Female Idealizations And Norms Within The Films Like Water For Chocolate And Frida

In analyzing portrayals of women, it is appropriate to begin with the character of Margarita. For, within the text, she embodies the traditionally masculine traits of bravery, resilience, and violence as a means of liberating herself from an existence of abuse and victimhood. Even more, the woman plays upon stereotypes of femininity in order to mask her true nature. The reader witnesses this clever deception in a scene where the character endures a “wholesome thrashing” from her huge, violent, and grizzly bear-like husband, Guerra (81). Although Margarita “[submits] to the infliction with great apparent humility,” her husband is found “stone-dead” the next morning (81). Here, diction such as “submits” and “humility” relate to the traits of weakness, subservience and inferiority that are so commonly expected of women, especially in their relationships with men. Yet, when one

In several cultures, women are seen as archetypes more than men. The proposition of women are instantly idealized and glorified and instantaneously ignore the true complexity of a woman. Countless of these superficial images can be seen across various cultures where the societies within these cultures define what it means to be a female and what type of behavior is and isn’t acceptable within those parameters. The persistent restatement of these stories throughout these generations reinforces the gender system. Women who step out of the norm in these societies are then held punishable for their actions. Alicia Gaspar de Alba pinpoints the three archetypal roles that are given to the women in the Mexican and Chicana cultures. These are,

Common stereotypes about women in the Mexican-American culture include that women are uneducated, good housewives, and very fertile. Many parents still believe it’s the woman’s job to stay home and be the homemaker. The concept of gender, which is socially constructed, is reinforced since birth. (Sociology Lecture 08/24/2015) Ana was caught in the middle of gender politics. Her mother oppressed her daughter so she can become a grandmother. The film “Real Women Have Curves” deals with gender stereotypes and struggles of poor women living in East LA. Carmen was trying to have Ana chained to the notion of women being inferior to men. Carmen believed men to be superior, whereas Ana thought differently. However Ana strived to liberate herself from traditional cultural norms by pursuing her college education. Her mother’s negative influence only caused Ana to rebel.

In “Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina de Erauso, a female-born transvestite conquers the Spanish World on her journey to disguise herself as a man and inflicts violence both on and off the battlefield. Catalina discovers her hidden role in society as she compares herself to her brothers advantage in life, as they are granted money and freedom in living their own lives. Erauso decides to take action of this act of inequality by forming a rebellion, as she pledges to threaten the social order.The gender roles allotted to both men and women in the Spanish world represent the significance of societal expectations in order to identify the importance of gender in determining one’s position in the social order in the Spanish World.

During the Mexican Revolution, Mexico as a nation torn in many directions, people gave up simple farming lives to take up arms against causes that many of them did not fully understand. Gender roles during the period in Mexico were exceptionally degrading towards women. Having little more rights than slaves and treated as trophies or property more than human beings, women role in society was nothing near that of a man’s. In The Underdogs, Mariano Anzuela highlights the issue of gender roles by continuously illustrating the punitive role of women and their mistreatment. Augmenting Anzuelas work with citations from Oscar Lewis and Stephanie Smith will paint a picture of the degrading gender roles for women during the Mexican Revolution. Highlighted points brought up by Azuela are how men speak with and treat women, women’s place in society, and general disregard for women’s feelings.

Machismo, or male chauvinism, is a concept that characterizes many Latin American male behaviors, most importantly those associated with masculinity and pride. This concept, most likely introduced to New Spain by Spanish conquistadors who embodied these traits, was then adopted and integrated as a part of Mexican culture going forward. Because of male masculinity prevailing over feminine traits during the 17th century, misogyny and the oppression of women became a norm in Mexican culture. Struggling to be valued in Mexico, women turned to literature and art to voice their opinions and expose the machismo in Mexican culture. Through literature and art, is where feminism in Mexico arose and is continually strengthen in. This paper will discuss the ways in which Mexican feminist literature and art over time have exposed and challenged machismo, misogyny, and the Mexican patriarchy since the Spanish Conquest.

The relationship between the gender roles reflected in telenovelas and the the role of women in Latin American countries is a matter of parallelism. This is because as Judith Butler, the author of the book Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, emphasized that it is “impossible to separate out ‘gender’ from the political and cultural intersections in which it is invariably produced and maintained”. Gender is undeniably socially constructed, and is a product of the values deemed important by that society being constantly reenacted and reinforced. In that sense, telenovelas are also another medium through which beliefs in gender can be relayed to the audience, forming what is called the “imaginable domain of gender” as they either perpetuate or go against ideal hegemony (Beard 2003).

