Touch of Evil, Ed Wood, Orson Welles, and Johnny Depp

One of the great things in Orson Welles's Touch of Evil is watching Charlton Heston in brownface cavorting as "Mexican" narcotics agent Miguel "Mike" Vargas. While I was fixing the YouTube videos in the posting below, I ran across this snippet of a scene from Tim Burton's Ed Wood wherein Wood, played by Johnny Depp, encounters Welles at Musso and Frank's in Hollywood.

Touch of Genius: Orson Welles, Proto-Chicano Motion Picture Director?

Originally posted April 9, 2007 | updated


The first main chapter of Tex[t]-Mex concerns itself with Orson Welles's masterpiece, the 1958 production of Touch of Evil. I don't want to give too much away about the chapter but its main claim to fame is the assertion that Welles was a proto-Chicano director--one of the first to parse the verge of the border with semio/cultural sensitivity and cleverness. The chapter, a revision of a piece that first appeared in Chicanos and Film, is entitled "Hallucinations of Miscegenation and Murder: Dancing along the Mestiza/o Borders of Proto-Chicana/o Cinema with Orson Welles's Touch of Evil."

Here, courtesy the ever-present, churning servers at google.com are the coming attractions trailer for this sordid, bordertown potboiler...



...as well as the famed opening few minutes of the film--this second sequence is from the "director's cut" version of the film that unfolds without the opening credits. For Touch of Evil fanatics, here as well appears the orginal 1958 opening scene with the credits--the quality is a little dicey with video remnants/scratches in places:

The Saddest Chapter of Tex(t)-Mex: Lupe Velez and Rita Gonzalez

The fourth chapter Tex[t]-Mex was the hardest one to write, the one entitled: "Chapter Four. Lupe Vélez Regurgitated; or, Jesus's Kleenex: Cautionary, Indigestion-Inspiring Ruminations on "Mexicans" in "American" Toilets." It was so hard to write, I went through three or four re-takes, one of which appears this month in Myra Mendible's collection Bananas to Buttocks. In any event, in my web spelunking I happened across the best cinematic take on la Lupe I have ever seen, The Assumption of Lupe Velez by Rita Gonzalez. Check it out if you have the chance or have your library pick up a copy. A screengrab from Gonzales's opus appears here to your right.

Southsourcing on Colbert

Galleryblog reader, Sam, has just written in with link to a recent Colbert Report piece on outsourcing entitled Southsourcing--needless to say our 21st-century would-be Swift, Colbert, is in fine form:

Orozco and the Faces of Mexico

All too often, our Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog spends way too much time documenting the growth and metamorphoses of cripplingly stupid Mexican stereotypes. On September 16, 2007, let us do otherwise by directing our eyes to a Mexican artist who, contrary to the strangulating logic of stereotypes, expands our semiotic gaze and multiplies our perspectives when it comes to Mexican figuration: Jose Clemente Orozco


SHOUT-OUT

A quick hello to those of you visiting owing to the profile in today's Union Tribune Currents section. A primer on this Galleryblog is here.

Tex[t]-Mex Digest

I stumbled upon a nice piece on Latinas/os in Hollywood in the Bay Area Reporter by Tavo Amador.

Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez Coming to SoCal

Great news! Maggie Rivas Rodriguez is speaking at the San Diego State University Campus, Wednesday, September 19, 2007. All the info on her "Latinos in Mass Media" lecture is right here.

Brown is the New Green

A Mount San Antonio College literature professor, dedicated Galleryblog Simi Valley correspondent, and closeted Chicano wanna-be, Michael Wyatt Harper, writes in to remind me that I have not written a smidgen about a new documentary on PBS this week that chronicles, among other things, the rise of Latinos and Latinas in American mass culture--the PBS skinny is here. Many suspect PBS is trying to placate critics of Ken Burns by airing these Latino-laced shows, this owing to Burn's myopia when it comes to Mexican-Americans and other swarthy n'ere-do-wells he omits from his opus. More soon after I screen the show tonight.

Another Quick Latinos in Mass Media Link

Another fast link to breaking stories with regard to Cane, a new, "Latino" oriented prime time vehicle featuring Jimmy Smits and Rita Moreno.

Advertising Age, Cold Latinas, and Stereotypes

Just a quick link to a trail of talk at Advertising Age on Latino stereotypes.

SpeedyGonzales.com Plus Slowpoke Rodriguez MySpace Layouts

When I called my chapter on Speedy Gonzales, "Autopsy of a Rat," first for Camera Obscura and then for the revised chapter in Tex[t]-Mex, I knew I had made a mistake. The rat ain't dead! Now, it appears, he's thriving even more despite my textual vivisection.

So much for the omnipotence of cultural criticism.

In any event, jump here for the latest skinny on Speedy, Bugs, Batman, Scooby, and the rest of the Warner and Hanna-Barbera stable of animated wonders!

