Determinants of Race, Class, and Setting in the Mexican Literary and Film Representations of No Man’s Land, Amores Perros, and The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
The short stories in No Man’s Land accurately describe the unique challenges of life in Mexico’s impoverished border cities located near the United States. Author Eduardo Antonio Parra interprets this setting from the point of view of characters whose psyche has been permanently shaped by this unique borderland region, effectively a no man’s land, where they have grown up. Deep from the recess of their minds, he reveals how often impulsive and flawed decisions, reflected in deleterious effects of their masculinity, have consequences that put their futures and often their very lives at grave risk. Alternatively, the natural desert setting of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada’s1 (hereafter Three Burials) redemptive journey, bearing witness to the reality of this region, reveals the coexistence of a mix of masculinities. A more complex setting than the borderlands is the modern urban environment of Mexico City. The film Amores Perros,2 as an example of the on-going transformation that Matthew C. Gutmann and Mara Viveros Vigoy have termed an “erosion of machismo” may be interpreted as a failure of regressive forms of masculinity within the additional context of both race and class.3 Advanced in this urban setting through depictions of multiple story lines and structural manipulation, is the idea that such traditional types of masculinity, no longer relevant in the frenetic cosmopolitan environment of Mexico City, are ultimately ineffective in preventing the losses their use brings to Guillermo Arriaga’s diverse set of characters.
As Hector Amaya instructs, “Masculinity in Mexico, as elsewhere, has always been much more than machismo.”4 Over time, the very word “machismo” has become synonymous with Latin American male masculinity in general. While Gutmann provides important insight by pointing out the additional attention this has focused on this type of male masculinity offering, “Throughout the world today ‘machismo’ is a common expression for sexism. Yet the word and its etymology, derives as much from international political and social currents, as from cultural artifacts peculiar to Latin America.”5 In this regard, Amaya’s own typology of masculinity is aimed at improving understanding of Mexican cultural situations in order to help disclose the ways in which race determines specific masculinities. Hegemonic masculinity types act as a cultural ideal exemplifying all the qualities to preserve patriarchy. Complicit masculinity, the broadest category, comprises a multitude of styles of being masculine, all of which reconstitute hegemonic cultural ideals of the masculine. Finally, marginalized masculinities are those exemplified by race, and thus play the role of reconstituting social hierarchies, and also of supporting the hegemonic masculinities. Noteworthy here is that marginal masculinities also “typically function outside institutional power.”6 Also typical is the ubiquity of its virulent depiction in fictional narratives such as those by Eduardo Antonio Parra.
According to Aldona Bialowas Pobutsky, Parra’s characters are “disenfranchised borderland Mexicans [with] masculinities [that] are markedly traditional, exalting violence and machismo.”7 Due to what is referred to here as a “neocolonial” setting, social markers such as race and class underpin the stories’ essentially male identities. The characters are perennially poor, lower, or more frequently, under-class men of mixed blood with highly marginalized masculinities. Moreover, Parra’s characterizations reveal the effects of impotence; historically exacerbated here again, by conflicting triggers of economic promise on the one hand and outwardly hostile attitudes on the other, coming from the United States to the north. The implication is that for Parra’s young males, this very presence in their lives puts Mexican masculinity at risk. Thus, in concurrence with Pobutsky, if “old-fashioned machismo is a reaction to the helplessness experienced by the Mexican man,” [then the most salient contribution made by Parra is that based on the outcome for his characters], “masculinities that [typically] equate muscle power to social superiority are vestiges of the past that do not work in the neocolonial condition.”8
In the story “The Hunter” one young man’s macho behavior results in a senseless murder followed by, for the killer Joel Villasenor, the debilitating fear of being incessantly hunted. The impact of this violent act in turn contributes to a second murder of yet another innocent man, Joel’s friend Neri. Parra uses a technique of off-set monologues to seamlessly transform the essence of one character, that of the bounty hunter searching for Joel, into the other, the hunted, by reactivating the deeply felt psychosomatic elements of the second man’s macho mindset. In this way the author lays bare the essential ingredients for a predictably violent and disastrous outcome. Details of the plot reveal that Joel has been schooled in traditional hegemonic masculinity through the example of his father, while his own personal interpretation has favored impulsive violence in the face of challenges to his macho sexual masculinity. Confronted by a rival, Gabacho, for his love