NO101 Lecture Notes - Mexican Americans, Mariachi, Manifest Destiny
Document Summary
Stereotypes matter- minorities are affected by the labelling. Films are for fun but these stereotypes become internalized. Bad things happen when americans enter mexico. White guys in the westerns like the dark ladies. Western frontier must eliminate the natives and the mexicans: taking the land from those that were there, proving manhood. Equality between races was not an ideology at the time. Gunners from american civil war go to mexico to help the mexicans: hired guns between mexican revolt (white men fight for mexicans in return for $) Hired guns attack/ try to acquire the dark lady in a horse wrangling scene: she steals the white man"s wallet (thief/ temptress, gun men focused on which side pays better. Americans out think the mexicans hold children captive. The americans bring the negative/ violence (killed men/ took children) 1950s mccarthyism- attack on making anti-revolutionary films.
