Fresa y Chocolate and The Borderlands

1482 Words3 Pages

Identity is the essential core of who we are as individuals, the conscious experience of the self-inside. (Kaufman cited in Anzaldúa, 1987, p.84) The objective of this essay will be to interpret the contradictions of identity produced in the movie Fresa y Chocolate and The Borderlands. When personal identity, is stifled and shaped by nationalistic discourse. By examining the polarised dichotomies of self-identity, juxtaposed against the internalised and dominant hegemonic discourse of imposed National and cultural identity. The paper will endeavour to expose how, the holding and wielded of power creates conflict and revolt between ones individual identity, when set against a dominant and oppressive structure. The paper will first examine the portrayal, in Fresa y Chocolate, of how the desire to express one’s own individuality and personal identity clashes with the widely accepted, but yet orchestrated and imposed, post-revolutionary Cuban national identity. By investigating, how the prescribed discourse from an autocratic Cuban regime, creates an emotional battleground for the expression of the individual. When pitched against the dogma surrounding what it means to be a good and contributing member of a socialist collective. The paper will reveal how, the intertwining personal journeys of Diego and David, creates a world of forced discovery and a transformed realisation of identity for both. Next, the paper will examine how internalised self-identity needs to be a dynamic and fluid battleground. Dominated by a pragmatic desire for survival. How this need for acceptance and existence manifests in a complex web of control and subjugation. Resulting in, what Anzaldua describes in The Borderlands as, creating a world of multiple forc... ... middle of paper ... .... I want the freedom to carve and chisel my own face, to staunch the bleeding with ashes, to fashion my own gods out of my entrails. And if going home is denied me, then I will have to stand and claim my space, making a new culture – una cultural Mestiza – with my own lumber, my own bricks and mortar and my own feminist architecture. (Anzaldua 1989, p.44) Works Cited Anzaldúa, G. (1987) Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, San Francisco: Aunt Lute Press. Birringer, J. (1996) ‘Homosexuality and the Nation: An interview with Jorge Perugorria’, The Drama Review, 40(1), 61-76. Gutiérrez Alea, T. (1993) Fresa y chocolate [film], Cuba: ICAIC. Wilkinson, S. (1999) ‘Homosexuality and the Repression of Intellectuals in “Fresa y chocolate” and “Mascaras”’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18(1), 17-33, available: Jstor database [accessed 17 Oct 2012].

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