Pappy's Golden Age Blogzine continues to emerge as the premier treasure trove for stereotypes-seeking cultural studies workers probing the backstory for anti-Mexican loathing--enjoying a Trump-led renaissance these days. Turns out the fat, corrupt, racist/rapist (Trump, not the "Spider"), did not have to dig too deep to conjure frightening hallucinations of swarthy, scary ethnic criminality. Below appear some choice page selections--the whole epic tale is available here.
Once again we champion the devilish eye of Pappy over at Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine with a recent entry featuring comics detective/blonde bombshell Starr Flagg. As is often the case with Mexico- and South America-based pulp comic fables, the narrative, in this case, "The House That Hate Built," serves as a barely-disguised semiotic delivery mechanism for sordid, soft-core "Latin"-laced titillation--and who is knocking that!????? Not me. Of particular note in this doozy of a story--the S&M panels featuring twin whipped, naked-chested he-men, one 'white', one 'latino, for variety. The art is by Ogden Whitney. Gracias Pappy! Or as we would call you over here at the Textmex Galleryblog, Pappy Chulo!
Here are some choice scans lifted off of Pappy's amazing blog:
One of the infamous original members of the Taco Shop Poets and co-conspirator (along with Carlos Solorio) on my Mextasy.TVdesmadre, Miguel-Angel Soria seems to have nothing else to do but to send me massive amounts of cyber tidbits filled with thrilling stereotype updates from the world of television and film production. There, nestled in their dens in Hollywood (and Louisiana), these maniacs are busy building the NEXT generation of hot Latina bombshells, the next iteration of Alfonso Bedoya's I-don't-need-no-steenken-badges Mexican bandit. Go here or here or here for your morning dose of digitally fine-tuned ethnic mannequins or peek above and below!
I love the way the African American digimannequin may be conceived of as a sexy business woman with some professional edge, whilst the winsome Latina lass's only concrete ontological quality is her essential sexyness--no business chops required! The company that produces these monstrosities is called Turbosquid, out of Louisiana--maybe ace pinhead Bobby Jindal is associated with these cyberdumb rascals
Just enough time for a quick link to Pappy's cool comics blog for a story from 1948 featuring a dapper "Spanish" Latin Lover (spoiler alert! he may not be "Spanish"). Longtime visitors of this blog are familiar with my familiar reminder that Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry are not field-tested, post-poststructuralism Anthropologists--a fancy way of saying that until quite recently, it just did not matter! It's akin to what happens in Southern California where Puerto Ricans, Costa Ricans, (even Brazilians!), are all "Mexican." In any event, this blog is dedicated to tracking the evolution of the Latin Lover stereotype and this tale, from 1948, is killer!
It comes as no surprise when the main plot point becomes obvious in Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America--that the history of Mexican and Latina/o figuration in the cultural space of the United States is an endless loop of hallucinations, fantasies built around fear of miscegenation, promiscuous female sexual want, etc. The backstory of xenophobia and nativist pandering from Hitler to Trump is merely a projection of genetic pool anxiety--the caucasian nightmare of swarthy n'ere-do-wells frolicking amidst white women's pudenda!
Weird Tales no doubt fueled these fears--fears that echo loudly with 'birthers' rant about taking back their country, when anti-miscegenation rage (often fueled just by the sight of a biracial body (thanks Obama) or the sound of a Spanish-language accent) takes center stage.
Here's wikipedia (give them some money so they stop acting like PBS around pledge-days) on Weird Tales:
Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre. Edwin Baird was the first editor of the monthly, assisted by Farnsworth Wright.[1] The subgenre pioneered by Weird Tales writers has come to be called "weird fiction". The magazine's office were initially at 450 North Michigan Ave, Chicago, but later moved north to 840 North Michigan Ave.[2] {... more}
Which brings us to a recent posting from the Golden Age Blog--chock full of telling Weird Tales covers; here, the utter fear/desire for S&M-laced sexuality between endangered caucasian lasses and dark-skinned, violent men explodes off the page with pornish regularity.
