Mi Vida Loca My Crazy Life

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Mi Vida LocaMy Crazy Life

• Allison Anders

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Mi Vida LocaIts strengths

• Best mainstream film on Chicano gangs
• Its attention to details of everyday life
• Its faithful rendition of the style, stance,
  posture, gestures, the mannerisms and speech of
  so many Homegirls (ala American Me)
• Used an authentic location, using authentic
  characters

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Its Strengths

• Authentic nicknames such as Blue Eyes, Giggles,
  Whisper, Sad Girl and Mousey
• Emphasis on sisterhood and survival as
  independent and single womenfemale solidarity
• Does not glamorize violence, shows its tragic
  human consequences
• Welcomed community members into the film (Salt of
  the Earth-Bread and Roses)

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The Criticisms

• Confirmation of negative stereotypes of Chicanas
  as welfare dependents
• Its nihilism, (belief that all values are
  baseless, extreme pessimism, no beliefs, no
  loyaltiesF. Nietsche) its downbeat resolution
• Plays on every stereotype mainstream America
  thinks about urban gang lifeRosa Arrieta
• It depicts teenagers without ambition, drifting
  downward into chaos and dead-end livesSusan
  Gerhard, True Colors, San Francisco Bay
  Guardian, August 3, 1994

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Rosalinda FregosoThe Critique

• Homegirls dont get pregnant from the same
  guythey have more respect than that
• A Homeboy does not obsess over a lowrider truck
  at the expense of his kids
• Rival gangs fight over turf, never over a car
• Anders got the form of gang culturenot the
  substance

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Fregosocontinued

• Unrequited lovecomes from Anders own
  storytransferred this to the affair between La
  Blue Eyes and El Duran
• The lowrider truck segment was an invention by
  another screenwriter (Kurt Voss)
• The part about two homegirls becoming pregnant
  from the same guy is taken from a story her
  daughter heard on the streets

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Fregoso, continued

• Left untold is the elaborate support network of
  mothers, grandmothers, aunts who visit them in
  jail, bail them out, help deliver, feed and take
  care of their babies
• The battle between Chicano gangs is over the
  control of turf and scarce economic resources,
  not over lowrider trucks