Anna Hamling

Sex, Power and Consent: Youth Culture and the Unwritten Rules

priyanka — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 12:00:00 +0000

I have been always interested in the problems, points of view, and so much more in the lives of young people; I also decided at the ripe age of twenty that at some point in my life I was going to be a lecturer!

Despite educating teenagers (and being taught by them) for the last twenty years and more, I have not lost my enthusiasm for knowing and guiding them from the perspective of what youngsters of eighteen to twenty consider an ‘old’ wise woman!

How do young people live their lives these days? Do they have the same problems that I had when I was eighteen? So much has changed in the last twenty to thirty years. We are bombarded by a sex-crazed culture, sex-everywhere phenomena. When we switch the TV on, we are faced with sex or violence in movies, shows, talks etc. In the words of Anastasia Powell, the author of Sex, Power and Consent: “contemporary Western Culture has been described as the age of raunch, generation sex, and generation SLUT (Sexually Liberated Urban Teens)."

Being part of such a cultural make-up, what are the views of young people on sex and love these days? Do they have more sex, more sexual relationships than my so-called liberated generation of the late 1970s? Do the youth talk openly about sex? Do they equate sex with love? How long do their relationships last when they are still teenagers? What is it that they want from relationships at the tender age of eighteen to twenty?

Powell’s indisputably needed and thorough book provides most answers to my questions. Her research and interviews with 117 teens and young adults of diverse sexualities in Victoria, Australia, provides readers with a wealth of knowledge about young people of today. She limited her research to one country but unquestionably, it is the representative study of Western youth.

Her book would be of interest to young and not-so-young readers as the author answers many questions that trouble Generation Y (born in or after 1982). It explores issues surrounding youth sex within popular culture, sexuality education and sexual violence prevention. It also clearly presents unwritten rules and the gendered power relationships which have not changed as drastically as I had always thought it had over the last twenty to thirty years. I was surprised to read that despite the apparent sexual freedom, the rates of sexual assault continue to rise with ninety-nine percent of offenders being male and ninety-two percent of sexual assault victims being women (according to Victoria Police data from 2008-2009).

The book also provides practical strategies for young people and for those who work with them towards the prevention of sexual violence. This very well-researched and written study would also be a useful reading for young women who feel pressured into unwanted sex. It might help them to be more aware of their choices, which is always welcome.

Written by: Anna Hamling, December 14th 2010

The Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture

admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 00:01:00 +0000

Directed by Sut Jhally

Media Education Foundation

The main theme of The Codes of Gender is “commercial realism.” As explained by the narrator of this film, Sut Jhally, Professor of Communication at the University of Massachusetts, a code of gender has to be understood as a shorthand language, a set of rules and behaviors. This is how Jhally analyzes the ways in which both women and men are portrayed in advertisements and on the covers of glossy magazines.

The film is based on the works of the Canadian social anthropologist Erving Goffman, who was born in Alberta in 1922. His greatest contribution to social theory and to gender representation was the analysis of visual communication between spectators, the subjects of their attention and how attitudes about gender are shaped by culture and society.

The film starts with an explanation of the difference between biological sex identity and constructed gender identity, which leads to the process of contrasting these identities in magazine advertising for commercial films. Gender expressions on magazine covers are skillfully manipulated to reflect the identity of women and men– not as they are, but how they should be, according to a societal norm. The women in the advertisements are posed in awkward positions. They lie down with their heads tilted off balance, stand on one leg, or kneel to suggest powerlessness, submission and dependence. Women become sexualized and accepting of their helplessness, embodying both men’s desire and subordination to them. In contrast, men are portrayed as active. Their poses suggest power, strength, and control.

As an example, Professor Jhally uses a clip from the Seinfield TV series that shows the lead character dating an attractive woman with hands that are big, rough, and strong, like the ‘normal’ hands of a man. Jerry Seinfield is put off by the image and loses interest in the woman.

A second example is Danica Patrick, an American auto racing driver, who is also an athlete and therefore does not fit with the stereotypical image of ‘natural’ femininity. But Patrick is portrayed on the magazine covers in the same way as other women. She lies down, ready to be gazed at–weak and submissive. Paul Marciano, founder of Guess, is portrayed as selecting images of passive women for Guess advertisements, as if he was making a statement that ‘women should know their place.’

Another striking feature of the visual images is the association of women with childhood. As though they never left this part of their lives behind, in commercials women are frequently portrayed as childlike, with fingers in their mouths. Women's posture with men is that of father and daughter: constantly hiding behind men, snuggling with men for protection, or resting their heads on men’s arms in sweet and helpless positions. Men, on the contrary, are shown in straight posture, muscular and strong, and project a hyper-masculine image of ‘accepted normality’.

