









Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
How YouTube serves as a decolonial space for the reinvention of Chicano archetypes through the example of the video 'How to be a Cholo'. The authors conduct an in-depth content analysis of the video, which challenges stereotypes of male Latinos through humor and parody, focusing on the bandido archetype and its characteristics of delinquency, masculinity, and appearance.
Typology: Study notes
1 / 17
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
Ester Trujillo & Gustavo López are graduate students at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Trujillo, E. & López, G. “‘How to be a Cholo’: Reinventing a Chicano Archetype on YouTube” Camino Real. Estudios de las Hispanidades Norteamericanas. Alcalá de Henares: Instituto Franklin - UAH, 3: 5 (2011): 151-167. Print.
Recibido: 05/10/2011; 2ª versión: 15/10/2011.
The online video “How to be a Cholo” is demonstrative of the potential that YouTube has to be a decolonial space where the reinvention of Chicano archetypes is possible. In this video, creator Eric G. Ochoa and his alter ego, Ego the Cholo, engage in humorous commentary that questions the stereotypes that have been ascribed to male Latinos through the Chicano archetypes. From this viewpoint we explore how new media facilitates the renegotiation of recurring Latino archetypes by explaining the role media had in illustrating bandits, pachucos and cholos. We also demonstrate how the conflation of the three archetypes (bandit, lover and buffoon) creates a type of humor that serves as a weapon of the marginalized by breaking down scenes in the video. In conducting an in-depth content analysis of the video, we found that Ochoa rearticulates the bandido archetype by contesting three particular characteristics that are ascribed to cholos: delinquency, masculinity, and appearance. Finally, we propose that YouTube itself has the potential to be a social space of self-affirmative cultural production citing “How to be a Cholo” as evidence.
Keywords: Chicano archetypes, cultural production, Latina/o self-representation, YouTube, resignification, virtual cholismo, new media, recurring stereotypes, hypermasculinity, parody, humor, bandit, pachuco, cholo.
CAMINO REAL 3: 5 (2011): 151-
CAMINO REAL
El vídeo en línea “How to be a Cholo” (Cómo ser un Cholo), demuestra el potencial que YouTube tiene para ser un espacio decolonial dónde la reinvención de arquetipos chicanos es posible. En el vídeo, su creador Eric G. Ochoa y su álter ego, Ego el Cholo, crean un comentario humorístico que pone en duda los estereotipos que han sido atribuidos a los hombres latinos a través de los arquetipos chicanos. Desde este punto de vista exploramos cómo los nuevos medios de comunicación facilitan la renegociación de arquetipos latinos / chicanos al explicar el papel que los medios de comunicación anteriores han tenido en describir a los bandidos, pachucos, y cholos. También mostramos cómo la fusión de los tres arquetipos (bandido, pachuco, cholo) crea un tipo de humor que sirve de arma para los marginalizados a través del análisis de escenas del vídeo. Al llevar a cabo un análisis del contenido del vídeo, encontramos que Ochoa rearticula el arquetipo del bandido al complicar las tres características que se atribuyen a los cholos: la delincuencia, la masculinidad, y la apariencia. Finalmente, proponemos que YouTube en sí tiene el potencial de ser un espacio social de producciones culturales auto-afirmativas citando “How to be a Cholo” como ejemplo.
Palabras claves: arquetipos chicanos, producciones culturales, representación auto- afirmativa, renegociación de identidad, medios en línea, masculinidad, pachuco, cholo.