interest, Maria Elena, Joel acts immediately to remove this threat to his own self-image of male superiority. He hereby exhibits how the performance of his masculinity in this manner is regressive not only for his own development but also for his immediate goal: He fails to remove his competitor by shooting an innocent bystander instead, and likewise, he fails to avoid the life-altering consequence of his ill-fated impulsive behavior. Representing the type who suffers the effects of a regressive marginalized masculinity, Joel is a man whose performance is rooted in traditional yet violent ideals of male power. Joel’s hunter provides the mirror of this flawed masculinity as he gradually allows himself to be drawn into the other man’s oppressive borderland world of poverty and lawlessness. Details of the man’s life reveal this is partly because of a history of previously denied macho tendencies, and partly because of his profession as a bounty hunter that in turn had been facilitated by his own father’s former profession as a police officer. During the dramatic events of the climax in which the two men fight over one woman, as a direct consequence of his own performance of violence, it is the nameless bounty hunter who becomes the hunted for he is equally flawed.
Conversely, in the film Amores Perros, violence is interpreted through three separate yet connected stories that share two common themes of the family: adultery, or infidelity, and the absence of a father figure in the family through abandonment. Male motivational behavior in all three stories is unilaterally predicated on achieving goals related to these themes. In the first story, Octavio falls in love with Susana, his older brother Ramiro’s wife. Seeking to rescue Susana from her husband’s abusive violence by seducing her, Octavio becomes involved in another form of violence when he decides to fund his plan by entering his brother’s dog Cofi in the illegal yet lucrative sport of dog fighting. Combined, these facts in turn facilitate a series of violent events culminating in an equally violent accident which, first presented in the opening scene, thereby introduces the narrative surrounding the central event of the film’s plot. Daniel and Valeria are the two characters in the second story. Daniel has a happy family but in a more subtle form of violence, he decides to leave his wife and two daughters in order to live with his supermodel girlfriend. Valeria is the one who innocently intercepts Octavio’s runaway car in a violent crash that severely injures both of them. In need of a prolonged period of rehabilitation during which she is forced to accept the loss of her leg as a result of her injuries, she falls apart. Consequently, when this also turns Daniel’s life up side down emotionally, he responds more violently then expected in coping with the problem of Valeria’s trapped dog. The third story introduces El Chivo, a man who hopes to be reunited with his family after unilaterally deciding to abandon them twenty years ago to become a revolutionary. More recently, his life has been punctuated by coldly calculated violent acts carried out, much like Octavio, in return for money. Structurally, the message of this film is revealed slowly through a retrospective unfolding of the consequences of these main characters’ actions, which as described above, derive from a series of individual moral decisions. In this way the film “creates an absolute moral compass that evaluates everyone using the same criteria” that reflects a conservative morality grounded in the value of the family.9
According to Gutmann, “For many men, being a committed parent is a central characteristic of being a man.”10 As an example, the characterization of El Chivo is intended to show how his personal decisions have been at the root of the all the violence that follows: abandoning his family, his anti-government political activity, and his decision to become an assassin. In the end, imbued with a traditional type of masculinity, the decision to return to his family offers Chivo, the father, is the only remaining way to bolster an inadequate masculinity. Nonetheless, along with the other flawed males in Amores Perros, he experiences losses as a result of his previous violence. The adulterers (Octavio, Daniel, and Gustavo), experience personal loss, the socially desirable woman (Valeria) loses her attraction, and the two fathers (Daniel and El Chivo) who leave their families are left with nothing but memories. Ramiro loses his life. The film conveys a simple message having to do with immoral behavior generally: “It is not only a sin of the poor who opt for criminal violence.”11 Accordingly, these diversely stratified men suffer equally, regardless of social standing and race as a result of their flawed masculinities: Octavio, because of his regressive attitudes as depicted in his impulsive use of inappropriate aggression to achieve his misguided goals; Ramiro, because disempowered by persistent poverty and an underclass existence he relies on bravado, threats of violence and violent means to maintain control over his life; Daniel, because despite everything he has achieved in life he now needs a beautiful woman in order to reassert his masculinity among his peers; and El Chivo, because as a man without a family he is deprived of a fundamental role associated with traditional Latin American male masculinity.