The Codes of Gender will be of interest to all who question the visual images of what is deemed natural and normal. The film is well-made and presented, and it serves as a fitting tribute to Goffman (who died in Philadelphia in 1982). His work was underestimated when he was alive, but his contributions to ‘the codes of gender’ are as equally valid today as they were thirty years ago.

Written by: Anna Hamling, May 16th 2010

A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Arts, Politics, and Daily Life

admin — Sat, 15 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Mira Schor

Duke University Press

A Decade of Negative Thinking is a collection of essays on feminism, paintings, and feminist art history. As a teacher of graduate students, Schor’s experience provides us with practical and theoretical background to an artist’s commitment to contemporary art.

The main theme of the study encompasses the ideas and images from Schor’s earlier life that were significant in influencing her artistic direction. The underlying theme explores the ways in which the past is perceived either consciously or subconsciously by people, and how easily it is to be misguided when forming our current views and opinions because of the undue influence of past styles. The artist writes as a New Yorker because she considers this city to be the center of the world art market, and an inspiring place from which to observe contemporary art and culture.

In part one, "She Said, She Said: Feminist Debates, 1971-2009," Schor describes debates on feminism and feminist art in a number of symposia, art magazine forums, and conferences over the years. Initially, as one of the chapter titles states, "The –ism Did Not Dare Speak Its Name" refers to the many academic –isms theories such as modernism, postmodernism, feminism, and post-structuralism. But later in “Generation 2.5,” the focus is on a community of women artists who had ideals about the feminist art movement, and who followed their direction during difficult times. They challenged the notion of a canon in art production and the cult of celebrity in contemporary culture.

In part two, "Painting," Schor analyzes the production of art history from a feminist perspective. She concentrates on the works of Alica Neel, an abstract painter who created Two Girls. Spanish Harlem (1959), Dore Ashton (1952), and Self Portrait (1980). She also considers works by Lisa Yuskavage and Myron Stout.

In part three, "Trite Tropes," Schor presents her views on common themes in art that are popular among college students and practitioners of the avant garde academy. Schor claims that art education is inadequate or even non-existent. She also asserts that practical visual contact by students with the artists themselves would help to clarify some misconceptions on art. As the writer explains, “negative thinking may indicate more of a programmatic belief in modernist ideas of resistance via that methodology of negative dialectics than is actually in play.”

Schor would like to see art works discussed and analyzed even if that analysis may be negative from the point of view of the art market. She clearly believes in the power of art despite all odds. This hope can empower our thinking and our actions. Schor vigorously researched her topic and included visual images of paintings in her book, which contributed to the visual pleasure of her narrative. I found her essays engaging and appealing, mostly because of Schor’s anecdotes and the choice of her personal stories; however, I needed a few breaks in the reading of her theoretical background, as some of the essays require extreme concentration on the part of the reader.

Overall, Schor, who is also a painter and writer, creates a very witty, brave, carefully designed, in-depth study on the question of politics and aesthetics in the contemporary world.

Written by: Anna Hamling, May 15th 2010

Creating Ourselves: African Americans and Hispanic Americans in Popular Culture and Religious Expression

admin — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Anthony B. Pinn, Benjamin Valentin

Duke University Press

The topic of cross-cultural communication has fascinated me for a number of years, partly because of my own experiences in Latin America, and partly from observing the interaction between the Latino/a and African American communities. Watching these two groups interact has taught me a great deal about differences in the ways of communication, how what may be "appropriate" in one culture may not be in the other, and the need for discussion to avoid potential misunderstandings.

Therefore, it was with great interest that I read Creating Ourselves, a study on cross-cultural communication and collaboration between religious scholars of the two largest minority groups in the United States. The timing of the publication of this book is of great importance, as both groups have, to a certain extent, been viewed as "foreign elements" that might threaten the national identity of Americans, especially in the current economic climate. Scholars from both communities engage in a dialogue, an exchange of opinions, perspectives, and hopes, as their history and identity is linked through the cultural production via representations in popular culture.

I found the structure of the work innovative and very much needed in scholarly circles. The book consists of seven sections with two essays in each of them, one from each group. Every article is followed by a response written by a corresponding essayist from the opposite group, each contributor using their own personal experiences to further engage readers.