The virtual world of YouTube is a yet unexplored medium where images and videos achieve a new democratization. In the jungle that is YouTube, we find Ego the Cholo, the humorous protagonist of the series Cholo Adventures by Eric G. Ochoa. This paper discusses the historical legacy of Latino archetype reinvention, of which Ochoa’s videos are heirs. We define the cholo as he has been defined according to the archetype. A cholo is a Chicano or Latino male, usually a young male that belongs to a group characterized by its perceived deviant social comportment. There are a number of visual and behavioral traits related to cholos, which will be expanded upon throughout this paper. We argue that Ego the Cholo finds himself at the threshold of a developing technology where identity ascriptions are in the control of the formerly socially disenfranchised. Through the use of YouTube, an online video hosting website, the creation and distribution of media sets the stage for a new stage of reinvention. The
CAMINO REAL
representations of Chicana/os portrayed in Hollywood films as mediated stereotypes. These stereotypes are concrete depictions of the “Other.” The manner in which these representations function is “by gathering a specific set of negative traits and assembling them into a particular image” (38). However, this concrete human form inherently limits the number of traits that can be attributed to the depiction. Consequently, most often a number of characters represent various negative traits associated with a particular group. We argue that Ego is a reincarnation of the bandit archetype. As Ramirez Berg explains, contemporary representations of the Latino male delinquent, “can be understood as not an altogether new stereotype but in many ways a continuation of the old one: a contemporary, urban bandido ” (41). In a hyperbolic fashion, Ochoa combines all three of the male archetypes that Berg identifies; namely the bandido , the buffoon and the Latin lover; to create Ego. Since this violates the limits of accepted meaning, he makes the portrayal completely unbelievable, consequently challenging the way these traits are attributed to Latinos. The manifestations of the bandido archetype have changed through time as technologies for cultural production have evolved and become more democratized. When reviewing the literature, we observed a progression from portrayals of bandits in Western genre movies and novels, to portrayals of Pachucos in news media and plays like Zoot Suit by Luis Valdez and finally to the Cholo in online media. The characters have gained agency as different entertainment technologies develop. The medium of YouTube has garnered only limited scholarly attention in part due to the recent nature of the phenomenon. Furthermore, significantly less work has been done on how Latinos specifically have made use of YouTube. Thus, through this project we hope to begin to address this underesearched area. The cholo is a reinstallation of the bandido archetype, one of three archetypes (along with the buffoon and Latin lover) that are imposed on Latino males in popular cultural productions such as film and literature. We identify Ochoa’s video as continuing to make use of comedy as a means for social critique. However, this type of comedy functions as a technology of decolonization. This type of social critique is performed in a decolonial space: YouTube. YouTube is a forum that has the potential to democratize information and decolonize ideas. Rather than allowing the public imagination to continue to define Chicano male youth under the prescribed deviant archetype, the virtual forum is a space through which “the silent gain their agency” (Perez 33). Not only is the virtual cholo no longer silent, he expresses his identity through the use of comedy. YouTube and similar forums of democratized engagement challenge colonial ascriptions.
ESTER T RUJILLO & GUSTAVO LÓPEZ
We focus on the male bandido archetype and not the female archetypes because the protagonist of “How to be a Cholo” is a male. It is also particularly of interest to us to discuss the evolution of the characterization of the Mexican male and the stereotypes that have been applied to him. As Juan Alonzo points out in Badmen, Bandits and Folk Heroes , “the Anglo-American production of stereotypes often presents Mexican men and women in very different lights, with the Mexican male receiving the brunt of the denigrating depictions and the women frequently cast as the object of erotic attraction” (38). Although the Mexican female archetypes are also subject to negativity, they are still deemed desirable, if only for their bodies. Even when the female body is not present in this video, its attributes are constantly being evoked as a negative definition when found in a character that is supposed to be hypermasculine. The use of female characteristics aids in defining masculinity by what it is not: femininity (Alonzo 66; Ramírez Berg 4). The Mexican male never seems desirable under any archetypical context; he is only expendable. Therefore, we are electing to discuss the evolution of the Mexican male bandido archetype in order to discover the ways in which the character has adapted in order to reclaim some agency and desirability.
ESTER T RUJILLO & GUSTAVO LÓPEZ
are a sophisticated critique of the over generalized nature of stereotypes which requires an intellectual analysis from the viewer. In this way Marín is only pretending to ridicule himself. Using ethnic stereotypes in this self-reflexive manner not only challenges the assumptions of mainstream society but it also serves to comment on the faults of the Latina/o community (List 192). With the aforementioned vilification of Latina/os in popular cultural texts dating back from the 19th^ century, as exemplified by the bandido archetype, there is no lack of problematic representations to contest. Chicano cultural productions, broadly defined, have been consistently used as a tool to disprove the negative rhetoric transposed on the bodies of Latinos. Following an in-depth discussion about some of those stereotypes, Lomelí posits that the subject of his study, “Homies, a collection of plastic figurines of barely 1-3/8 inches to 2 inches, which originated as comically stylized portraits of barrio or ghetto dwellers, react to and challenge such depictions with an unusual flair and strategic re-signification by deconstructing, or at least playing with past figurative misdeeds” (Lomelí 4). Like David Gonzales, the creator of Homies, Eric Ochoa repeatedly uses the prejudicial expectations to set up the viewer only to shatter the normalized progression of the various representational linkages.
