This dissertation explores the figure of the hero in Latin American popular culture from a postcolonial-subalternist perspective. In the West, the conventional hero functions as a role model, defends principles of justice and order, and symbolically represents the state or at least the status quo. But what happens whenand wherethe state is seen as unfair instead of just, weak instead of strong, and dangerous instead of benevolent? Is the hero different in Latin America, a marginal region in the world system living a heterogeneous modernity, as compared with the hero of a central, hegemonic power?
Examining a number of real-life and fictional charactersfrom superheroes to criminalsthis dissertation aims to understand the role these icons play in the historical processes of nation building, hegemonic domination, and subaltern resistance throughout the region. The first section deals with two hugely popular Mexican superheroes: Santo el Enmascarado de Plata and Chapulín Colorado. Santo is a straightforward, law-and-order superhero, this during a time in which Mexico and other Latin American countries still believed in, and pursued, economic progress via the developmentalist model, with a strong state, a very instrumental culture industry backed by the government, and so forth. Chapulín, by contrast, is the opposite of the regular superhero: weak, cowardly, and not too bright. If he is to be read as a national allegory, it certainly shows a different face of the Mexican state, in a time in which developmentalism was undoubtedly on its way out.
The second part examines the two best selling musical genres in Latin America (and in the Hispanic market in the U.S.): the Mexican-U.S. Southwestern narcocorrido and the Puerto Rican-Nuyorican reggaetón, especially with respect to their treatment of drug lords, in the first case, and gang leaders, in the second. On many occasions, and in many ways, that treatment consists in depicting these outlaws as heroes, this in a post-communist, post-revolutionary, post-developmentalist world, and crucially, in a world after the complete failure and the devastating effects of neoliberalism in Latin America.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-12082010-192623 |
| Date | 30 January 2011 |
| Creators | Ponce-Cordero, Rafael |
| Contributors | Juan Duchesne Winter, Hermann Herlinghaus, Shalini Puri, John Beverley |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-12082010-192623/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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