Teresa Delgado analyses the novel América’s Dream by Esmeralda Santiago, which delves into the life of América González, a single mother who takes a job as a maid in a hotel in New York after suffering abuse by her daughter's father in Puerto Rico. Although América finds freedom in New York, she remains isolated and silent, as she has not broken the dependency of oppression. Cheryl Kirk-Duggan, in response, reflects on the "womanist theory" that calls for revolution in the ways of seeing, living, and being. The term "womanist," coined by Alice Walker, refers to women who are in charge, who champion freedom and who transform the oppressive forms affected by race, gender, and class domination. Kirk-Duggan uses hip-hop artist Lauryn Hill as an example of just one of these extraordinary women.

In "Television and Religion," Jonathan Walton analyses the dramatised faith in megachurch movements; the colossal buildings that house sanctuaries, gyms, daycare, bookstores, and more are especially attractive to African American communities, with their charismatic pastors who even hold worship through an electronic church. Another form of melodrama is found in the Latin telenovelas (soap operas) that have become extremely popular for millions around the world; Kassandra, a Venezuelan soap opera attracts people as far away as Serbia, while The Rich Also Cry is popular even in Moscow.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Creating Ourselves as the subject of creativity in all different forms, styles, colours, and shadows is part of our daily life.

Written by: Anna Hamling, April 30th 2010

A Tortilla Is Like Life: Food and Culture in the San Luis Valley of Colorado

admin — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:01:00 +0000

By Carole M. Counihan

University of Texas Press

From the time Laura Esquivel’s well known novel Like Water for Chocolate was made into a film, food and meals have been presented as a means of communication that extends beyond the dinner table. A Tortilla Is Like Life is an excellent book about Hispanic food, recipes, and home remedies.

A Tortilla Is Like Life is an introduction to the unique Hispanic community of Antonito in San Luis Valley of Colorado. This small urban centre with a population of approximately 900 has Spanish, Mexican, and American Indian ancestry with some Anglophone influences. The town of Alamola, thirty miles away with a population ten times the size of Antonito, provides employment for people from nearby communities.

Carole Counihan, an anthropologist who settled in Antonito with her husband and two sons, presents the culture of the community by gathering food-centred interviews between 1996 and 2006 from nineteen women ages thirty-two to ninety-four, making fifty-five interviews in total. Two women in particular play a major role by providing information about the food, traditions, and culture of Antonito. The most active participants in Counihan’s study were Helen Ruybal, born in 1906, who she interviewed nineteen times, and Teddy Madrid, born in 1936, who was interviewed six times.

In this small community, gender arrangements surrounding cooking have changed over the years along with the archetype of the Chicano patriarchal family. Food sits at the heart of the household, contributing to the structure of families. A woman who prepares food is seen as the head of the family, and women construct relationships with men through cooking. Given that many women sell prepared food to make a living, domestic duties belong to both husband and wife. Through food, women establish a sense of their own identity, culture, and place in society. They create stories about food to preserve their legacy for future generations.

Certain foods encapsulate memories, rituals, beliefs, and traditions. Two things that are central to the Antonito diet (for both flavour and tradition) are red and green chilis, which are eaten on numerous occasions—with extended families, during birth rituals, at one's wedding, and after death—as they communicate love, nurturing, and care.

Counihan wants to enrich the understanding of Antonito’s history by presenting diverse women’s voices and creating a cultural mosaic revealing how they relate to food and community. She classifies her book as testimonio and has done a very thorough job researching. A Tortilla Is Like Life deals very well with the sense of cultural belonging felt by those living in a community where women’s identity is shaped by food.

Written by: Anna Hamling, April 5th 2010

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana: Politics, Identity and Faith in New Immigrant Communities

admin — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 16:01:00 +0000

Edited by Lois Ann Larentzen, Joaquin Jay Gonzalez III, Kevin M. Chun, Hien Duc Do

Duke University Press

Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana, a collection of essays on the religious activities and identity formation of immigrants to the United States, is the fruit of a four-year study conducted by researchers from the Religion and Immigration Project (TRIP) at the University of San Francisco. Very ambitious in their scope, the essays explore the multiple and complex ways that religion plays both in integration and resistance to it in the second-generation immigrant youth and adults from Mexico, China, Vietnam, El Salvador, and Taiwan.

Two of the essays reflect on marginalized groups in their own countries: amongst them gay, lesbian, and transgender people. Immigrants from Mexico and El Salvador keep in touch with their communities across the border, frequently visiting their family and friends to maintain trans-national connections. Researchers focused on social justice by giving voice to immigrants’ concerns, especially on matters of gender and sexuality.