CAMINO REAL
character “Gold Hat” originally appeared in the Hollywood film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre in 1948 and began the characterization we still see today. This was the first instance in which the bandit was imprinted into the American imagination. With the exception of the legendary Gregorio Cortez and Joaquin Murrieta characters that were popular at the time, nearly all the bandits were characterized only as one-dimensional evil thieves Following in the tradition of bandit tales, in “ With His Pistol in His Hand ,” Américo Paredes interpreted the story of Gregorio Cortez in a way that served to reveal a level of agency and moral justification that had not been attributed to perceived bandidos by the usual writers of border legends and films. Upon the publication of “ With His Pistol in His Hand ” in 1958, a new discursive space was opened “in which Mexican Americans were able to contest harmful images of themselves and re-frame their social standing within broader discourses of Texas and American history, folklore studies, and civil rights” (Alonzo 111). Chicana/o scholars and artists would continue to deconstruct the bandido archetype throughout history in different ways and with different tools. Eventually the bandit was replaced in the popular imagination by another rebellious character: The Pachuco.
CAMINO REAL
individuals known as cholos tend to be discussed and studied as gang members. Both within public perception as well as in academic discourse, gang youth have been consistently characterized as delinquents and consequently as threats to the social order. Furthermore, the negative traits (violence, drug abuse, misogyny, etc.) that are imposed on the racialized bodies of gang youth are then essentialized to apply to all youth, and particularly men, of color (Montejano 31). More recent scholarship challenges both the simplistic conceptualizations of gang youth as well as the attribution of delinquency as an inherent cultural trait among Latina/o youth. David Montejano analyzes the structural factors that contribute to the dynamics of gangs while problematizing the assumed static nature of said social groups. He explains that neighborhood affiliation became one of the primary forms of self- identifications among youth and in order to exercise these affiliations, individual groups would claim street blocks or even street corners to defend. If hostilities among rival groups continued, they could also justify preemptive use of violence thus initiating a vicious cycle of attack and retaliation although only a small minority of gang youth actually engage in violence. Montejano demonstrates that many social groups perceived as gangs are often merely clicas , or groups of friends. What activates identification with gangs or an assemblage of different clicas , are hostilities with other groups, gangs, or authorities. Consequently, many gangs can be understood as reactionary mobilizations for the purpose of self-defense rather than a social institution oriented towards violence. Gangs and the cholos that take part in them are thus a product of the constant conflict propagated by the limited access to resources that marks the social conditions of the barrio - conditions that remain largely unchanged since the days in which bandits were first being shown in Hollywood films.
ESTER T RUJILLO & GUSTAVO LÓPEZ
where meanings are negotiated and combined to create an imagined, Latino-produced cholo identity. The following is an analysis of specific scenes that demonstrate the decolonial potential of virtual self-representation.
