Imagination Beyond Nation: Latin American Popular Culture

326 Pages·1999·8.048 MB·English

by  Eva Bueno, Eva Bueno, Terry Caesar

Imagination Beyond Nation
Pitt Latin American Series
Billie R. DeWalt, General Editor
Reid Andrews, Associate Editor
Jorge I. Dominguez, Associate Editor
Imagination
Beyond Nation
Latin American Popular Culture
Edited by Eva P. Bueno
and
Terry Caesar
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published by the University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa. 15261
Copyright © 1998, University of Pittsburgh Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
and the British Library.
Chapter 8, "Tango, Buenos Aires, Borges: Cultural Production and Urban
Sexual Regulation," is reprinted with permission from Buenos Aires:
Perspectives on the City and Cultural Production, by David William Foster
(Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998).
This book is dedicated to Oscarina Batista Bueno,
uma mulher que sabe muitas historias do Brasil, and
to Virgilio Paulino Bueno, que as contava.

Contents
Introduction
The Politics of the Popular in Latin American Popular Culture 1
Terry Caesar and Eva R Bueno
I. NATION AS ICON
Gender, Ethnicity and Piety 19
The Case of the China Poblana
Jeanne L. Gillespie
II. MEDIANATION
Caipira Culture 41
The Politics of Nation in Mazzaropi's Films
Eva R Bueno
Big Snakes on the Streets and Never Ending Stories 64
The Case of Venezuelan Telenovelas
Nelson Hippolyte Ortega
From Mafalda to Boogie 81
The City in Argentine Humor
Héctor D, Fernandez VHoeste
III. NATION AS IDEA
Framing the Peruvian Cholo 109
Popular Art by Unpopular People
Milagros Zapata Swerdlow and David Swerdlow
viii Contents
6 You’re All Guilty 129
Lo Cubano in the Confession
James J. Pancrazio
7 The Cueca of the Last Judgment:
Politics of Chilean Resistance in Tres Marías y Una Rosa 142
Oscar Lepeleg
8 Tango, Buenos Aires, Borges:
Cultural Production and Urban Sexual Regulation 167
David mUiam Foster
IV. BEYOND NATION
9 Myth, Modernity, and Postmodern Tragedy in
Walter Lima’s The Dolphin 195
Jerrold Van Hoeg
10 “Useless Spaces” of the Feminine in Popular Culture:
Like Water for Chocolate and The Silent War 210
Vincent Spina
11 Masculinities at the Margins: Representations of
the Malandro and the Pachuco 22 7
Simon Webb
Notes 265
Bibliography 289
Contributors 305
Index 309
Acknowledgments
The contributors to this volume are predominantly younger scholars. Per­
haps this is one of the reasons it has been such a pleasure to work with
them, most of whom we have never met in person. All suffered the various
stages of this project with great patience and good humor. Our thanks go to
Jeannie Gillespie, Nelson Hippolyte Ortega, Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste,
Milagros Zapata Swerdlow and David Swerdlow, James Pancrazio, Oscar
Lepeley, David Foster, Jerrold Hoeg, Vincent Spina, and Simon Webb. With­
out them this book would never have been possible, though we also
acknowledge other unnamed colleagues who gave us the opportunity to
consider their work at earlier stages of the project.
We want to recognize the official help received from the Pennsylvania
State University, especially the Office of Minority Faculty Development and
the Office for Research and Graduate Studies, both for release time and
financial support. Thanks also to Scott Burns for his fine copy editing ear­
lier in the project, to Silvia Pellarolo for invaluable help with the transla­
tions, and to our good friend Marie Novak, who once again did a great
indexing job.
We are also grateful for the help of a number of friends from the DuBois
campus: Robin Gill and Bob Roman, who solved many computer problems;
Sue Waitkus, who helped with class scheduling and positive thoughts;
Karen Fuller, Kathleen Bender, and Ann Hummer, who ordered books and
found essays. In addition, the encouragement of Mary Dupuis, former
dean, was invaluable.
Finally, Eva Bueno wants to thank her co-editor, who has made this
project a pleasurable learning experience in more ways than can be
expressed. Terry Caesar extends the same thanks to his co-editor, even as he
wishes he could extend more to his own institution, where, alas, the sort of
research this book represents is simply not acknowledged.