Tortilla Soup, Spanglish, and Real Women Have Curves

Recently I have been watching films which deal with cultural hybridity and blending as I've began to focus my program towards writing my thesis on Spanglish - as both a cultural and linguisitc phenomena. Anyhow, in thinking upon Spanglish these three films -Tortilla Soup, Spanglish, and Real Women Have Curves - a nearly indistinguishable plot is portrayed in each . . . that is . . . the films are so similar when recalling them I'm not always sure which idea pertains to which film.

On that note, I have watched Spanglish a few more times - most likely for the reason that I am using it as an artifact for analysis in another course - but also because I need to keep my stories straight. With that in mind, I also rewatched Tortilla Soup and Real Women Have Curves although that was more difficult. On the whole, of the three films Spanglish is far superior in terms of production quality as it reflects Hollywood in every sense whereas the other two films are a bit more trying to watch a second time.

Otherwise, provided this is a blog -informal in structure and content- I wanted to make note of familism or familismo in Spanish. This is a common thread in each of the films with an interfamily struggle protrayed due to collective Mexican norms vs. mainstream white American indivualistic norms . . . of the three films the struggle occurs between the parents -who value traditional mexican norms- in opposition to their bicultural children.

On biculturalism we see a certain multiplicity of self of cultural stratification occur where the children of mexican immigrants struggle to negotiate and reconcile a fluid identity -this is where cultural hybridity comes into play. In all of the films daughters are portayed as opposed to sons. On this note I was thinking that women are most likely cast because they exemplify a matriach which in turn emphasizes the importance of women to the Latino family. Stereotypically, it seems that men are cast into society in a more indivualistic sense -or at least how the latino man is treated is more aligned with how the american male is treated? - whereas the woman always seemed bound to a Latina servitude of sorts . . .

What remains at hand is the question of there being any significance to women (daughters) being cast instead of sons? Do women represent familismo thus are better suited to such a plot? It seems like there are many films like this and much fewer with men . . . perhaps I'm on to something, perhaps not . . . suggestions? Ideas?