Trailer of the Week: The Mask of Zorro (1998)
The original Zorro movies were notoriously unpopular with Chicano intellectuals back in the 1960s because they presented an image of Spanish California that was very inaccurate. This movie aspires to be a bit more politically correct but it still has issues too numerous to number here.
While I hesitate to be too critical of the movie -- after all, for many years, Zorro was one of the few Hispanic action heroes who was popular with white non-Hispanics at a time when many white non-Hispanics had little use for any such character -- it does have moments that are unintentionally humorous to anyone who knows anything about the history of the American Southwest. Then again, it was one of the few Zorro movies I've ever seen that had an Anglo-American villain and when I was a kid, I never thought I'd ever see one of those.
The original Zorro movies were notoriously unpopular with Chicano intellectuals back in the 1960s because they presented an image of Spanish California that was very inaccurate. This movie aspires to be a bit more politically correct but it still has issues too numerous to number here.
While I hesitate to be too critical of the movie -- after all, for many years, Zorro was one of the few Hispanic action heroes who was popular with white non-Hispanics at a time when many white non-Hispanics had little use for any such character -- it does have moments that are unintentionally humorous to anyone who knows anything about the history of the American Southwest. Then again, it was one of the few Zorro movies I've ever seen that had an Anglo-American villain and when I was a kid, I never thought I'd ever see one of those.
Labels: Antonio Banderas, Avances de la Semana, California, Chicanas y Chicanos, El Zorro, Hispanas y Hispanos, La Máscara del Zorro, Martin Campbell
posted by Tonio Kruger at 10:43 PM
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