Friends, while spending some quality time in the original colonization land of Spain, I hope to find some Tex[t]-Mex- worthy materials. Today, in Barcelona, while stocking up with local products for our temporary apartment, we went into the French store Carrefour (think Target or Walmart) and this is where I found this chocolate bar:
Worth mentioning that the product pictured above is the "Chocolatina" version. They saved the non-latino representation for the other products.
“My father had a ranch; we used to have 50 to 60 wetbacks to pick tomatoes,” he said. “It takes two people to pick the same tomatoes now.
It’s all done by machine.”
Perhaps this was a misplaced attempt to bond with the Hispanic community in search for votes. Either that or it was offensive. Let's go with offensive. When called on his racist comment, Rep. Don Young gave a response equivalent to "Some of my best friends are Hispanic," explaining that the term "wetback" is just tried and true lexicon usage.
Alaskan Rep. Don Young, one of the most senior Republicans in the House,
has apologized for using the racial slur "wetbacks" in referring to
Hispanic migrant workers. The Republican congressman dropped the racial slur during an interview with the Alaska radio station KRBD when talking about the changing market for U.S. labor jobs.
Rep DonYoung"wetback hasalwaysbeen used in the Same way"
Mr. Young could have used Wikipedia to teach himself a thing or two:
Wetback(slur)"is a derogatory term used in the United States, for a non-American foreigner, commonly a Mexican citizen, especially one who is an illegal immigrant in the U.S"
First, note the "Three Banditos Salsa" right there on the posh shelves at Harvey Nichols! Next, thrill to a photographic horror on your right as your slightly addled galleryblog guide attempts to mimic the simulacra of his nightmares, becoming the fourth bandito in the shot! Photo by Kevin Gossett.
There is nothing explicitly or implicitly demeaning or debilitating with associating particular animals with particular countries--poodles with France, say, or camels with Saudi Arabia, bulldogs with England, and chihuahuas with Mexico; animals, humans included, have a history, and because of the vagaries of evolution and climate, various preponderances of animals can be found in any number of nations. No big deal.
And it was no big deal years back, at least to this critic, when Taco Bell started its series of yo quiero Taco Bell commercials featuring an infamous and widely debated chihuahuahueño:
If anything, the star of this commercial, "Dinky" or "Gidget," (depending on your take on a controversy) is like the "Mexican," Miguel "Mike" Vargas (Charlton Heston) from Touch of Evil (tirelessly documented in the first chapter* of Tex[t]-Mex); but where Vargas eschews pre-Psycho hot gringa Janet Leigh for the affections of Orson Welles in a fat suit, Gidget/Dinky ignores the allures of amor for food--the culinary wins out over the erotic, as, coincidentally enough, with Welles!
Both "Mike Vargas" and the yo quiero Taco Bell pooch play against 'type, against stereotype, given that the history of "Mexicans" in the cine/cultural space of America was always decidedly sexual--a dastardly sexuality, a swarthy eroticism accelerated to the point where "Mexicans" as synecdoche for sexuality isn't much of a stretch.
Drunk frat boys do need to wear t-shirts in TJ, I'll grant you that--the spectacle of melanoma soliciting pale skin the last thing one needs to see while cruising the sights and sounds of Avenida Revolución. But this out sized, be-testicled beast, semiotically fused with it's semantic equivalent, "Mexico," cries out for further scrutiny. Already a synecdoche-rich term (testicles or "balls," as shorthand for moxie, chutzpah, fortitude, drive, etc. with virulently masculine overtones), here its symbolic equivalent looming there in green between the silhouetted burro's back legs, screams out with force, --this is the power of images they silently scream, they stealthily infuse the psyche through the eyes with the veritable force of an orchestrated cacophony: balls, testicles [texticles?], huevos, force, strength, machismo. ¡ay caramba!
More on this to follow.
* "Hallucinations of Miscegenation and Murder: Dancing along the Mestiza/o Borders of Proto-Chicana/o Cinema with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil"
It's bad news when Latina starlets horn in on an Ethnic Studies turf--profe's gonna lose! In any event, as a fair amount of Tex[t]-Mex dwells on the figuration of Latinas/os in Hollywood, an excerpt from Eva Mendes's conversation, forthcoming from Interview magazine but available in part now from the Huffington Post, seems in order:
DC: I have a question for you that's a little more complicated. Do you find it a challenge being Latin in Hollywood?
