Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes

The Ambivalence of Mexican American Identity in Literature and Film

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by Juan J. Alonzo

Type: Studies
Subject: Sociology
Keywords: Mexican Americans, representation, western, characters
Publishing date: 2015
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Language: English

Relative size

Physical desc.

Paperback • 208 pages
6 ¼ x 9 ½ inches (16 x 24 cm)

ISBN

978-0-8165-2812-7

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Book Presentation:
Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes is a comparative study of the literary and cinematic representation of Mexican American masculine identity from early twentieth-century adventure stories and movie Westerns through contemporary self-representations by Chicano/a writers and filmmakers. In this deeply compelling book, Juan J. Alonzo proposes a reconsideration of the early stereotypical depictions of Mexicans in fiction and film: rather than viewing stereotypes as unrelentingly negative, Alonzo presents them as part of a complex apparatus of identification and disavowal. Furthermore, Alonzo reassesses Chicano/a self-representation in literature and film, and argues that the Chicano/a expression of identity is characterized less by essentialism than by an acknowldgement of the contingent status of present-day identity formations.

Alonzo opens his provocative study with a fresh look at the adventure stories of Stephen Crane and the silent Western movies of D. W. Griffith. He also investigates the conflation of the greaser, the bandit, and the Mexican revolutionary into one villainous figure in early Western movies and, more broadly, traces the development of the badman in Westerns. He newly interrogates the writings of Américo Paredes regarding the makeup of Mexican masculinity, and productively trains his analytic eye on the recent films of Jim Mendiola and the contemporary poetry of Evangelina Vigil.

Throughout Badmen, Bandits, and Folk Heroes, Alonzo convincingly demonstrates how fiction and films that formerly appeared one-dimensional in their treatment of Mexicans and Mexican Americans actually offer surprisingly multifarious and ambivalent representations. At the same time, his valuation of indeterminacy, contingency, and hybridity in contemporary cultural production creates new possibilities for understanding identity formation.

About the Author:
Juan J. Alonzo is an assistant professor of English at Texas A&M University.

Press Reviews:
"Provides a thought-provoking political stance on the ethics of reading stereotypes in historical and contemporary written and visual texts, and in everyday life."—Bulletin of Latin American Research

"Examining early 20th century adventure stories and film (including an investigation into how early Westerns combined the greaser, the bandit, and the Mexican revolutionary into a single villainous figure), the author shows how seemingly negative and one-dimensional stereotypes are actually multifarious and ambivalent. Alonzo also argues that the Chicano/a expression of identity in film and literature is characterized less by essentialism than by an acknowledgement of fluidity in identity formation."—Book News Inc.

"Alonzo delivers a significant contribution to an already considerable body of scholarship on Mexican American identity in art, film, and literature. . . . In doing so, this scholarly work departs from its antecedents, which focus more on negative stereotyping and representation. Steeped in various theoretical perspectives on cultural identity, the author frames the study in an especially useful manner."—Choice

See the publisher website: University of Arizona Press

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