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Inventing the Latino/a Hero: `Legality’ and the Representation of Latino/a Heroic Figures in U.S. Film, Television, and Comics

Espinoza, Jorge Mauricio
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2131-5696
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436541436

Abstract Details

2015, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Spanish and Portuguese.
The heroic narratives appearing in U.S. popular culture have been traditionally dominated by Anglo characters, with limited spaces for the representation of ethnic minorities. When they do appear in these narratives, ethnic minorities typically occupy the roles of subservient sidekicks or stereotyped villains—whose main functions, respectively, are to aid the Anglo hero in his pursuits and to serve as cannon fodder in order to highlight his superiority. While few in number, the presence of ethnic minority heroes in popular culture narratives becomes important for examining and understanding the limitations and possibilities of positive portrayals by and about members of historically marginalized communities in the United States. Inventing the Latino/a Hero explores the historical representation of U.S. Latino/a heroic figures and heroism discourses in film, television, and comics. This study concentrates on hero narratives that directly explore, interrogate, or wrestled with the issue of legality, which is central to the construction of Latino/a heroes and their narratives’ relationship with ideology and power relations. In this regard, I contend that Latino/a heroes either challenge the dominant, often oppressive system of U.S. law as they seek justice for their communities outside the legal apparatus; or operate as normative heroes who uphold and defend the U.S. legal establishment, obtaining their heroic status from such nationalist endeavors. The nature of the hero’s relationship with legality has a profound impact on the way the hero is constructed and the type of ideology supported by the narrative. As a framework for studying these texts, I employ theoretical and analytical tools from narratology and social semiotics that address the way heroic narratives engage with ideology through their plots, character construction, and imagery. Using these tools, I show that Latino/a heroes tend to be represented along a spectrum from resistance to Anglo domination and oppression to domestication of their most rebellious traits and cooption of their heroic attributes; that their portrayals range from affirmation and celebration of cultural markers of latinidad to the erasure of such signposts of ethnic difference; and that the representation of Latino/a heroes has significantly increased in the past three decades due, among other factors, to the opening of more spaces for minority portrayals in popular culture as a result of the rise of multiculturalism and the successful efforts of Latino/a artists and auteurs to create more nuanced characters (including females heroes) and to tell their own stories. Despite such progress, stereotypical and unidimensional depictions of Latinos/as still exist today, and their heroic representations are still dominated by heterenormative male characters.
Ignacio Corona (Advisor)
Frederick Aldama (Committee Member)
Guisela Latorre (Committee Member)
Laura Podalsky (Committee Member)
345 p.
American History; American Studies; Ethnic Studies; Hispanic American Studies; Hispanic Americans; Latin American Studies; Mass Media
Latino studies; heroes; heroism; representation; identity; Latinos; border; borderlands; film; television; comics; popular culture

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Espinoza, J. M. (2015). Inventing the Latino/a Hero: `Legality’ and the Representation of Latino/a Heroic Figures in U.S. Film, Television, and Comics [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436541436

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Espinoza, Jorge. Inventing the Latino/a Hero: `Legality’ and the Representation of Latino/a Heroic Figures in U.S. Film, Television, and Comics . 2015. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436541436.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Espinoza, Jorge. "Inventing the Latino/a Hero: `Legality’ and the Representation of Latino/a Heroic Figures in U.S. Film, Television, and Comics ." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1436541436

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1436541436
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.