In Amores Perros, the focus on racialization as a determinant of violence in Mexico City, a region the center of social and cultural life in Mexico, provides an appropriate contrast to the borderland setting of peripheral northern Mexico especially when examined solely on outcome. Personal losses of life, limb, love, and loved ones occur equally in the presence of macho masculinities. This alternate interpretation reflects an orientation in which such masculinities are viewed within the framework of a cultural phenomenon rather than the strictly socio-political phenomenon elicited from Parra’s oppressive neo-colonial setting in the borderlands. The Mexico City setting contributes heavily to this film’s main plotline. In its role as a modern megacity it is shown brimming with overt and covert violence, chaos, and social stratification at every level. More recently, as elucidated by Hector Amaya, ”Mexican society fosters a complex system of gender and sex incorporating conservatisms that stand in tension with emergent discourses on masculinity and femininity.”12 Despite its patriarchal heritage, in contemporary Mexico tradition-based interpretations of masculinity are losing validity and machismo is less apparent. Even more pronounced are the challenges to traditional economic gender roles. Considering men as the traditional providers this in turn creates a form of crisis and is evidenced in the film with poor Mexicans like Ramiro and Octavio portrayed struggling to pursue these traditional gender roles. As a result of their severely reduced socioeconomic standing these characters are marginalized and thus forced to accommodate to the inherent challenges their reduced status bring. Typically, in the face of their diminishing economic environment they suffer further alienation as a result of the violent behaviors in which they engage as the only means of maintaining their macho masculinities. The dog-fighting scenes provide the best example of this pattern. Octavio’s decision reflects the expediency with which he believes he will derive benefit from performances of this type of masculinity. Despite the far-reaching destruction participating in such activity means for his dog, Octavio and his friend continue their violent brush with danger and as is intentionally depicted by the film, in a clear emulation of the real dogs’ dog-like behavior. However, it is ultimately as a result of one thoughtless act of macho rage, precisely like the act of violence that Joel inflicts, that Octavio’s performance, falling short, will cause his social alienation. Additional examples are provided in the armed robbery scenes. Ramiro and his friends engage in this type of criminal activity unabatedly, in the face of well-known and clearly defined dangers especially considering he is a father. Amores Perros succeeds in that it connects Ramiro and Octavio’s identities as poorly educated underemployed mestizos forced to live in the slums of the Mexico City with Parra’s disenfranchised characters who are unable to rise above the effects of their impoverished existence in the border cities. The male characters in Amores Perros’s Mexico City do not live near the border with the United States yet they suffer equally as a result of the prevalence of a nationally idealized view of hegemonic patriarchal masculinity. This suggests that it is not only the historical hegemonic presence of the United States that has contributed to the erosion of Mexican masculinity as depicted in Parra’s characterizations but also the effects of social and racial inequality magnified by persistent poverty that has entrenched Amores Perros’s characters’ disempowerment in Mexico City.
