Oh My Darling, Miguel

So... seeing Charlton Heston in brown face was quite the surprise. It reminded me again of another movie he was in, The Far Horizons, where he played Clark of Louis and Clark. His character was in love with Sacajawea. Sacajawea, coincidentally, was played by a white woman, Donna Reed, who was also in brown face. It was a cheesy movie that was obviously very historically incorrect and the fact that they didn't cast a Native American woman to play a very important Native American character irked me. I believe that is what they are doing again here. They want to represent the Mexican population but they did not cast an actual Mexican to play the lead Mexican role.

I found it interesting how people basically just had to cross the street to move from America into Mexico. I've never been to a border city but I was under the impression that it didn't work that way. When I think of the border, I think of vast desert land that Mexicans have to cross in order to get to the American border. I don't actually know how it works. But I highly doubt it is really as easy to move from country to country as it seemed in the movie. Perhaps that is how it was in the 1950s, though...

I kind of liked Suzie Vargas. She was also refreshing. She seemed intelligent and strong and didn't even have any evil qualities about her! She also seemed pretty sexual but not in a trashy way, which was very pleasing to see. She was a white woman who married a Mexican man, which in itself is pretty cool to see portrayed in an old movie (even though Charlton Heston was anything but Mexican). Then she seems to know how to stick up for herself (though going off with those guys to "skid row" was pretty silly). It also bugged me that she didn't know any Spanish and called the young Mexican man "Poncho". She assumed that the Mexican boy only wanted something sexual from her. Perhaps if she had bothered to learn Spanish, she would have known what he really meant. Even though she is married to a Mexican man, she still harbors some racist sentiment. I'm not saying that she is an evil racist, but with some of her fears and comments, it seems that the sentiment is lingering in her mind.

I'd like to focus on the colonial aspect that is mentioned in Calvo's reading and that was discussed briefly in class. It really is bizarre that white society holds the anxiety of Mexicans and Blacks being rapists of white women, since the white explorers and slave owners were the rapists of Native Americans, slaves, etc. The fact that their land was taken from them is metaphorical rape but then they were physically raped as well. And then white society holds the rape anxiety? I don't think that's fair. It's just like when a child who is feeling guilty about a bad act blames that same act on someone else. Or when an unfaithful partner starts suspecting the other of infidelity.

Luz Calvo really expands on this theory well in his article. The reversal of the bad act in popular culture. It's interesting that the anxiety is present in A Touch of Evil, while Suzie perceives that she will be raped by the Mexican boys, yet it is the white American police officer who is the real bad guy in the film. So by this, I think that Orson Welles is trying to overcome certain Mexican stereotypes. The Mexican boys do not actually rape Suzie.. they just drug her and drop her off to be framed. But Hank was the one who orchestrated the whole thing.

The movie was pretty interesting. At first, I felt that it was kind of slow. And it was hard to get over Charlton Heston in brown face. But I liked the fall of the mighty Hank Quinlan. It was sad but it was needed. His corrupt ways were finally exposed- though it was sad that his partner had to die in the process. The race relations were definitely interesting. Orson Welles did a good job.

"It will have your looks and my brains"

Wow, Blackboard Jungle. Blatant hating on teenagers, I do believe. I'm pretty sure that Americans had some anxiety about rock 'n' roll loving teens. That much is very very clear in this film.

Whenever I hear the song Rockin' Around the Clock, the absolute last thing I think of is mis-behaving teenagers. But I guess back in 1955, this was considered to be a rock song that was turning kids into hoodlums.

As soon as this movie started and the plot was laid out, I was reminded of that Michelle Pfeiffer movie Dangerous Minds. I believe the song Gangster's Paradise was the them song of that film. Rap was considered the scary music for teens at that time. Of course, there is the well-meaning teacher, coming into the inner city high school, determined to make a positive difference for the kids. At first, there was nothing but trouble, but then thankfully, some of the kids turned their lives around.

In class, we talked about Ms. Hammond and I believe she was called a "whore". I'm so frustrated by the portrayal of women in films such as these. There are exactly two women in Blackboard Jungle. One is Ms. Hammond. She is the typical working woman of the 1950s. She is a woman out of the home, which in a movie like this means she is not a conventional America woman. Which also means that she is overtly sexual. Which obviously means she has to be portrayed as a slut because we can't have positive sexuality in American films.

When Mrs. Dadier suggested that maybe Ms. Hammond deserved her almost-rape, I was livid. A lot of people talk like that about women. If they happen to dress in a way that shows off their figure, if they like men and are obvious about it, it is assumed that they somehow deserve to be raped or disrespected. It drives me absolutely crazy. But I think that is a common sentiment in our society. It's really unfortunate.

And then the second woman of the film. Mrs. Dadier. Ugh. She is the obedient, stay-home, blonde wife of the 1950s. At first, she frustrated me because she was insecure and jealous in her marriage. And THEN, when she actually apologized for letting her husband down by having a miscarriage, I almost lost it. I found her to be weak and frustrating. I hate that there is the annoying weak woman and then the slutty strong woman. Why can't we just have strong, intelligent, positive female characters?

Moving on from my rant... I really liked Miller. At first, I barely paid attention to when he was in the bathroom, questioning another student about making another boy cry. I guess I didn't realize that he was the one who said it, but I do remember liking that someone said it at all. But then Mr. Dadier enters the bathroom and Miller antagonizes him. I liked how he called him "Chief". That would have driven me crazy if I were Dadier. It's like when people my age or younger call me "hon". It's very condescending. So, as I said in class, at first Miller seems like a punk just like the rest of the kids in the school. However, I started to feel differently about him.

Dadier singles Miller out as a leader. However, he also believes him to be a problem child. That is kind of bizarre. He looks to him as both the problem AND the solution. Dadier suspects Miller in a lot of the bad acts that occur when it actually turns out to be West. I hold a bit of pity for West. One of my first thoughts about him was that his parents must not have loved him enough or else he would not be acting out as much. West says later that he is acting out so that he won't be accepted into the military. I don't really buy that. I think he is just a very troubled young man and does bad things in order to get noticed.

I think that West was jealous of the relationship between Miller and Dadier. And I do not agree with the reading. I don't think it's because West is gay or anything. I think that West is truly the character who needs to be rescued. He is obviously very troubled and lost. He should be the one that Dadier is trying to rescue, not Miller. He is jealous of the attention Dadier is giving to Miller and that is why he does so many things to get Dadier's attention. Yes, he does really bad things to get his attention. And Dadier is still oblivious to it. It's really sad, actually.

Overall, the sexism in this film really frustrated me. But I appreciated the interracial aspect of it. I liked that one of the main protagonists is Miller, a young working-class black boy. Dadier views Miller as a problem, but I think that the audience can see just how good Miller really is. The film shows the cultural anxieties of the time. Integrated schools probably scared a lot of Americans. Rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquents definitely were a fear. That is very apparent in this film.