Transgender sex workers from Mexico often bring their religious icons and pendants (for example, the Virgen de Guadalupe) to San Francisco. Some of them also bring their prayer booklet for the Holy Death. These relics signify their own culture, origins and religion left behind in Mexico.

There are many low working class immigrants from Latin America who attend a mass conducted in Spanish in the Pentecostal churches. They are encouraged to be exemplary citizens in their new country, to ask questions, to give testimonials and to pray for surviving their daily life struggles. Even though the church music is similar to cumbia, merengue and samba the members believe that this ‘culture’ is secondary to the culture of Christianity. Through social movements, the Pentecostal churches help immigrants to adopt a more tolerant and progressive attitude towards gender roles or childbearing duty.

Filipinos are mostly Christians, following the rituals and dogmas of the Catholic church, brought to their country by Spanish friars or religious orders such as the Order of Saint Augustine in 1564, the Jesuits in 1581 and the Dominicans in 1587. With the American occupation of 1898 the Protestant church was founded in the Philippines. Yet the faithful there created their own Global Church of Christ where reading the Gospels was of main importance. In San Francisco, Filipinos are mostly associated with the Catholic churches in the area known as “Happy Valley.”

Bi-national same-sex couples, illustrated by the case of two men from China and Singapore, can easily find the gay church in San Francisco. It is much more than the centre of a religious community; it advocates human rights for new lesbian, gay, and transgender immigrants.

The Presbyterian Mission Program targeted low-income, first generation Chinese youth residing in San Francisco’s Chinatown and Bay Area suburbs whose families originate in Taiwan and mainland China. There is also a Buddhist temple that serves as a network for the monasteries, schools and Buddhist book publications. Vietnamese American migrants have a Buddhist temple in San José, California, home to the second-largest concentration of immigrants from Vietnam in the United States.

Chinese-American venerated a goddess from the vast Chinese folk pantheon. She is known by her imperial title of Tianhou although her more familiar name is Mazu/Mazupo. The cult of Tianhou is based on the worship of a maiden named Lin Moniang who is said to have lived from 960 to 987. She had magical powers and was transformed from a mortal girl to the Empress of Heaven. In 1986 Taiwanese-Chinese immigrants established a temple to Tianhoe/Mazu that symbolically marks the collective identity of Asian immigrants.

The current study is very well researched and employs up to date theoretical frameworks. The immigrant acculturation theory explores the multiple religions, cultural and national identities in a language accessible to both academics and non-academics.

In spite of its tremendous and ambitious goal, Religion at the Corner of Bliss and Nirvana is not difficult to follow its daunting 372 pages. The writers did a fantastic job by reflecting on the different religious practices of the wide variety of immigrants in San Francisco. I was pleasantly surprised that such a difficult and complex theme kept me absorbed at all times.

Written by: Anna Hamling, March 14th 2010

Sisters in War: A Story of Love, Family, and Survival in the New Iraq

admin — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Christina Asquith

Random House

Sisters in War is a brilliant, convincing, and powerful story of three women from the same Iraqi Shia family: Zia is twenty-two years old, university educated, an outspoken and brave young woman when the story begins with the invasion of Iraq in 2001. Her younger sister, Nunu, a university student, is a quiet and traditional Muslim woman who hopes for an arranged marriage with a suitable man. Their Mamina, a schoolteacher, reminisces about the proud Iraqi tradition of equality for women in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She recalls the times of General Kassim who believed in equality, freedom and creativity for all: women, men and children alike. Since 1979, Mamina and her Ph.D. educated husband, Baba, have lived in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s control.

The story of this Iraqi family is interwoven with the historical account of the events in Iraq during the American invasion as experienced by Heather and Manal. Heather was an idealistic and ambitious employee of the White House, whose office had already overseen $350 billion dollars in federal spending on national security programs when she understood that she could not overcome anti-American sentiment in Iraq from behind her desk in Washington, D.C. Manal was an educated, veiled woman in her twenties, an outspoken American aid worker who laced her powerful speeches in the United States with Muslim slang.

Both women traveled to Iraq where against all odds they became strong advocates for Iraqi women’s rights. They risked their own lives trying to help Iraqi women survive in their own country. They also founded the first women’s center in Baghdad.

These stories serve as a basic thread of Iraqi women’s lives, their hopes and dreams, and amongst them is Zia’s romance with Keith, an American contractor working in Baghdad. Zia supported her entire family working in the U.S. Headquarters as a translator from Arabic into English.