Pobutsky suggests that perhaps “it is not the bravado and violence that [will promote] the Mexican cause but rather the return to one’s roots that [will save] the northern subject from the neo-colonial custom of economic exploitation and social devaluating.”13 And while screenwriter writer Guillermo Arragia may not have set out to accommodate Melquiades Estrada’s need to “reconcile [the Mexican subject] with his own culture and his own territory,” by injecting an unexpected American protagonist, cattle rancher Pete Perkins, into his film’s cross-border landscape, Arriaga facilitates further analysis of alternate forms of masculinity and thereby contributes the resolution of main question. One benefit of Three Burials is that it serves to reinforce what is sometimes forgotten: Undocumented migrants are marginalized in the already peripheral world . . . they carry with them a way of life different from . . . the mainstream culture of the host country. This marginalization expresses itself in a real as well as in a symbolic way. Migrants tend to be exposed to derogatory, humiliating, and often violent treatment. They must endure; low wages, poor labor conditions, difficult access to some spaces (such as clubs and associations), discrimination, and often even physical and emotional harassment.14
American Pete Perkins is a cowboy who comfortably straddles the dangerous landscape of the borderlands separating the United States and Mexico in Texas. A key contribution of Three Burials is that it demonstrates how violence, one of the manifestations of “regressive masculinity,” acts as the foundation of male relationships in the borderlands region. For, as Franz Fanon has suggested, “The practice of violence binds men together as a whole, since each individual forms a violent link in the great chain, [yet] violence is [also] an element of life, justified on the ground of creativity, when it happens for higher purposes.”15 A higher purpose depicted in this film is that it may also serve to bring about redemption on behalf of someone in need of absolution, and forgiveness, for a series of irresponsible acts against an innocent victim of misappropriated violence. Another important benefit of Three Burials however is its up-dated interpretation of the violence and confusion that characterizes its setting in this region. In this second film, in which the setting again facilitates the plot, the ‘confusion’ is interpreted in the same method of the plot development as that used in Amores Perros: Seemingly random narrative sequencing necessitates a retrospective understanding of events.
For illegal migrant Melquiades Estrada (hereafter Mel), given his practiced cautious demeanor, the shot that kills him is completely unexpected. Mel’s illegality is not so much directly relevant to his untimely death as it is to his unplanned presence, within the vicinity and time of border patrolman Mike Norton’s shift. At the time of the accidental killing, it is Mel’s own action; shooting at a coyote threatening his goats that provokes Mike’s deadly response. As is the case in Amores Perros, motivations notwithstanding the events that take place are a direct consequence of the men’s actions. However, as a result of an attempted cover-up that follows, this particular act enables Mel to become the face of all illegal migrants hunted down by the U.S. Border Patrol because it highlights the outcome for countless illegal migrants. As shown in the film, illegal migrants are exposed to seemly arbitrary interpretations of a legal system deemed as impotent as the officers and patrolmen tasked to deliver it.
Equally important is that Mel is also depicted as representative of Pete’s ideal of humanity in a quintessentially Mexican way. What really matters to Pete’s new friend is that he be buried back home in the small village of Jimenez in Mexico. Unexpectedly and too soon, this wish provides Pete with a higher purpose for his own life, having promised Mel to fulfill this request. Yet a strong commitment to these ideals empowers Pete to reach his goal: Pete’s determination and thus his success originate from a deep sense of loyalty based on a bond of friendship. Several plot details are provided to substantiate this. Pete makes his living working his ranch located near the border where he has everyday contact with Mexicans. At their first meeting Pete does not ask Mel whether he is legal, only what kind of work he is looking for, and whether he is any good at it, thus revealing a respect for human worth predicated on a highly personalized moral code. Unlike many of the other characters, Pete displays a cultural sensitivity and calm demeanor similar to that of his Mexican companions and, likewise, his masculinity enables this strong sense of equanimity.
In contrast, the other American, U.S. Border Patrolman Mike, for whom violence has become a part of his everyday experience, possesses a masculinity bereft of morality, mired in traditional forms of male patriarchal power. Mike, who is unrepentant, is unchanged by his truly senseless mistake. This fact is evidenced in the scene where Mike jumps at the chance to use violence against a small group of fleeing migrants he pursues, in order to enforce a show of power. Later, Pete will be compelled (and morally justified) to use the threat of violence to force an uncooperative Mike to participate in the final burial plans he has made for Mel. Pete understands that this is the code of conduct for male violence they both share implying that violence is universal, a-temporal and omnipresent. Paradoxically, the redemption of Mel’s killer provides the only acceptable rationale for Mel’s death: It stands to serve as a universal message of redemption for the many unjust acts of violence acted out everyday, not only on the border, but everywhere.
