Artifact Analysis

Eddie Cavelli
Professor Cooper
English 304
30 April 2013 The artifact I chose is the 2009 film, “Sin Nombre,” directed by Cary Fukunaga. In Spanish, the title translates to nameless, or without a name. The film revolves around the struggle of Honduran immigrants attempting to escape the hardships of everyday life to start fresh in ‘El Norte,’ the United States. The film revolves around two main characters, MS 13 gang member, Willy (aka El Casper), and Sayra, a Honduran girl who is traveling to New Jersey with her brother and uncle. The story of Willy is his struggle to deal with gang-life while he tries to maintain a relationship outside the gang, while in the process of initiating a young boy, El Smiley, into the gang. Willy’s girlfriend attends a gang meeting unbeknown to him, and ends up being killed by the gang’s leader Lil’ Mago. After the death of his girlfriend, Willy and El Smiley are taken on a trip with Lil’ Mago to a train area known as La Bombilla. La Bombilla is a location which illegal immigrants hide on trains to travel to the United States. Upon entering the train area with all the immigrants, Willy, El Smiley, and Lil’ Mago hold the immigrants by gun-point to steal their money and belongings. This is when the stories intertwine. Sayra, along with her father and uncle are amongst the passengers who are being held up. Willy, who is still upset over the loss of his girlfriend, notices Lil’ Mago’s attempt to rape Sayra. In disgust, he kills Lil’ Mago, and makes El Smiley get off the train. From this point on, Sayra becomes very intrigued and respectful towards Willy. One night, with the pressure of the gang coming to kill him; Willy gets off the train realizing that he is followed by Sayra. The two continue their journey towards the United States, until eventually only Sayra is successful. Willy is caught and killed by El Smiley before he too can escape. The subject I will focus on is Willy’s girlfriend, Martha Marlene. The object that she is seeking knowledge about is Willy, and where he disappears to when he cannot be with her. She assumes that he is out hooking up with other girls and partying, but in actuality he is trying to hide his association with the gang in order to keep Martha safe. The scene where Martha unexpectedly shows up to the gang’s meeting in the cemetery portrays Martha’s eagerness to find out what Willy is up to. The scene takes place in a cemetery where the gang is having a meeting regarding the job El Smiley and Willy were supposed to do in La Bombilla. The gang begins to question both Willy and El Smiley in regards to where they went. Prior to this scene, Willy and Martha are about to leave the train yard and run into the gang’s second leader, El Sol, who tells Willy to watch his back. Willy explains that Martha and he are just friends, and Martha becomes angry that he did not say she was his girlfriend. They did not follow through with the gang’s goal, and Willy makes El Smiley wait in the train yard while he walks Martha home. Although they did travel to La Bombilla, they were supposed to kill a rival gang member, a Chivala. After running into El Sol, Willy is informed of a gang meeting which would take place the next day in the cemetery. It is at this point when Martha gains the knowledge of the meeting and uses her mental processes in order to try and relate to Willy, and understand his life outside of their relationship. The next day, just as Willy and El Smiley are being questioned about their time in La Bombilla, the gang knows Willy is lying and that he was preoccupied with Martha. Willy glances through the cemetery to notice that Martha showed up, and he begins to panic to try and get her to leave. Lil’ Mago catches Willy talking to Martha and decides he will walk her out. Upon walking her out, Lil’ Mago picks Martha’s brain about Willy and ask if he has disclosed any information about what the gang does or who they are. Martha uses her mental processes to recognize the danger in the highly tattooed leader, and recognizes that she is in a bad position. Lil’ Mago attempts to rape Martha, but fails after she resists and bites his hand. Reacting to the bite, Lil’ Mago kicks Martha and she stumbles, landing with her head against a tombstone, resulting in her death. Through overhearing where the meeting would be the night before, Martha used this meeting as an opportunity to gain knowledge about Willy, the gang, and settle her discomforts of assuming Willy was cheating on her. To create the relationship, outside of them being intimate and Willy spending time with her when he is able, Martha seeks to know more about their relationship by attending this meeting. Their relationship seems to be okay when they are alone, but Martha is frustrated with the secrecy and inability to know where Willy spends his time, but Willy is sworn to his gang and cannot disclose certain information. Martha wants Willy to let people know about them being together, and takes offense when Willy refers to her as his friend. As a result of showing up to the meeting, Martha produces the knowledge that Willy is involved with dangerous people. When the scene begins, Martha confronts Willy with a kiss, followed by a gaze at the gang as if she wanted them to know about the relationship she has created with Willy. The fear is visible in Martha’s face, and compliance to Lil’ Mago’s demands. It is unclear if Martha truly understands the significance of the meeting, or the gang, but it is obvious she knows she is in the wrong place at the wrong time. As a viewer, I believe that Martha’s knowledge of Willy being in a gang is very rational. While the film doesn’t show Martha blatantly referring to the group of thugs as a gang, I believe she produces this knowledge by seeing the male dominant group of tattooed thugs with weapons. Also, before