gendered face of latindad
The Gendered Face of Latindad
WS/COMM 455
Prof. Luthra The article “The Gendered Face of Latindad: Global Circulation of Hybridity” by Angharad N. Valdivia hones in on how gender and hybrid cultures of Latin people are reproduced and normalized in a complex mediated global environment. The article focuses on four main aspects of the global circulation of hybridity: The global face of Latinidad, Hybrid travels and gendered destinations, mediated doll lines, and hybridity as a star power. Valdivia points out that while many scholars reject the use of hybridity as implicated in an effort to secure and reproduce a racist and hierarchical global regime, others have taken this concept and applied it to contemporary cultural formations. As mentioned by the students in class, the manipulation of sexualized bodies on mediated sites of popular culture offers a way to examine how particular scripts of hybridity are mobilized in order to construct normative notions of the people of the Latin category. Globalization and media convergence have made it profitable to produce across media platforms by reworking content into multiple formats and marketing to a wide ranging global audience. An aspect of the in class presentation that I found interesting was the example given of Dora the Explorer, Dora is ambiguously encoded within Latindad in terms of national origin but unambiguously portray s a Latina body. Dora’s difference in the United States Is not reproduced in the same valence elsewhere. Another example used in class was the Bratz dolls and how the terrain of mediated doll lines gave the broadest range of reactions in terms of hybridity. This article shows how a commodified version of gendered Latindad is taking shape within a global imaginary.
WS/COMM 455
Prof. Luthra The article “The Gendered Face of Latindad: Global Circulation of Hybridity” by Angharad N. Valdivia hones in on how gender and hybrid cultures of Latin people are reproduced and normalized in a complex mediated global environment. The article focuses on four main aspects of the global circulation of hybridity: The global face of Latinidad, Hybrid travels and gendered destinations, mediated doll lines, and hybridity as a star power. Valdivia points out that while many scholars reject the use of hybridity as implicated in an effort to secure and reproduce a racist and hierarchical global regime, others have taken this concept and applied it to contemporary cultural formations. As mentioned by the students in class, the manipulation of sexualized bodies on mediated sites of popular culture offers a way to examine how particular scripts of hybridity are mobilized in order to construct normative notions of the people of the Latin category. Globalization and media convergence have made it profitable to produce across media platforms by reworking content into multiple formats and marketing to a wide ranging global audience. An aspect of the in class presentation that I found interesting was the example given of Dora the Explorer, Dora is ambiguously encoded within Latindad in terms of national origin but unambiguously portray s a Latina body. Dora’s difference in the United States Is not reproduced in the same valence elsewhere. Another example used in class was the Bratz dolls and how the terrain of mediated doll lines gave the broadest range of reactions in terms of hybridity. This article shows how a commodified version of gendered Latindad is taking shape within a global imaginary.