EM: I would never call it a challenge. I think being a woman in Hollywood is a big enough challenge. It really is, man. I don't want to be one of those people who complain. But the lack of roles out there--it's unbelievable. I read a lot of scripts. I believe you've got to read one that you know you're not going to do, because you've got to educate yourself on what's out there to make the best decision for you. So it's challenging being a woman. Then there are other kinds of obstacles that come your way, but there are many times that being Latin has actually helped me, being a Cuban-American has helped me.
DC: I think it makes you seem very modern and real.
EM: Absolutely. Because whether you like this next statement or not, we are the future. I mean, we're all just mixing together that much more. We are the future in that sense. I don't mean Latinos, I just mean ethnic diversity. I speak English without an accent, and I speak Spanish without an accent. I really do have the best of both worlds. What makes it frustrating is when a director or a studio head doesn't see me for the same part that they'll see, let's say, Drew Barrymore for. Drew's a great friend of mine. But it's like, "No, we want more of an American type of girl." And it's like, American has opened up. I'm an American girl, born and raised. I mean, I was into New Kids on the Block, just like Drew! Actually, I shouldn't say that. I don't know if she was. I'm going to text her on that one.
DC: I was reading recently about Rita Hayworth.
EM: Oh! Love her film Gilda [1946].
DC: She was half-Latin, and she changed her name to her mother's maiden name. Her mother actually was Irish-American, and her last name was Hayworth. She also plucked her hairline so she would look more aristocratic. A lot has changed in 60 years. Back then, I don't think anybody was really ready for somebody with a Latin last name. Obviously, so much has changed. I was wondering if you feel, like, "Yeah, it's changed, but it hasn't."
EM: No, I feel it's definitely changed. Thank God. We are moving forward. Every time there's another successful Latin actress, that's just better for everyone involved. Now, I want to see more Asian girls. People ask me if it's difficult being Cuban-American in this industry. I say, "You know what? Not as difficult as it is being an Asian girl." We have so many Asian girls in this country, and they're so not represented up on the screen.
![The Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_KqWRy3aDsokE_MKZPvSky0JCY5DtTUqNZ1YcuqLN4LzX6kUbISADnHe9CR8IEBlhVVcnUnXMjc1EY54oLPx-aOoWF_VdXOokJ2Y2smvV1WCxEu2TZguczGSloiFnkz4iQ_SkIi56dw/s1600/111Screen+shot+2014-04-01+at+10.jpg)
Once again we champion the devilish eye of Pappy over at Pappy's Golden Age Comics Blogzine with a recent entry featuring comics detective/blonde bombshell Starr Flagg. As is often the case with Mexico- and South America-based pulp comic fables, the narrative, in this case, "The House That Hate Built," serves as a barely-disguised semiotic delivery mechanism for sordid, soft-core "Latin"-laced titillation--and who is knocking that!????? Not me.
It comes as no surprise when the main plot point becomes obvious in Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the "Mexican" in America--that the history of Mexican and Latina/o figuration in the cultural space of the United States is an endless loop of hallucinations, fantasies built around fear of miscegenation, promiscuous female sexual want, etc. The backstory of xenophobia and nativist pandering from Hitler to Trump is merely a projection of genetic pool anxiety--the caucasian nightmare of swarthy n'ere-do-wells frolicking amidst white women's pudenda!
First, note the "Three Banditos Salsa" right there on the posh shelves at Harvey Nichols! Next, thrill to a photographic horror on your right as your slightly addled galleryblog guide attempts to mimic the simulacra of his nightmares, becoming the fourth bandito in the shot! Photo by Kevin Gossett.
If anything, the star of this commercial, "Dinky" or "Gidget," (depending on your take on a controversy) is like the "Mexican," Miguel "Mike" Vargas (Charlton Heston) from Touch of Evil (tirelessly documented in the first chapter* of Tex[t]-Mex); but where Vargas eschews pre-Psycho hot gringa Janet Leigh for the affections of Orson Welles in a fat suit, Gidget/Dinky ignores the allures of amor for food--the culinary wins out over the erotic, as, coincidentally enough, with Welles!
