Earlier this month, we celebrated the one-year anniversary of my film series (and project in development), Hubba Hubba, with a screening of 2004’s Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. The thirst trap under the spotlight was Diego Luna. In response to our screening, I’m digging into the Latin Lover trope this month. For full context, please read this first post.
History rarely acknowledges the effects of World War II with this simple concession: during World War II, the United States needed help.
From the 1930’s into the 1940’s, the U.S. was dealing with incredible labor shortages and comparative hostility from its foreign interventionist policies. Hoping to assuage the country’s positioning as a global power and its workforce scarcity, the U.S. introduced new policies surrounding immigration and its relations with Latin America.
In 1938, Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated The Good Neighbor policy, which, on paper, aspired to prevent the U.S. from meddling in the affairs of Latin America, and proposing that any interventionist measures be of the benefit to affected nations.
In an act to fight agricultural labor shortage, the Bracero Program was launched in 1942, ultimately bringing over four million Mexican farm workers into the United States.
As a collaborative move to bring in even more personnel and capital for their nations, senator Luis Muñoz Marín of Puerto Rico proposed the Manos a la obra program (Operation Bootstrap) as a way to move the archipelago’s economy from one based on sugarcane production to more of an industrialized GDP. Part of the program’s success was the invitation for U.S. companies to have access to markets without import duties, profits free from federal taxation, and, importantly, providing low-cost labor to companies on the mainland. This measure tied in with Eastern Airline’s low cost (compared to PanAm) nonstop flights from San Juan to New York City, meant an influx of Puerto Rican migration to the mainland in a short time.
Coupled with Black migration to urban centers throughout the country, the mid-century industrial work force of the United States became more diverse, as were American families, adding to a bi-racial baby boom in the 1950s to 1960s.
For a returning and recovering post-war population, white Americans weren’t just worried their jobs would be “taken” by minorities, they were worried their homes would be integrated, as well.
This became part of the country’s shift towards conformity and isolationism, with continued laws against miscegenation (interracial marriage did not become fully legal until 1967), disavowing the Good Neighbor and Bracero programs, amping up Cold War hostility at home and abroad, fostering xenophobia in the United States, and creating enemies out of any Latin American nations who were seen as favoring communist policies.
Meanwhile, the economic boom of a physically unaltered war-time American landscape meant the country could expand on the ways it made money at home and abroad. One of those tenets was to promote American exceptionalism with an incredible tool in hand — Hollywood starpower. Nationally, one of the most revolutionary and profitable trends to come out of this era was the development of the modern teenager.
As the United States shifted from an agrarian society to an urbanized one, more families moved closer to cities. Mixed with increasing child labor laws, the United States created an alternate system for children — compulsory public education.
By the 1940s, the amount of adolescents in high schools more than doubled. Teenagers now had much larger groups of peers to spend time with; developing new norms, language, and customs away from work environments and family. As Derek Thompson writes in A Brief History of Teenagers, “It is impossible to imagine American teenage culture in a world where every 16-year-old boy is working jowl-to-jowl with his father on an assembly line.”
The post-war economy boom brought middle-class families disposable income. When trickled down, that brought more capital for adolescents to spend, aided by the increased use of cars by teens, this created a level of independence unseen by previous generations. Rites of passage changed, including the public expansiveness around desire.
Frankly, the kids were horny and they had money to spend.
The ad market started shifting towards younger people. One remarkable addition was the creation of teen magazines, which promoted feminine and quietly sexualized ideals to adolescent girls.
The concept of “The American Teen” was also an international incentive. A huge export for the United States was, and has been, teen culture. In the post-war global marketplace, American teen iconography brought in money not just from American teens, but also from European youth growing up in a decimated environment. At home, American kids didn’t just buy magazines and gasoline for driving, they also went to the movies. Film presented a tremendous opportunity nationally, as well as internationally. With European film markets rebuilding following World War II, the U.S. had a strong hold on a global marketplace. What sort of American ideal could we promote around the world?
Sex appeal always sells. So, why not make American men great again? It was time for the boys to take off their t-shirts. Well, certain kind of boys.
Shirtlessness had certainly existed in pre-war Hollywood. But it was mostly seen on-screen as a formality (Anne Helen Petersen’s read on Clark Gable’s disrobing in It Happened One Night offers a strong take on the “shirtless norms” of the time). The marketable desire of teenagers (as well as an increasingly financially independent workforce of women and a sizeable queer population, albeit mostly closeted) pointed towards a public that wanted to see masculinity presented in a more sexualized form — muscle-y white men in the flesh.
The mid-century revolution in emotive screen acting suited this unbridled look. Fighting against the staid types of old theatrics, Method training techniques brought brawny, lustful performances from the likes of James Dean, Paul Newman, and Marlon Brando.
This young audience didn’t want to see was their parent’s interpretation of desire. They wanted to see something that felt more animalistic. Hollywood presented that in a form that wasn’t just white, but mostly hairless and unmistakably nationalistic.
The early trope of the Latin Lover didn’t just present an antiquated view of “your mom’s desire”, it offered a presentation of desire that was un-American. Yes, Hollywood allowed more minorities on-screen but they were less sexualized. The majority of Latino roles went to Mexican Americans, who were cast as villains and “si señor” jesters or sycophants, like the roles given to acting greats Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez and Alfonso Bedoya.
The “attractive” models of latinidad were presented as elder statesmen — mostly clothed and rarely sexualized — see the oeuvre of Desi Arnaz, Cesar Romero, Fernando Lamas, or Ricardo Montalban (side note: actors like Montalban were asked to play other ethnicities, like Montalban’s role as Asian character Khan in Star Trek. This trend hasn’t necessarily improved — Benedict Cumberbatch was given the role of Khan in 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness!).
While, whenever sexualized or given an iconographic weight, the heroic and historic Latino heroes roles were given to white actors — like Charlton Heston as Ramon Miguel Vargas in Touch of Evil (1958), Marlon Brando as Emiliano Zapata in Viva Zapata! (1952), or Jack Palance as Fidel Castro in Che (1969) (YEAH, that casting’s kinda remarkable).
The Latin Lover look was considered dead, at least as marketed to teenagers. But, as the country moved towards a more sexualized rebellion, the look took on an interesting appropriation and created an aspirational market for adult men.
NEXT WEEK: The name’s Rubirosa. Porfirio Rubirosa.
🏅 this week’s staff picks 🏅
🚻 Long live NYC’s Toñita.
💃🏽🕺🏽 Recent NYC spring/summer walks have become soundtracked to Giorgio Moroder’s film scores. The Love Theme from Flashdance is one of those earworms.
🎧 This week, the great Maskulinity tackles matriarchy.
👔👗 Andy Garcia took off his clothes to help clothe Bridget Fonda in The Godfather Part III.
🎥 Director Christina Hornisher’s long-lost Hollywood 90028 is making rounds to repertory houses as it gears up for a 4k home video release. I caught a screening recently and it is a very, very special exploitation re-discovery with one of the most jaw-dropping endings I’ve ever seen.
(Pssst, want more film recommendations? Follow me on Letterboxd)
I’ve been asked to participate in the latest iteration of Audio Flux — where artists create three minute audio pieces based on a prompt. We will be debuting our work at this year’s Tribeca Film festival.
June 11 @ 8:30pm | SVA Theater, NYC | 🎟️ TICKETS 🎟️
New Yorkers, join us every Saturday (weather permitting) from 2-4pm for FREE bomba workshops, sponsored by El Grito starting again this Saturday atop THE majestic Sunset Park — boricua-led but open to all🪘
Adios, ciao ciao, byeeeeeeeee,
Mark ✌🏼
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