Full Description
Dance and the Hollywood Latina asks why every Latina star in Hollywood history, from Dolores Del Rio in the 1920s to Jennifer Lopez in the 2000s, began as a dancer or danced onscreen. While cinematic depictions of women and minorities have seemingly improved, a century of representing brown women as natural dancers has popularized the notion that Latinas are inherently passionate and promiscuous. Yet some Latina actresses became stars by embracing and manipulating these stereotypical fantasies.
Introducing the concepts of "inbetween-ness" and "racial mobility" to further illuminate how racialized sexuality and the dancing female body operate in film, Priscilla PeÑa Ovalle focuses on the careers of Dolores Del Rio, Rita Hayworth, Carmen Miranda, Rita Moreno, and Jennifer Lopez. Dance and the Hollywood Latina helps readers better understand how the United States grapples with race, gender, and sexuality through dancing bodies on screen.
Contents
Acknowledgements
1 Mobilizing the Latina myth
2 Dolores Del Rio dances across the imperial color line
3 Carmen Miranda shakes it for the nation
4 Rita Hayworth and the cosmetic borders of race
5 Rita Moreno, the critically acclaimed "all-round ethnic"
6 Jennifer Lopez, racial mobility, and the new urban/Latina commodity
Notes
Works Cited
Index
