Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 18:31:32 +0900 To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com From: Catherine Driscoll <catherine.driscoll at adelaide.edu.au> Subject: Re: Race, Sex, & Surveillance in _Touch of Evil_ (was Re: Zsa
Zsa...)
At 23:27 18/03/99 -0500, Yoshie wrote:
>Nonetheless, consider the effects on the audience of having Charleton
>Heston (who remains Charleton Heston, notwithstanding his 'brown face' act)
>cast as a 'good' cop-hero while having those who assault Susan look more
>stereotypically Latin.
And his 'make up' is *so bad* compared to the much better job done on Welles (who didn't look like Quinlan at the time, though he came to, at least somewhat).
>Earlier in the film, Susan calls one of them
>'Pancho,' displaying her class- and race-based contempt toward a dark young
>man, despite the fact that she is married to a Mexican man. Perhaps the
>film can be read in this regard as a gloss on the adage "money whitens,"
>but most of the audience may leave the film having their views on race +
>class reinforced: 'good' Mexicans are white professionals while 'bad'
>Mexicans are dark, deal drugs, and violate a white woman.
This seems to me to overstate the case -- Vargas is not that 'good' nor Quinlan simply 'bad' nor the 'dark Mexicans' clear in their allegiances. At least the film should be seen in its historical context of media discourses on violence by Mexican gangs etc. There's an article on this by, I think, Peter Wollen.
>...the plot sets Susan up as a damsel in distress in need of
>Vargas's rescue later by reducing her progressively to the object of the
>white male audience's voyeuristic desire to enjoy the sexual violation of a
>white woman while projecting their rape fantasy upon the Dark Others
And this I am sure is a simplification. Susan does not come across as nearly so innocent as this.
>(among
>whom, to top it all off, Welles includes a butch-looking leather-clad woman
>who says, "let me stay. I wanna watch," while the boys are grabbing the
>screaming Susan by her arms and legs).
Mercedes McCambridge (though I think I've spelled her name incorrectly) being well butch thug... but desperate. Do you really think these are not ambivalent roles?
Catherine