Same As It Ever Was...

Of interest for that small subset of "Those Latinos Who Care About Such Things" (meaning that subset of raza who also care about box office numbers...perhaps all five of us) the numbers for the new immigrant movie La Misma Luna ("Under the Same Moon") has broken a record. Apparently someone's been keeping track of "three day opening weekend grosses for Spanish language films" and La Misma Luna's $2.8 million shattered the previous benchmark.

This category of "three day opening weekend grosses of Spanish language films" is, of course, not to be confused with "films that feature evil one-dimensional gringo characters" or even "films which feature assimilated Chicano characters who don't speak Spanish and act like idiots." Both categories of movies which La Misma Luna would certainly qualify. Not to say I didn't like the movie -- I did -- let's just say the film never met a convenient and coincidental plot point it didn't like.

Two weeks ago I attended the conference of the National Association of Independent Latino Filmmakers. A membership group of U.S. Latino filmmakers from across the country. Highlights of this year's annual event featured a special screening of La Misma Luna on Friday night; an opening plenary session with a lone U.S. Latino among four Mexicans discussing "Creating a Pan-Latino Cinema With Global Appeal," and two special luncheon conversations sponsored by HBO with the makers of the joint Mexico/Spain co-production Pan's Labyrinth on Saturday, and on Sunday Carlos Cuaron discussing his upcoming soccer movie starring the Matt Damon and Ben Affleck of the Latino world, Diego Luna and Gail Garcia Bernal.

If you're detecting a non-U.S. Latino theme in these signature events in a conference dedicated to the efforts of U.S. Latino filmmakers striving for cultural self-expression you're not the only one to notice. And while this isn't so much a critique of the organizers of the NALIP conference -- after all, you can only reflect what's out there in the marketplace -- what's happening is that more and more the notion of what defines a "Latino" film, especially to studios and/or white producers, is that a Latino movie has to be about immigrants and has to be in Spanish. Absent from this narrow view of contemporary Brown life is anything deviating from the stories of humble maids and busboys, intrepid border crossings, the dreaded migra, and "lessons to be learned from it all."

From a must read post on writer Alisa Valdez-Rodriguez's blog:

In 2007, Touchstone Pictures pulls the plug on "Deep in the Heart of Texas," a feature film starring Eva Longoria, about a fully assimilated Mexican American woman, saying there is nothing particularly "Latina" about an educated, professional shopaholic from Texas; meaning, the character is "too American" for audiences to believe as "Latina". (Meanwhile, Texas is no longer a majority-white state, and most Latinos there speak English…)

While Eva Longoria wouldn't be my first choice to articulate the complexity of raza life circa 2008, you get the picture. Hollywood's probably the only place in America where an illegal immigration status is beneficial for career advancement. As my friend filmmaker Alex Rivera (The Sleep Dealer -- see NYT mention here) says, we're in a crisis here. By my admittedly off the top of my head reckoning there has only been one indie and/or major studio release by a U.S. Latino filmmaker in the last five years -- and that's only if you're generous and count Kenny Ortega's High School Muscial 2. (Which I actually did, in this earlier post.)

In any case here's the La Misma Luna trailer. I saw the film at the $14 a seat Arclight Theater in Hollywood. Never saw so many Latinos in the hoity toity place. There's no question a market exists. And judging by the positive audience reaction the movie succeeds on an emotional  level, despite the clumsy and on the nose storytelling. And the acting's not bad. Especially Mexican comic actor Eugenio Derbez. Even the kid was ok -- at intervals. Like with most child actors, you alternate between wanting to throttle the cloying brat or chuckle at his precociousness. Me, it was hard getting past the kid's neatly combed hair. Kept reminded me of a midget Mitt Romney. Anyway, judge for yourself. And go buy a ticket. Who knows? Maybe some enlightened studio exec will be motivated by the box office numbers and greenlight something more interesting. If so, I got a couple of scripts to show him or her. Until then...

Comments

[Brachote]

Pues,
Gracias as ever for holding it down for the home team. But I wonder if there are two market forces missing. Latinos, for the most, see films as family units who have a wide range of education and language acquisition so we tend to action and comedy. Seeing the gay porn 300 at the Vista opening weekend was beyond Freudian for me. I think it was the brown dollar that put the recent Alvin n the Chipmunks into the Top 10 the weekend it opened. And Spy Kids remains the latino cultural product for the screen that actually played to latinos en masse. The indie market, which is the market for the US Latino maker, is widely a white upper-middle class audience affair, pace all the zany, goofy, off-beat and other cloying adjectives family dysfunctional affairs that they popularize (Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, blah blah). I wonder why Miguel Arteta's work didnt enter your discussion - since he glides between the brown (Star Maps, Ugly Betty) to whitey (The Good Girl, Six Feet Under) with what looks like the greatest of ease. Sorry to be so heavy with the reception theory but it seems to me if we insist on making work which situates ourselves (and by this "us" I mean makers working predominantly in English and with some level of higher ed) we will hear back from producers that we don't sound like their maid. Si senor?