7.1. Critique of the Delinquency and Criminality of the Bandido Archetype Delinquency is one of the primary, if not the most significant, attributes associated with cholos. Ego presents delinquency, a quality continuously attached to the bandido archetype, as a rite of passage necessary for becoming a cholo. As part of the first step in the video, Ego indicates that a swap-meet belt is an important part of cholo attire by placing his hands on the belt buckle. The act of deviance in this case comes not from explicit action within he video itself but instead through a quick anecdote. Ego tells the viewer that the swap-meet belt he is wearing is worth an exorbitant $1.99 but even at that price he stole it. While Ego has indeed performed a criminal act (according to him anyway), the offense is so relatively insignificant to render it a literal joke. In this way, he is including delinquency as a trait of the cholo but doing so in a manner marginal to the instructional narrative. He ridicules the perceived hypercriminality of cholos by illustrating a petty instance of theft. We consider it significant that criminality was not explicitly mentioned as a trait or a step necessary for becoming a cholo in Ochoa’s video. The closest approximation is the need to like being “rebellious”. The scene begins with Ego looking at the camera as an unnamed male character in the video has placed a Pepsi can on the table. Ego tells the viewers in a hushed voice that they need to like being rebellious in order to become cholos and proceeds to shake the soda can to demonstrate his own rebelliousness. He then goes under the table until the unnamed male opens the can and has it spill all over him. At this point Ego jumps up from under the table and laughs at him. Though rebellion does imply contesting authority, the rebellious act that Ochoa portrays is shaking an unopened soda can, which is again comically benign. Even so, Ochoa transforms his character from the archetypal cholo stereotype to the buffoon/trickster capable of inverting social structures. Furthermore, being rebellious elicits connotations of social struggle and a level of agency. Overall, Ochoa’s representation of cholos defuses their threat to society, thus allowing for a more nuanced and, potentially, even decolonial understanding of this group.
7.2. Masculinity and Homosexuality Within the Text Jokes about homosexuality and masculinity are a frequent part of Ochoa’s overall instructional narrative. Ego, the character, attempts to perform masculinity throughout
ESTER T RUJILLO & GUSTAVO LÓPEZ
label him with this pejorative label as well. This contradictory performance shines light on the ridiculous nature of the hypermasculinity present in Cholismo. R. Kirk Mauldin states “that masculinity cannot be conceptualized apart from the dichotomy of male/female”. He goes on to indicate that “[r]ecognizing that masculinity exists ‘only in contrast to what it supposedly is not’ (Schacht, 1996) is the key to understanding how the social construct of homophobic humor “reinforces the ‘essentialness’ of gender” (Mauldin 2002: 79). Ego complicates the essentialness of masculinity by blurring the lines between gender categories.
7.3. Cholo Appearance Appearance, and clothing in particular, are important symbols of Cholismo. There are two steps in this video dedicated to dress style components. Like the pachuco, the cholo is being instructed to button up only the top button of their Pendleton, to buy a particular brand of pants (Dickies), to wear Nike Cortez shoes, and even the proper accessories that come in the form of a swap-meet belt. Aside from explaining what a cholo must wear, Ego reminds the viewer to, “[m]ake sure you’re nice and sharp. Nobody wants a dirty lousy gangster ese. Gotta be nice, eh.” Reminiscent of Cummings’ Pachucas/os in the early 1930’s and their dress style, there is a certain pride that exists in the clothing articles that a cholo wears and these first two instructions indicate that appearance and proper wearing of these clothing articles are just as important as the pieces themselves. Appearance is thus a space where a level of agency becomes possible, just as it was with pachucos. Resignifying an outfit with pride represents a way of reclaiming a cholo identity. Ochoa identifies tattoos as another visual symbol that demarcates a cholo. Step Three in “How to be a Cholo” identifies tattoos as a vital indicator for Cholismo. However, since Ochoa does not actually have any tattoos, he brings in another male to show his tattoos to the camera while claiming they are his own. The switch is purposely made painstakingly obvious for comedic effect. After the second male shows his tattoos, the video cuts to Ochoa who claims that he has had additional ink work done on his back. The first tattoo, obviously a temporary one, shows a skull in the middle of his back. The second tattoo, also temporary, is the “Weenie the Pooh” donkey character, Eeyore. This cartoon character represents childhood, which is incongruent with the hard, tough image of cholos. Therefore, this tattoo effeminizes Ochoa’s alter ego. Ochoa’s character recognizes the tattoo is effeminate by looking in a surprised and nervous manner into the camera and saying “What…what ese ?” Here Ochoa debunks the stereotype that Latina/os or even cholos have an affinity to tattoos just as he questions other assumptions
CAMINO REAL
elsewhere in the video. In this way, even as Ego goes about the work of defining what it means to be a cholo, the humorous execution goes about destabilizing the standard homogenous representations that exist of cholos within most public cultural productions.