Zia and Nunu become the target of violent Iraqi militants. In a destroyed country, whose people experience the lack of every imaginable commodity, the dream of their liberation loses its significance. People are afraid to go out, women prone to abuse by any passing man yet unable to escape the restrictions of Iraqi society, are unable to continue their normal lives. Experiencing violence and harassment many of them fall into deep depression, giving up all their hopes and optimism for the future.

In spite of all the hardship, fear and death threats, the story has a happy ending. Zia manages to leave Iraq for Washington, D.C. in 2005, but her sister and Mamina have to stay in the horrifying, bloody city where suicide bombers kill hundreds of innocent civilians in every day attacks. Luckily, all three women are reunited at Sacramento International Airport in the summer of 2008 and Baba might be able to join them in the future. Zia’s love story is crowned by her marriage to Keith. Mamina, Zia, and Nunu are finally together and will share their lives together, hopefully in peace.

Christina Asquith, a journalist who spent two years in Baghdad working for The New York Times shortly after the start of the Iraq war, has written a sincere, thought-provoking, and timely account of the lives of Iraqi women from 2001 to 2009. This true story is engaging and very well written; in fact, I felt I was reading a novel rather than the non-fiction intimate description of the true events in Iraq. It is not only a story of women fighting for their liberated lifestyle. It is a story of Islamic traditions, religion, power, and politics versus American lifestyle, American power, and American beliefs.

In a subtle manner it recognizes the failure to understand, to want to understand the Muslim world by Americans and vice versa. Indeed, in her extraordinary book, Asquith filled in many pieces of the Iraq puzzle that needed to be deciphered.

Written by: Anna Hamling, January 9th 2010

Selenidad: Selena, Latinos and the Performance of Memory

admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 00:58:00 +0000

By Deborah Paredez

Duke University Press

“This is not a book about Selena, but about what it means to remember her,” explains the author in the opening statement of her book. Remembering Selena is a remedy that releases the emotions of her grieving family, her fans, and those who became engaged in her music only after discovering the impact that she had on Latino communities.

Selena, a pop diva from Corpus Christi Texas, was murdered by her fan club president, Yolanda Saldívar on March 31, 1995. Instantly, Selena became a posthumous icon—a symbol—the object of adoration by many. Selena’s museum was erected in her honour in Corpus Christi, and Selena’s monument graces the downtown area of her native city. Selena: A Musical Celebration of her Life _(2001), the film _Selena (1997) with Jennifer López, and even A Conversation with Academics about Selena that aired on television (1999) explore her life and how she changed the perception of Latino music. In 2003, Selena Live - The Last Concert, which included her famous hit "Como la Flor" (Like the Flower), was released on DVD in her memory. It also served as a method for experiencing latinidad as an effective mode of belonging.

Who was Selena? Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, lead singer of Selena y Los Dinos started singing at the age of five. She was a U.S.-born Latina who grew up speaking English in a working class family that had lived in Texas for several generations. Her father, Abraham Quintanilla Jr. forced her to learn Spanish so she could further her career. Selena was voluptuous, had a Latina’s features and exuded a sexual charisma on stage. Her famous glittering purple pantsuit hugging her hips was a signature of Selena’s skill as a performer. She gained popularity through musical performances of a Tejano music that was often ignored by the mainstream and even by Latino communities. At the age of twenty-three, she was worth over five million dollars.

What does it mean to remember her? When she was murdered, Selena became the ‘Tex-Mex Madonna’ and the focus of collective suffering on both sides of the border. She also became the unquestioned queen of mestizo pop music. Many Americans invested emotionally, politically and financially in Selena’s posthumous life as they had previously in the lives of Evita and Frida Kahlo. The films made about them attracted the attention of people all over the world.

Through remembering them, a Latin explosion or boom promoted the mourning of collective memories; it also capitalized on the cultural, economic, and political concept of latinidad _in the United States. Selena launched not only _latinidad, but also initiated the Latin music boom that emerged in the 1990s and created Latino mega-stars.

Deborah Paredez’ study on Selena’s posthumous importance is well written, engaging, and timely. She reveals the cultural, political, and economic dynamics of some commemorations of Selena. She further explores the reactions of Latinos and mainstream Americans after Selena’s death. Selenidad enables—if only for a moment—a sense of belonging to communities of the living. A great and easy read coupled with a selection of interesting photographs.

