Latin-American Studies

Q 1 The media industry plays a significant role in the shaping and popularizing of ideology. It influences peoples perceptions about social trends and culture. The film industry, particularly, presents models who inspire and promote new ways of thinking. In the case of Carmen Miranda, her success in Hollywood placed her on a global pedestal to illuminate the Latin American image. Her role as an actress and samba singer promoted the Brazilian cultural aspects to the white American audience both on screen and TV. She became an admired celebrity, whose bared midriff and gyrating hips would provide Americans with frivolous, samba-dancing images of an undifferentiated landmass somewhere South of the border (Ulloa 2006). Through the eyes of the media, national identity is intimately associated with the collective fantasies of star bodies. As a celebrated Brazilian artist, Miranda contributed in the whitening of the samba culture by singing it and acting it to the American audiences.  The girl in the tuttu frutti hat was a cultural package from the South to the North. In endearing herself to the American public, she played her role of a diplomat throughout her lifelong career in Hollywood.

Q 2 Literatura de cordel which basically means literature on a string, has become increasingly trendy and of interest not only to the Brazilian scholars but to the general public. Cordel literature includes an inexpensively accepted printed booklet that contains poems, novels, folks and songs. Small folios containing prosaic anecdotes were published by artisans in the North Eastern Brazil and displayed in the market in a cloth line. Ancient folkloric parables, local events and stories including loves and lives that have won hearts of many, were conveyed in the small folios. The poetry can be either sung or read aloud. Competitions were usually held for the unsurpassed story.

Literatura de cordel can be compared to todays television. People went to the market place to perform on what was exactly happening at that particular day. They they sold the contemptible street market poetry which was suspended by strings. Poets would dangle their verses among strings and then chant aloud to attract attention to the audience and potential consumers who would eventually take their purchases to their groups and friends and read aloud for them. It socially brought people together and created awareness on a certain aspect of life.

Comics would come to entertain the public through confined songs for money, thus we can depict that the literature helped improve the living standards of people. Through this, many authors emerged and the first author who wrote on comics was Fernandez .He asserted that comics and literature in general helped in formation of a fresh sagacity of nationhood in Latin America and the augment of communal Latino Identity in USA.

Q 3 Historietas are graphical comics aimed to entertain, but at the same time convey messages about social issues to the audience. In the Mexican context, historietas were designed and styled to capture and address the various aspects of society such as crime, romance and war. They were a veiled way of promoting moral order in a humorous way. To capture the attention of the audience, historietas artists employed techniques that appealed to the human fancies and passion. Accordingly, they featured sexist images, heroic and daring plots, critical comments and sarcastic humor. By addressing a wide range of issues, they provided a forum of contest and dialogue, where social issues were debated and ideas exchanged. Similarly, they adapted their themes and characters to the local context to appeal to more people by creating relevance and connection of experience. Some of the series included El Santo el enmascarado de plata and Kalimn-el (Ulloa, 2006).

Q 4 We can not fail to incorporate historietas who entertain and convey important messages like Kaliman when discussing literature on the grounds of adventure and the worlds greatest comics. He portrays logic in his plots of adventure and solves his own tribulations in his brawl against iniquity. He retains knowledge in different spheres of life be it arts, sports, politics or sciences. Logically, without literature and people who are out there not to only entertain but to bring the authentic depiction of the phenomenon of the world, it is patent that life can be a bore.