now Eva Longoria! Latina Actresses in Graduate Programs in the Humanities

Tejana Chicana Philanthropist Eva Longoria in the New York Post

source

bleaching swarthiness!

Wow! more later--my thanks to Caroline, beloved betrothed better half of Peter my matey from Philosophy at SDSU for the link!

Prolegomena to a History of the Latina Bombshell...

CORRECTION! gracias to Angelica, who notes in the comments below, how that is Katie Jurado in the middle, there, NOT Dolores Del Rio! May the shades of these Latina goddesses forgive this blind blogger. Abrazos, Bill.


Elaine Ayala's Latino Life blog has the skinny!

update

Love to Laura G. Gutiérrez , the hotshot host of unsettling comforts, who zapped me this ElUniversalTV piece on Eva and her love for Mexican cinema...

New Galleryblog Logo: Eva in Chains

I have always been intrigued (see the July 12, 2007 entry at the old school Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog site) by this photoshoot Eva Longoria did for the UK's Arena Magazine--on the one hand, it represents an erotic and electric staging of the increasingly ubiquitous Chicana star; on the other, it semiotically suggests some odd, disturbing allegory of Geppetto gone amuck, Pygmalion channeled by the Marquis de Sade, with Longoria, in chains, as some odd, naked Pinocchio--Eliza Doolittle with couture by Michel Foucault... or something like that.

I'll bring El Chapulin Colorado back if I get enough grief for Eva!

Latina "Bombshell" or Scab!? Eva Longoria Versus the WGA Barricades

The ghosts of United Farmworkers and shades of MEChistas howled and weeped a couple of weeks back as Tex-Mex, Chicana uberstar Eva Longoria crossed Writers Guild of America picket lines in Hollywood in order shoot scenes for ABC's Desperate Housewives. The Tejana vixen, previously profiled in these pages (1/12/07), and renowned in Ethnic Studies circles for her candid, native-informant outing of Texas-style Mexican on Mexican racism (viz, the "la prieta fea" disclosures), tried to buy the love of her colleagues with pizza but fell short and, in some reports, was brought to tears by the chants of lefty agitators including Julia Louis-Dreyfus--"Elaine," of Seinfeld fame.

Dora & Diego Versus Speedy Gonzales

Our August 12, 2007 entry below, wherein AT&T waxes eloquent regarding the beauty of a monolingual world in a 1920 advertisement provides the perfect segue to our next galleryblog installment, wherein a recently-hitched, Hollywood, Tejana celebrities start piling on Speedy Gonzales while giving themselves over to reverie regarding future the issue of rugrats, something like "hope" evanesces on the horizon of tomorrow! Click here for a tale that fuses celebrity, multi-lingualism, procreation, Hollywood, and an animated tag-team match wherein Dora and (Latino Himbo) Diego get medieval on Warner Brothers' ratoncito.