Written by: Anna Hamling, November 14th 2009

Side Dishes: Latina American Women, Sex, and Cultural Production

admin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:00:00 +0000

By Melissa A. Fitch

Rutgers University Press

Side Dishes, at times more tasty, original, and irresistible than “the main dishes,” is a delightful, playful, and innovative work about Latina, Brazilian, and Spanish American women writers, filmmakers, cartoonists, and science fiction producers. Invaluable works by women in Side Dishes are found outside the usual diet of canonical texts by Latin American women. They broaden our knowledge and understanding of different ways and approaches of looking at cultural narratives of women. Beside “the main dishes” regularly serving narratives of women as victims of male aggression, “the side dishes” write, talk, or make films about sexual lust by women and about the treatment of women’s sexuality.

In fact, the first chapter of the book “Lust” discusses sexuality often classified as Pornography, dealing with bisexuality, lesbianism, and masturbation. Chapter two, “Pop,” is about science fiction writers and cartoonists, namely Marta Gómez, the comedian from the United States; Cecilia Rosetto from Argentina; and her compatriot, the cartoonist Maitena Burundarena together with science fiction writer Daina Chaviano from Cuba. Chapter three, “Issues,” explores the academic studies dealing with feminism though journals such as_ Debate Feminista_ from Mexico, Feminaria from Argentina, and Cadernos Pagu from Brazil.

Chapter four, “Flicks,” discusses the representation of women’s sexuality in film. Argentinean Lucrecia Martel’s La niña santa (The Holy Girl) is about a devoutly religious girl Amalia (María Alché) who constantly talks and thinks about sex. Mexican María Novaro’s Sin dejar huella (Without a Trace) explores metaphorical and physical borders in a story about Ana (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), a Mexican born, but Spanish raised dealer of fake Mayan archaeological relics. In it we also meet Aurelia (Tiaré Scanda), a young Mexican mother who makes her way to Cancún after stealing cash from her boyfriend. Tata Amaral’s film Antonia, a hit in Brazil, is about four young black women living in favelas (slums) outside Sao Paulo who had each experienced a tragedy and want to improve their living conditions. This film is about feminine friendship.

In chapter five, the author examines the development of women’s studies in Latin America and hopes that students will be encouraged to evaluate cultural texts in debates in and out of academia. In Fitch’s own words her goal with Side Dishes is “to put an array of cultural artefacts related to women in Latin America on the table.” She has done it beautifully. Through the culinary metaphors she has expanded on a sometimes forgotten area in feminist studies. With this fascinating work she signposts new directions for areas of Latin American feminism, cultural studies, and film studies, and makes a significant contribution to the main canon of Latin American narratives. This work is most likely to satisfy not only the tastes of academics but also any open minded reader interested in “the side dishes” of the diet.

Written by: Anna Hamling, October 30th 2009

Legacies of Race: Identities, Attitudes, and Politics in Brazil

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 16:52:00 +0000

By Stanley R. Bailey

Stanford University Press

Legacies of Race answers many of my personal questions about a strict notion of racial identification among the “black and white” in Brazil. When I visited Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 1993, I was intrigued by the notion of the “Afro-Brazilian” population who viewed themselves as “mixed race” rather than the distinctive “white” or “black” of the United States. As Professor Bailey indicates in this excellent book, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics employed five categories in “a color-race” data research question in 1991. These were: branco (white), pardo (brown), preto (black), amarelo (of Asian ancestry) and Indigena (Indigenous). According to the 2000 census, Brazil’s racial or color composition is approximately 54% branco, 39% pardo, 6% preto, 0.5% amarelo and 0.4% Indigena. The census question of race was added in 1991 after over 100 years of asking only about color.

Bailey delivers a wealth of data on legacies of race in his solidly reasoned and impeccably researched book on racial attitudes in Brazil. He also argues that North American theories of racial identity and racial group interests find little support in Brazil where the population of African origin is nearly three times as large as that of the United States. Bailey reasons that the strict notion of racial identification as black or white cannot be labeled “universal.”

His research reveals that color or race is not a significant predictor of beliefs concerning Brazilian racial disadvantage. “Culture wars” are nearly non-existent in Brazil in comparison to the United States. Racial attitudes in Brazil appear to embrace “racial ambiguity and mixing” as the very essence of Brazilian people. The great majority of non-white Brazilians prefer the term “intermediate” or “mixed-race” claiming to be neither “white” nor “black.” Bailey argues that only through disposing of many of the U.S. racial assumptions, a general theory that originated in the United States of racial attitudes can emerge.

It is my hope that in the writer’s future studies we will find a chapter or two on the racial relations between women and their role in the political and social life in Brazil.