When Does a Taco Become a Culture

A recent Salon.com article by Mark Dery, would seem at first glance, to be the most complex culinary paean to a taco ever authored in English.

At first glance.

What it really is emerges between the lines: an encomium on the cultural and ethnic machinations of Southern California--a tasty treat of an essay.

Dery dices and chops up culture at NYU. His website is worth a perusal as well. Anyone who can fetishize a taco (in Tex[t]-Mex, I do the same for Tumble Inn french fries) is a friend of mine. If you are in San Diego, go to Ponce's on Adams Avenue and ask for the special hamburger that's not on the meñu--the Mexican burger! A tasty melange that is one part velvet, one part Cinco de Mayo, and one part Uncle Sam. If the love child of Ronald McDonald, Lupe Vélez, Cantinflas, and Cuahtemoc were a hamburger, you could devour that morsel at Ponce's. Their secret? A cheese chile relleno between the meat and the bun! Yowza!

Their margaritas rock as well!

Updated Post from January 5, 2007 | Holy Mengele! or Cesar Chavez Rolls in His Grave on the Way to the Orthodontist

REPOST (original) "Holy Mengele! or Cesar Chavez Rolls in His Grave on the Way to the Orthodontist"

It is a given that I will be pilloried for posting this, but if we are going to traffic in comments on stereotypes, race, gender, and ethnicity, and if we are to do so with no little particular emphasis on the manifestation of these beasts in popular culture and the humanities, then we also have to come clean as well about Mexican, Latina/o, and Chicana/o figuration when it comes from our be-lab-coated hermanos y hermanas trafficking in the hard sciences.

Hence the following academic delight from The Angle Orthodontist: An International Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics authored by Martha Mejia-Maidl, Carla A. Evans, Grace Viana, Nina K. Anderson, and Donald B. Giddone (html or pdf, pick your flavor), that finds, among other things, that "Mexican Americans...preferred upper or lower lip positions to be less protrusive than the Caucasians, particularly for female computer animation images." Which may mean, among other things, that Edward James Olmos may not be dating Meg Ryan--at least not in the short term, and that Mexican-Americans have discerning taste, when it comes to visually-stimulated, fetishistic attachments to ersatz Botox-injected chicos y chicas--Miranda Martinez fans, notwithstanding.



More seriously, while said article may just be the result of test subjects confronting badly Photoshop™-mangled images, it also shows how the "hard-sciences" continue to traffic in the concretization of race and ethnicity--Eugenics may well be primed for a comeback if these wacky dentists have their way.

FINAL UPDATE

Apparently, Ryan now will soon star in a film that features a "wild" trip to Baja in search of next-wave cosmetics.

¡bienvenidos and welcome!

Our Tex[t]-Mex Galleryblog is seeing a 50% spike in its daily traffic owing to the generosity of Gustavo Arellano. For our new visitors, here's the skinny: this blog is a sort of cyberwarehouse of materials for the second edition of Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucination of the "Mexican" in America, a 2007 book published by the University of Texas Press. More information on that volume is available here, from UTPRESS, here, courtesy of Amazon, and here, an archive of materials related to the book--a blow up of the cover designed by UTPRESS's semiotic whiz/diva, Lisa Tremaine, is clickable here to your right.

The book includes pieces on Rita Hayworth, Speedy Gonzales, the Border (through the eyes of Orson Welles), Frida Kahlo (through the eyes of Chicano "Picasso," Gilbert Hernandez), Richard "Self-Loathing-but-improving" Rodriguez, Salma Hayek, Lupe Vélez, systemic sadism and the Mexican immigrant body, Latina bombshells, Mexican Lotharios, and a host of other treats--the book features a full-color section and over 250 illustrations.

The premise of this quirky opus is quite simple: stereotypes are serious and stereotypes are funny--in the book's nosy, prolix, meandering investigation of the dialectic between cultural history and laughter emerges surprising and defining revelations about the culture and, if I am right, the destiny of Americans, estadounidenses, of all colors, sexes, faiths, and biases.

I hope you find the book and this blog useful.


Peace, Ink, and Love,


Bill Nericcio
bnericci@mail.sdsu.edu

ps to lit & cultural studies profs, lecturers, grad studs, and undergrads presently using the book--write in and let me know what works and what's coming up short!

Here's a cool short sequence from Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles's The Lady from Shanghai:

1983, Wall of Voodoo, and Mexican Radio

In 1983, Wall of Voodoo came out with an early MTV video classic directed by Francis Delia that helped define a generation of music video. Seen through the lens of Tex[t]-Mex, however, this incipient contribution to what became the dominant form of music marketing plays the same role Griffith's Birth of a Nation played for cinema last century. Just a thought.

See it and judge for yourself!