Lil’ Mago attempts to rape Martha, both Willy and El Smiley receive ‘cortes,’ a thirteen second beating, in which Martha may have produced the knowledge that danger was present amongst her. A more obvious factor which may have helped Martha believe Willy was involved with dangerous people, is the large face and gang related tattoos visibly seen on Lil’ Mago. The theory of subjectivity in relation to Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s article, “Can the Subaltern Speak,” helps explore the issue of a male dominated society, and the source of influence. When Spivak talks about Marx’s passage regarding to the social ‘subject’ having a dislocated and incoherent consciousness, the gang as well as Willy and El Smiley are represented. Willy, El Smiley, and even Martha are the “small proprietors,” who cannot represent themselves. They must be represented by Lil’ Mago, who in this case appears as the authoritative figure. Spivak writes, “The small peasant proprietors cannot represent themselves; they must be represented. Their representative must appear simultaneously as their master, as an authority over them, as unrestricted governmental power that protects them from the other classes and sends them rain and sunshine from above.” (71)This can relate to the scene of Martha’s death, because Lil’ Mago is the gangs leader in which they all respect as their master. His protection of the gang is of the utmost importance to Lil’ Mago, which is why he questions Martha about Willy confessing anything about the gang. In retrospect, Willy knows Martha should not have shown up and worries for her safety, but it is completely overshadowed by Lil’ Mago’s power. Being that Honduras is a third-world country, there is little class consciousness due to the abundance of poverty. In relation to the passage, Lil’ Mago serves as the protector of the gang to the rival gang, the Chavalas. It is this authority which leads to the death of Martha, because Willy is of less significance in the gang, therefore not being able to prevent Lil’ Mago from walking his girlfriend out of the cemetery. The article also says, “The political influence of the small peasant proprietors therefore finds its last expression in the executive force subordinating society to itself.”(Spivak, 71) This passage describes Willy’s sub ordinance to Lil’ Mago due to his status in the gang. Also, this can be representative of Lil’ Mago’s carelessness with Martha; she is the victim of subordination due to her societal role as a non-gang member. Once she is accidentally killed by Lil’ Mago, Willy asks if she made it out safe, in which Lil’ Mago replies “the devil took her,” and “you’ll find another.” This represents the separation between the importance of the gang members to Lil’ Mago, to the insignificance of non-gang members. When Martha is alone with Lil’ Mago, the knowledge that she is around a dangerous man is evident by the noticeable fear in Martha’s expressions, as well as her vulnerability to comply with the demands of Lil’ Mago. Knowing that Willy and El Smiley just got beaten, she produces the knowledge that perhaps she was next. Although she does not have to listen to Lil’ Mago, she does based on the knowledge that she is in trouble, the visible gang tattoos, and the threat of a pistol. Spivak says, the ideological construction of gender keeps the male dominant. (82) Martha subsides to Lil’ Mago’s authority, due to fear, giving him the power of male dominance. The knowledge Martha produces from seeing Willy and El Smiley get beaten, and the physical attempts of rape from Lil’ Mago seems rational in encouraging her thoughts that she is in danger and Willy is involved with a gang. The subject, Martha, gets represented less thoroughly than other subjects in the artifact, primarily because she is only in the first half-hour of the film. In comparison to Willy, El Smiley, Lil’ Mago, and Sayra; Martha sets the foreground for Willy’s dilemma. After her death he is grief stricken and sick to his stomach. Lil’ Mago, El Smiley, and Willy are robbing immigrants on the train, when Willy has an epiphany in which he recognizes the disgust of Lil’ Mago’s actions. This is a pivotal moment for Willy, because his life changes drastically with the threat of death from his gang members. El Smiley gets off the train, as requested by Willy, and he is represented as a subject when he returns to the gang to report Lil’ Mago’s death. El Smiley tries to convince his gang that he is committed to the gang by offering his dedication to find and kill Willy. It is at this point that the gang, including El Smiley becomes subjects seeking the knowledge of Willy’s whereabouts. While Martha is my subject, I think she could also be under-represented in the sense that the viewer doesn’t know much about her besides the fact that she is intimate with Willy, and they are in a secretive relationship. It is as if she is an object to Lil’ Mago, because he is seeking knowledge about her and Willy spending time together. The films political implications represent the struggle of Central Americans to live a worthwhile life in Honduras. It is also a representation of gang-life, which implies the motives behind the social differences of people trying to escape to the United States and gang-life as two “classes.” The over-representation of Sayra as a subject implies that the differences in their lifestyles can coincide, as proof of Willy’s sympathy for the innocent girl and her family. The film may also represent the strong hold that gang-life has on people who live in third-world countries, and the influence of an authority figure on vulnerable people in poverty. I believe Willy’s epiphany is suggesting that he no longer wants to be involved in gang-life, as well as failed interests in producing a sense of belonging; Martha was his sense of belonging.