Week 3 – Down Argentine Way

The first character we see as an audience in the film Down Argentine Way, is a singer who I believe is singing in Portuguese. The only thing I can make up from what she is singing is when she says, “In South American way” which still would be rather hard for someone to understand if they only speak English because her accent is very thick. Her look right off the bat is represented as very Latina to me, she is dressed in what looks like a brazilian samba dance outfit. My first thought was that she actaully looked like the cartoon on the Chiquita brand bananas. I found it interesting that she her outfit was red and that she was also wearing red lipstick. The color red is usually represented with something sexual or dangerous. In film today I find that the color red is used repeatedly to over sexualize women, espeically latina women in film, a perfect example being Sofia Vergara’s character Gloria in Modern Family. However, we can also see the color red used to represent latino dangers in film when it comes to gang violence and how the colors define which group gangs belong too.

As I contiued watching the film I noticed that the main latino characters (Ricardo Quintana and Don Diego Quintana) had terrible accents. When I read Phillip Swanson’s study I learned that neither one of these actor’s is latino and it made a little bit more sense as to why their accents were so terrible. Although I then wondered if their accents were a part of their act? I asked myself if their broken speech was suppose to represent a “realness” in their characters or was it used more to emphasize that they were the “other”.

The song that Ricardo and Glenda sing when they meet at The Westchester Hotel caught my attention very much. First, we hear Ricardo singing the song in Spanish as everyone is gathered around him while he plays the panio. It doesn’t seem like much of a big deal when is singing it’s just a nice song. When Glenda begins to sing the same song in English however, there seems to be a drift. The lyrics are what caught my attention the most, I had to stop mid film and google the lyrics. The lines that made me laugh are when the song says, “Kiss your cares goodbye / You’ll find your life will begin the very moment you’re in Argentina … You’ll be as gay as can be / If you will learn to ‘Si Si’ like a Latin”. In my opion the song is like a jingle that you hear in a commerical. It’s catchy, it defintely draws your attention, and it makes you want to go to Argentina and see if these words that are being sung are in fact true (at least it did this for me). After I looked up the lyrics to the song I rewatched this scence again and looked more at the shift that happens when Glenda starts signing. When Glenda starts sininging the opening line “moonlight” begins off slow that brings in a mystery. The song later transition into a more upbeat tune which makes Glenda dance around the crowd. The crown which mostly seemly to be from the United States seem very drawn into what she is saying. It’s as if this song for the crowd in the movie and also for the audience watching is an ad, sending out the message that Argentina (and other latin american countries) is place where you’ll find love and happiness. The song is sang again in the film several times demonstrating that my idea of it being a sort of ad holds truth. They also make sure to play the song during the end credits because they want the audience to leave with this idea that in latin american countries “you’ll find your way”.