Throughout the years Chicanos have had to face many adversities, perhaps more than any other minority. Chicanos are considered to be those that are of the Mexican decent or of that origin, with that being said California had and has always had a vast population of Chicanos for many decades. Nowadays the triumph of many Chicanos and even other Latinos is very well seen in the Hollywood world due to the reason that times are different and many things have changed when you compare it to the early days of Hollywood.
During this course we were assigned to watch certain films that demonstrated the way Chicanos were viewed by nonChicanos. The films I got observe both had negative condensation toward this group of people. They were being accused unfairly as well as treated very badly, sensationally facing discrimination and racism based upon their looks and was of speech and the way some dressed. These films were sending out a negative perspective out to society and causing even more hardships to the Chicanos outside of Hollywood and even to those trying to become part of the Hollywood social scene.
In 1979, a group by the name of NOSTROS which was a group of Hollywood-based association of Latino actors that decided to protest not one put two movies that the television network CBS were putting out due to the high preference of Latino gangs which could harm the image of the Chicanos and cause a lot of discrimination. During this time the presences of Chicanos lacked and when they did make a presence in a film the roles they filled were very much of those of gangs, people being accused of crimes and so on.
The other thing that this group rgued was that the roles that were very much using the typical stereotyping of the Chicanos (Salvador Trevino 14-16). In the book Chicano Popular Culture Que Hable el Pueblo, they talk about the portrayal that the Mexicans as well as the Mexican Americans received from the 1910’s all through the 1970’s. In the book it was stated that most roles that involved a Chicano persona would be either killed or punished by Anglo actors (Tatum 52). During this era there were also many different types of categories in which films that were that could be seen to contain the same message in each film.
For instance, the Progressive films were films that did not conform the usual norms of the film industry in Hollywood. These films exposed the way the Mexican American community would be treated and it also made the Chicano people look like the victim and portray the Anglos as “evil” people (Tatum 56). This in a way I think helped shape the way Chicanos have more opportunities in Hollywood and change the way that they were seen. The term greaser was often used as an offence to denigrate Chicanos back during these times, these turn may still be offensive to many people it is not all that common.
While this term was highly offense there were some films that were created that were categorized such as greaser-gangster films in which the term greaser was used as part of film title. Many time the protagonist had negative characteristics that in a way added to the negative perspective that the Chicanos endured in their daily lives from people that would watch these films. It could have been that the intentions of these types of movies were just to entertain not to harm but over time people would use these and gain less respect for this community.
Comparing the past decades to recent years the way not just the Chicano people are being seen but also even all Latinos has changed from negative to positive. Sooner rather than later did directors start seeing the Chicanos as heroes in films changing the way the Hollywood perceive this community (New York Times). Throughout the past decades it has been seen that there was unfair portray of the Chicano community in Hollywood. The times have changed and it is different nowadays when a Chicano is screen, they roles they play are those that people of other races play as well.
The race and skin color are no longer too seen to be a problem for the Chicano people in Hollywood. There can be many things that can be learned from this time in history and it is admirable how far this minority has broken through theses hardships and now has made huge impacts in Hollywood. The department objective that best describes this time period is to promote an awareness of the historical and cultural roots of the Chicanos/Latinos in the United States. The reaso choose this objective is due to the fact that many people may not know of the unjust ways the Chicano people were treated before in Hollywood.
These in a way allows future generations that perhaps want to pursue a career in that industry to not take things for granted and think of the things past Chicanos had to endure so that many doors could be opened for future generations. Recognize the evolving nature of Chicano/a social/artistic reactions and their revisions and analyzing and evaluating the social, political, and economic forces that constrain and shape the structure of Chicano/an artistic expression are the two class objective best fit this topic.
These topics are both similar in wav they both are meant for us to see and learn about the past and recognize, evaluate and analyze the way Chicanos and the Chicano community has worked past many obstacles and unfair treatment to make and shape our community to what it is nowadays and open many doors to the younger generations and all future generations that like I stated before are interested in having a career in the Hollywood industry.
