Domestic Labor in Twenty-First Century Latin American Cinema

This volume explores the character of the domestic worker in twenty-first century Latin American cinema and analyzes how recent filmic representations of the housemaid question the marginalization of domestic servants, in particular women, by making them the center of their narratives, their families, and society. The essays in this book posit the female domestic worker as an emergent subjectivity, a complex character who problematizes and contests the hierarchical power structures within the family dynamics and new socioeconomic orders found in contemporary Latin America. Readers will find a variety of representations across the continent as well as transnational commonalities of the cinematic figure and role of the housemaid, including the negotiation of a multilayered politics of affection in the framework of prevalent paternalism, and the complex and contradictory dynamic between private and public spaces, where domestic paid labor occupies a central role in maintaining gender, class, and ethnic inequalities. Acknowledgments Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Chapter 1: Introduction References Chapter 2: Restoring Names, Stories, and Voices for Cinematographic Maids: Toward a New Poetics of Domestic Service in Recent Argentine Films Focusing on Servants Beyond Utilitarian Functionality: Four Cinematographic Explorations of Subservient Characters Isabel in the Background: A Hidden Domestic Protagonist in La ciénaga Ailín’s Visual Transformation from Object to Empowered Subject in El niño pez Yolanda’s Beauty in her own Words and her own Language in Nosilatiaj. La belleza Ramona, a Working Person among Absences and Empty Silhouettes in Reimon Toward a New Poetics of Servants: Reimagining Domesticity on the Screen References Chapter 3: Moving Beyond Maternalism: Negotiating Models of Womanhood in La nana, Cama adentro, and Hilda La nana Cama adentro Hilda Beyond Employment References Chapter 4: Leftovers No More: Affect, Food, and Power in Recent Latin American Films on Domestic Work You Are Not Eating My Pearls: Quinoa in La teta asustada I Am Running Away from Your Love: Cakes in La nana Finally, I Abandon You: Coffee, Salads, and Ice Cream in Que Horas Ela Volta? No More Leftovers, No Longer Alone: Recovering Visibility References Chapter 5: Serious Camp: Juan Gabriel’s Queer Repertoire in ¿Qué le dijiste a Dios? References Chapter 6: Defamiliarizing the Maid: Alicia Scherson’s Play From Nuevo Cine to the Neoliberal City of Novísimo Cinema Defamiliarizing: Between the Private and the Public Space A Redistribution of the Sensible: The Neoliberal Cosmopolitan and the Domestic’s Virtual Gaze References Chapter 7: Beyond Tropes: Otherness and the Identity of the Brazilian Maid in Domésticas-O Filme and Doméstica Born This Way: What Maids Are Made Of The Path Toward the Cinematic Maids of Mascaro, Meirelles, and Olival The Stock Maid No Intermediaries: Modes of Portraying Socially Charged Relationships Domésticas: Leading Maids and Their Types Laughing at or with Domésticas: Reworking Tropes The Black-and-White Sequences: Breaking the Fourth Wall and Breaking with Otherness Doméstica: Subject on Subject Relationships in Multiple Combinations Forms of Seeing and Performances of Truth Bridging the Gap and Opening Ways References Chapter 8: Partial Affection: The Place(s) of Female Domestic Workers in Recent Brazilian Cinema Politics of Affection in Brazil The Architecture of Social Power: Segregation and Permeability Cinematic Perspectives: Protagonism and Social Change Conclusion: Reception and Representation of the Subaltern References Chapter 9: Domestic Labor and the Crisis of Care in La tierra y la sombra and La Sirga Introduction La tierra y la sombra La Sirga References Chapter 10: Domestic Matters: Hollywood and the Politics of Representing la doméstica in Babel and Cake Dangerous Borders, Disposable Domestics in Babel Female Intimacy and Familiar Crossings in Cake The Politics of Representation: Visible Borders, Invisible Workers in Hollywood Cinema References Chapter 11: Filmography Index