Written by: Anna Hamling, October 23rd 2009

Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meanings of Film and TV Stardom

admin — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:25:00 +0000

By Mary C. Beltrán

University of Illinois Press

Beltrán’s study about Latina/o actors’ contributions to U.S. film, TV, and popular culture is illuminating and very well organized, researched, and written. The writer has explored and conveyed to us an abbreviated overview of the historical evolution of Latina/o representation and stardom in Hollywood films and U.S. television; major components of what she terms “Hollywood Latinidad.”

The growing role and influence in complex cultural productions in the United States stems also from the steadily growing Latino populations in the United States. In the 1960s Latino population was 4.5% of all the citizens of the States; in 2008 it has increased to fifteen percent or more than one in seven in the population of United States.

Latinos are becoming increasingly visible and influential in popular culture yet there has always been a hint of marginalization. Most carry labels of “the Latin lover,” “bandito” and “spitfire” amongst others. Yet Latin actresses and actors portray richly textured characters and consequently Latina/o opportunities for stardom (stardom meaning the object of public fascination) are slowly increasing. Stars are viewed as role models especially for young people, they are supposed to help establish social attitudes amongst U.S. citizens. The study is divided into seven chapters: the first chapter with its spicy title “Latin Lovers and American Accents: Dolores Del Río and Hollywood’s Transition to Sound,” Beltrán explores the rare opportunities that benefited a handful of Latina/o actors in the 1920s.

Next three chapters, namely “The Good Neighbour and Prime Time: Desi Arnaz and I Love Lucy,” “A Fight for ‘Dignity and Integrity’: Rita Moreno in Hollywood’s Postwar Era” and “The Burden of Playing Chico: Freddie Prinze and Latino Stardom in Television’s Era of ‘Relevance’” explore Latina/o opportunities and star promotion during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Chapter five “The Face of the ‘Decade’: Edward James Olmos and Latino Films of the 1980s” focuses on shifts in Hollywood’s structure of Latinidad as Latina/o filmmakers began to have an impact on a national level.

The remaining two chapters “Crossing Over the Latina Body: Jennifer Lopez and the 1990s ‘Latin Wave’” and “Ethnic Ambiguity in the Era of Dark Angels: Jessica Alba and Mixed Latina/o Trends” analyze star promotion in relation to the career and development from Latin star image during their rise to mainstream stardom. Without doubt, this study is a successful attempt to reach students from film and media studies, students of Spanish and Latin American studies and all others interested in the notion of culture. Equally, it is an indispensable tool in the classroom for any instructor passionate about delivering interactive seminars about the evolution of Latina/o national identity since the silent film era.

Written by: Anna Hamling, October 21st 2009

Learning to Behave Naturally

admin — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Directed by Tamarah Cohen

Learning to Behave Naturally is a seventy-six-minute documentary based on a series of interviews in a language class at the University of Western Japan. A cross-section of students and faculty of diverse ages, gender, race, and social classes talk freely about childhood experiences regarding their gendered roles, interests, and behaviors. The film re-affirms our stereotypical divisions between boys and girls, and confirms our “accepted truth” that young children in any country and of any social class, race, or gender play happily together without being aware of any differences between them until conscious parents, teachers, or other adults teach them to be view and participate in society though gendered roles.

All participants state that boys in any country wear blue colors while girls wear pink, that this has been the norm for centuries. Japanese elementary school children will be placed in a “boys only class” or a “girls only class,” with boys being the “chosen people.” They have to be strong, are allowed to be “wild”, and can go out at night. They can play football or basketball, and appear controlled and powerful. Boys are not allowed to cry from an early age as it is not a “manly” emotion. Girls, on the other hand, have to be sensitive, graceful, and play with their Barbie dolls. They play while learning to be homemakers.

This gendered identity is decided by parents and society at the children’s early age. The rules and traditions of adults make children aware of their differences and, in fact, curb their freedom to behave naturally. Therefore, the title of the video is very appropriate to the message conveyed in it. We learn to behave in certain ways because of our conscious society, not because we are made up this way. Cohen’s film can serve as a valuable visual source in a sociology or women’s studies class at any university in the world.

Written by: Anna Hamling, June 3rd 2009

Displaced Allegories: Post-Revolutionary Iranian Cinema

admin — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 11:15:00 +0000

By Negar Mottahedeh

Duke University Press

Professor Negar Mottahedeh's critical study of post-revolutionary Iranian film industry, Displaced Allegories, is an intelligent, stimulating, and well-written analysis of "a woman's cinema" after 1979.

The cinematic industry has been widely criticized by Iranian feminists for its problematic and stereotypical representation of women. However, the author of this book focuses on the innovative cinematic techniques that facilitate and convey a powerful message of stereotypical, veiled Iranian women, their concerns, their desires and their sexuality.