In Three Burials there is little justification for the human violence depicted in any of the situations in which it occurs. Not even Mel’s attack on the mammalian coyote is truly justified because the real coyote (as opposed to the human one who escorts Mexicans across the border illegally) is simply following his natural instincts. He kills for food, to survive. The human coyote is breaking a law by guiding a group of Mexicans across the border illegally although he does not use violence to rebuff the border patrol as for example might be the case if a more criminal element were involved. His action is directed at helping others cross the border safely. By way of contrast as alluded to earlier, border patrolman Mike Norton chases one young woman beyond range of protection. Despite being unarmed and defenseless, Norton ruthlessly inflicts unnecessary violence in order to subdue her. This detail is substantiated by Mike’s superior who warns him that he has gone overboard with his use of force “against these people.” Conversely, there are two separate occasions when an armed man, his prey in the sight of the gun, does not shoot to kill even though he might have. In the first instance, Police Officer Belmont has Pete Perkins within firing range on a cliff overlooking the trail over which Pete leads the kidnapped Mike and his dead friend’s body on their way to Mexico for burial. In the second, further on their journey after Mike has escaped on foot, Pete easily tracks him with his gun but he too decides not to shoot. Such incidents lend credibility to the notion that for some men their idea of masculinity may elicit threats of violence as evidence of superior power or standing. Following Fanon’s interpretation once again, in these situations both the hunter and the hunted are aware of the power balance, there being no need to bring such potentially violent actions to their logical conclusions. Likewise, in Parra’s stories many of the characters use profanity while communicating. Reflective of their macho masculinity this is also their means of conveying emotions, since they share implied meanings and purpose in its use. As well, in Three Burials pervasive use of labels such as wetback and gringo reveal the operation of hegemonic and complicit masculinities respectively as such well-established racial slurs convey specific meanings depending upon who the user is. For example, the Mexican coyote, upon finding Mike’s snake-bitten body in a desert wall-cave declares that he “doesn’t look like a gringo, he’s all f****d up.” In one of several of this film’s attempts to promote an appeal to poetic justice, later, this second human coyote rescues Mike, thereby saving his life. While earlier, a real coyote had found Mel’s hurriedly buried body after the first illegal burial as part of the cover-up. And thus it is actually through the joint actions of these “coyotes” that Pete is enabled not only to fulfill a promise to a friend as well, but also to bring about Mike’s redemption. Since Mike is Mel’s killer his personal forced march to enlightenment is necessary in order to right the wrongs of a myriad acts of senseless violence on the border. Camilla Fojas offers, “Since the border became a militarized zone, a place of imperiled passage and risk, the number of deaths from crossing the inhospitable desert has risen drastically. The borderlands, which are typically associated with risk, are now associated more often with death.”16 Yet the film’s plot resonates with the goals of retribution, redemption, and forgiveness because of its reversal of perspective in which the border patrolman take the difficult journey across the border typically undertaken by migrants. Serving a more universal theme, this film rounds out the story of failed masculinity by including a series of seemingly random scenes, such as the one in which an old man is encountered in the desert, cleverly interpreting the concept of “seeing the light through knowing the truth” in a paradoxically clear manner, for this “see-or” is blind, and he listens to Spanish radio even though he doesn’t understand a word because he likes the way it sounds. During another segment of the journey (in search of the elusive village of Jimenez where Pete is hoping to lay Mel to his final rest), four Mexicans encountered in the foothills share their food, their drink, their knowledge, and their experiences with Pete and Mike. They are equipped with a portable TV set on which they watch an American soap opera in English, which they do not understand. Yet they too exhibit an uncanny insight, and an intuitive sense of nurturance when they offer Mike (who recognizes the scene as one he has witnessed his wife watch), the rest of their bottle while consoling him with, “Don’t cry, take it for your troubles,” to which Pete sagely responds, “Mexicans are good like that.” The stark contrast intended is beyond doubt: a perfect representative of hegemonic America has recently killed one of them (Mel) in an impulsive act of meaningless violence. Yet for Pete, along with his respect for the natural environment of the Mexican borderland, befriending Mel was purely natural. Unlike his fellow countryman Pete is shown to appreciate the wisdom in their way of life. Of greater significance to the question of masculinity therefore is that Pete’s masculinity has clearly incorporated an affinity for the culture, traditions and the natural landscape of the Mexicans.