A deeper examination of Cisneros’ famous short story, “Woman Hollering Creek” will highlight the liberation of those barriers. In this particular short story Cisneros speaks about the main character, Cleofilas, and her struggle with her abusive husband, Juan Pedro. Cleofilas had to live in a society where the women were simply there to assist their husbands, and God forbid she second guessed him. Living and struggling with the everyday battle of stereotypes, she decided to leave her husband at the end of this short story. This all developed the strong independent female role Cleofilas took on by the end of the story. The main character was forced to believe by her family and her husband that she wasn’t worth anything without a man; this made her doubtful of her abilities and her human capital. In the interview by Martha Satz, Cisneros says, “I think many of my stories come from dealing with straddling two cultures, and certainly it's something I'm going to deal with in future stories” (Cisneros 30). Here, Cisneros agrees that her stories have to do with the endless topic about coming from two cultures and the stereotypes it brings along. From firsthand accounts the Mexican American culture is embraced by “machismo”, or that male superiority. “Woman Hollering Creek”

In the novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Juniot Diaz you start to notice a cultural gender role and how there is certain expectations of them. The novel is based on a young boy named Oscar Wao and the hardships that one event has caused to an entire family. Even though the novel is focused on Oscar the author always went back to his sister and his mother. The author described the women as “real, strong women, even though they were being filtered through a somewhat distorted male point of view” (Stevenson 1). These two women play an important roll in this novel, they ultimately don't show the cultural gender role and what is expected from them. All the important female rolls in Oscars life are independent and strong women but they all have one thing in common, being mistreated by men.

Currently Sandra Cisneros resides in San Antonio in a purple house and she describes herself as “nobody’s mother” and “nobody’s wife.” Both Frida Kahlo’s and Cynthia Y. Hernandez’s works convey the idea of having one’s culture limit one’s freedom and individuality. Cisneros and Esperanza are both victims of this idea and realize that the only way to live one’s life freely is to defy the roles and limitations created by one’s culture.

Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel is a powerful novel that serves as a great introductory guide to the Latin-American culture. The novel consists of primarily female characters, the De La Garza family, where each one portrays a female stereotype, or perhaps their role in the society. The setting of the story takes place during arise of the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which helps to further distinguish the roles of the women and how they go about living their everyday life. Like Water for Chocolate can be looked at as a story about two women, a daughter and a mother, Tita and Elena De La Garza. Tita, our protagonist, struggles against her mothers’ tradition, to “serve” her until the day she dies, without having a life of her own.

The Mexican Revolution was a pivotal time in the country for government change; however, it was not just a governmental change during this time, but also societal. Women began to change their role in society. The story Like Water for Chocolate focuses on the youngest daughter of the De la Garza family, Tita, who by tradition is bound to take care of her mother till the day she dies, and because of this tradition she cannot marry. At the time this idea of self-sacrifice was the social norm and an obligation for Mexican women. “In the face of tradition, she is expected to sacrifice her own happiness and well-being for others” ("Like Water for Chocolate").

Women of Latin American culture have incessantly ensued the potent gender roles that have become a social construction of their society over innumerable decades. The profound author of Insurgent Mexico, John Reed, imparts his experiences with the revolutionary leaders of the Mexican Revolution, like Pancho Villa, and was able to witness their culture and more specifically the roles these Mexican women were forced to render by their chauvinistic counterparts. This period of revolution, started to grant women new mantles usually reserved only for men, like participating in fighting for the success of the revolution; any preeminent changes would soon approach, but in the meantime Mexican society run by men enjoyed the regulated traditional

This theory is used to critically analyze relationship between language, ideologies, and society to reveal the portrayal of women in the film.

Perhaps it would have been a different situation, if they were actually women who are acting and thinking like men. According to travesties, being of the primary gender (biologically male), thinking and behaving like women is unacceptable because it downgrades one’s gender status. On the contrary, being biologically female, behaving and thinking like men is upgrading and heroic. In this sense, being like a girl has been a challenge since childhood for travestis. They always feared that people would find out and shame them in the society. While peculiarly following their unimpressive path in the society, of desiring women and experiencing sex, travesti subjectivity is generated out of their apprehensive relationships with their untrustworthy boyfriends. Within this subjectivity, travestis’ efforts to show themselves within the normal boundaries of the Brazilian society strengthen the gender binary. In their relations with their boyfriends, they act like nothing else other than females. Similarly, in their profession, they play the role of a female or male depending on the demands of the situation by swapping between the binary gender roles. Travesti subjectivity comes into the limelight with normative gender binary