In the first phase after the Revolution, there were no women characters in Iranian films; in the second phase around the mid 1980's, female figures were involved only in long and medium shots because close-ups were very rare. By the late 1980's veiled women began to appear in leading roles. In Iranian culture, a female without a veil is considered naked in public sphere and produces "carnal desire" in "defenseless men." A mediated image of an unveiled female appearing on screen before a male audience is considered immodest and against Islamic values.

Through innovative visual language, new codes and camera conventions, well-known Iranian filmmakers such as Bahram Bayza's The Travellers (1991), Abbas Kiarostami's Life and Nothing More (1991), and Mohsen Makhmatbat's Gabbeh (1996) managed to focus on 'the private Iranian women lives' under linguistic and visual censorship.

In addition to the subtle examination of feminine desire, all of the films provide a general background to Iranian history and religion. This fascinating book will be of interest not only to feminists, film studies students, and scholars, but to any aficionado interested in Iranian culture and literature.

What impressed me as a reader was the unique opportunity to explore the many ambiguities and contradictions in the lives of Iranian women and understand them better from the position of a "European outsider."

Written by: Anna Hamling, March 21st 2009

Latino Politics: Identity, Mobilization and Representation

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:08:00 +0000

Edited by Rodolfo Espino, David L. Leal, Kenneth J. Meier

University of Virginia Press

This book is a major contribution to the history of Latino politics in the United States. It is an indispensable reference for historians, economists, and political scientists, as well as any serious reader interested in the Latino political situation in the U.S.

At its core is a series of five parts: each of them consists of approximately three essays that give a thorough analysis of such themes as identity politics, political action and public opinion, coalitional politics, political representation, and the future of Latino politics. Latinos have not yet attained full representation within U.S. politics, just as they haven't achieved full equality in American society.

Citing the constant growth of the Latino population in the U.S. (35.3 million in 2000), and its numerous complexities and diversities, the fundamental question of Latino political identities are reconstructed for the purpose of various political organizations. David Leal moves the focus from group identities to individual identities. He explores the concept of "Latino public opinion" and if it does, in fact, exists in the U.S.

In the following section, Michael Jones-Correa explores the relevant approaches to the understanding of the Latino political experience from the ethnic, transnational and immigrant perspectives. The dominant attitude that prevails amongst political scientists is to treat Latinos as mere observers in ethnic politics in the U.S., Jones-Correa argues.

The essay by Luis Fraga and Sharon Navarro on Latino politics in terms of gender politics is of major importance. The descriptive differences between Latino men and Latina women are well delineated. For example, Latina heads of households are less likely to vote that their males counterparts. Also, patterns of both gender and ethnic representation vary considerably by state. California leads with 23%, the largest representation of Latina women; Texas has the lowest representation, 21%.

Latina feminists have organized numerous regional and national conferences to address their concerns; first wave feminists incorporated issues of race, class and gender by addressing experiences of poor working class Mexican women. Second wave feminists focus on labour movements. One of the first national labour figures of Mexican descent was Lucy Eldine González. Most historians list her as a Mexican Indian. In the history of labour movement, there were some extraordinary women leaders living at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as Luisa Capetillo (1880-1922), Concepción Torres and Juana Colón. They opened the possibilities for Latinas' further work against traditional patriarchy. Even though Latina women have not yet played a major role in politics, it has begun to change.

In the next chapter, the writers focus on the political identities of the Latino and comparisons of Latino political actions. Matt Barreto explores the characteristics of candidates that affect Latinos’ voting habits and Ricardo Ramírez analyzes the characteristics of the Latino population that shapes the choices of political candidates. Louis DeSipio and Adrian Pantoja compare issues of identity within Latino subpopulations, for example, comparing Puerto Ricans with Mexicans and Salvadorans.

Essays in section four examine the political representation of Latinos in a variety of institutional settings. For example, Espino focuses on Latinos’ representation by Latinos members in the U.S. Congress; Jason Casellas studies the representation of Latinos in the U.S. House of Representatives. Eric Gonzalez-Juenke examines their representation in local educational systems while Nick Theobald looks at the degree of responsiveness to politics amongst the Latino population.

The last section, in which Valerie Martinez-Ebers and Manuel Avalos examine the implications for the future of Latino politics opens the area by academic scholars future research.

This latest study of Latino politics is comprehensive and illuminating. It also advances our understanding of the Latinos issues in the U.S.

Written by: Anna Hamling, February 8th 2009