Representing the Other: Portrayal of Mexicans in Contemporary Hollywood Movies

Abstract

Around the turn of the twenty-first century, the harsh conditions experienced around the Mexican-American border drew the attention of Hollywood to this area. Film producers began to use the topic of the barrier as a “way of ‘narrating the nation’, that is of embodying its features and qualities in a certain place, or image of place,” and narrowed it down into two subtopics: illegal immigration and drug trafficking. The issue of illegal immigration has always served as a significant source of inspiration for filmmakers. A number of movies have dealt with the question of border-crossing, assimilation and smuggling, many of them drawing a parallel between immigration and drug trafficking.