It is in this regard that women are also critical to the plot. Rachel shares herself with two of the main characters, three if you count her husband. Based on these relationships she has credibility when revealing the name of Mel’s killer, but she also generates the link between Mike’s wife Lou Ann and Mel so that his “character” may be distinguished from Mike’s: sexually gentle and unassuming versus aggressive and brutal. Likewise, Mariana is the very migrant Mike needlessly attacks while on patrol yet later when she is called upon to use her herbal medicine and expertise to treat him after the snakebite threatens his life she cures him despite her disgust, because it is the right thing to do. Nor does she need to be forced to do her duty as Mike does by Pete. In a remarkably calm show of restraint by acting only after her patient is out of danger, she sees to it that justice is served with the help of a pot of scalding coffee to the groin and a forearm to the nose. Also remarkable is that afterwards Mike is invited to join his “judge” who, as part of group of women engaged in the everyday task of peeling corn for a meal, will no doubt share it with him. The atmosphere of trust palpable among them is accentuated by a cinematically created serenity in the scene suggesting further that trust is the essential ingredient of real power, while violence is the product of force that seeks to replace legitimate power. Mike is shown to represent the result of this potential power: It is the maternal side that needs to be embraced for the male subject to assert his masculinity in a progressive way. The three “burials” may thus represent the past, the present, and hopefully the future. And it is certain Mike has achieved redemption, for with the last words uttered in the film he caringly asks of Pete, “Are you going to be alright?”
In other words while this alternate view evokes the earlier sentiment put forth by Pobutsky, here it is promoted not so much through “a corrosion of the power of traditional patriarchy” as through the gradual introduction of new visions that may enable a reconstruction of the old relationship between the North and the South. As this transformation progresses so too may this lead to a future in which the status of male masculinities in Latin America will no longer be universally equated with the regressive performances of machismo upon which such factors as race, class, and setting have heretofore been predicated.
NOTES
1 The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, Directed by Tommy Lee Jones (USA: EuropaCorp, 2005).
2 Amores Perros, Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Altavista, 2000).
3 Matthew C. Gutmann, The Meaning of Macho: Being a Man in Mexico City (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 114.
4 Hector Amaya, “Amores Perros and racialised masculinities in contemporary Mexico,” in New Cinemas 5: 3 (2007), 201- 216, doi: 10.1386/ncin.5.3.201/1.
5 Gutmann, The Meaning of Macho.
6 Amaya, Amores Perros, 204.
7 Pobutsky, Aldona Bialowas. “Borderlands and the Crisis of Mexican Identity: Reading The Short Narratives of Eduardo Antonio Parra,” in Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispanicos 33.3 (Primavera 2009), 487.
8 Pobutsky, “Borderlands,” 485.
9 Ignacio M. Sanchez-Prado, “Amores Perros: Exotic Violence and Neoliberal Fear,” in Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies 15.1 (March 2006), 41, doi: 10.1080/ 13569320600596991
10 Gutmann, The Meaning of Macho.
11 Sanchez-Prado, “Amores Perros,” 48.
12 Amaya, “Amores Perros,” 202.
13 Pobutsky, “Borderlands,” 486.
14 Nuria Vilanova, Border Texts: Writing Fiction From Northern Mexico (San Diego: San Diego University Press, 2007), 11.
15 Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1963), 92.
16 Fojas, Camilla. “Hollywood Border Cinema: Westerns with a Vengeance.” in Journal of Popular Film and Television 30: 2 (2011), 97.
52 www.gonorway.com.
53 Pettersen, interview.
54-56Ibid.
57 Mark M. Boatner III, The Biographical Dictionary of World War II (Novato, California: Presidio Press, 1996), 441-42.
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