7.4. Ego as a Hyperbolic Character In “How to be a Cholo” Ochoa uses various joke structures outlined above in order to produce an entertaining and popular cultural product but also to problematize the cholo archetype propagated in mainstream discourse. Additionally, Ochoa’s Ego is a hyperbolic character that is extremely complex. This combination makes his character unbelievable and therefore humorous and at the same time rendering these stereotypes he is listing, equally ridiculous [example: Hollerin’ at the Hynas (the bandido and the Latin lover), rebellious soda scene (bandido and the buffoon)] (Ramirez Berg 38). Just as with Cheech Marin’s character in his film Born In East LA , Ego’s “vato loco stereotype operates critically through distancing devices such as anti-realist (cartoonish, hyperbolic) aesthetic” (de la Mora 289). Ego is largely funny because he is a hyperbolic character that encompasses all three archetypes. Humor has been particularly used throughout history as a way to critique power. Comedy has the power to invert the present power structure. This suggests a deep understanding of power dynamics by the joke teller and an implied resistance to structures of power. Given the way that those in power have policed social space in the U.S., people of color have often been forced to resort to humor as a way of resisting their marginalization. Now that the means of production is in the hands of some of those marginalized people because of YouTube, we are witnessing a moment in which disenfranchised persons are able to define themselves on their own terms. Additionally, there is a level of protection afforded to the joker/trickster based on the fact that jokes are not to be taken seriously. José Limón argues that joking, particularly jokes with political underpinnings, can be empowering for Latina/os as it can represent a “creative act that contributed symbolically to an ideological formation” (159). Thus jokes can serve as a tool for the socialization of oppressed groups into an oppositional consciousness similar to the way that jokes can be used to perpetuate discrimination. Additionally, in some cases, like that of Ochoa, members of those groups can self-consciously perform the stereotypes placed on them in exaggerated ways that critique the very viability of those conceptualizations.
CAMINO REAL
Ochoa creates a self-representation and this ability is what grants him a voice. Similar to the case of Born in East L.A ., Ochoa’s employment of parody “does in fact provide a powerful indictment of dominant society” (Fregoso 245). In order for someone to laugh at a joke, it requires them to “move beyond their comfort zones and commonplace understandings” through the art of inversion (Mayo 245). This performance thus creates an alternate view of the world that, if only temporarily, reshapes the way we conceive of marginal groups within society (Limón 157). Ochoa’s work offers such a glimpse into a world where people are not stripped of their humanity through the essentializing forces of hierarchy. We can only hope that many others, particularly the subaltern, will also gain the ability to share their creative visions.
REFERENCES Alonzo, J. J. Badmen, Bandits, and Folklore: The Ambivalence of Mexican American Identity in Literature and Film. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009. Print. Baca Zinn, M. B. “Chicano Men and Masculinity.” Journal of Ethnic Studies 10: 2 (1982). Print. Burma, J. H. “Humor as a Technique in Race Conflict.” American Sociological Review 11:
ESTER T RUJILLO & GUSTAVO LÓPEZ
Lomelí, F. A. “Origin and Evolution of Homies as Hip Cultural Artifacts: Taking Homies Out of the Barrio or the Barrio Out of the Homies.” Unpublished paper used with the author’s permission. Madrid, A. “In Search of the Authentic Pachuco: An Interpretive Essay.” Velvet Barrios Popular Culture and Chicana/o Sexualities. (Ed.) Alicia Gaspar de Alba. New York: Palgrave McMillan, (2003): 17-40. Print. Mauldin, R. K. “The Role of Humor in the Social Construction of Gendered and Ethnic Stereotypes.” Race, Gender and Class 9: 3 (2002): 76-96. Print. Mayo, C. “Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor.” Philosophy of Education Yearbook. (Ed.) N. Burbules. Urbana-Champaign: University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign, (2008): 244-252. Print. McWilliams, C. North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States. Westport: Preager Publishers, 1948. Print. Montejano, D. Quixote Soldiers: A Local History of the Chicano Movement, 1966-. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. Print. Moore, J. W. “Isolation and Stigmatization in the Development of an Underclass: The Case of Chicano Gangs in East Los Angeles.” Social Problems 33: 1 (1985): 1-12. Print. Ochoa, E. “How to be a Cholo.” YouTube. N.p. 6 June 2008. Web. 23 September 2011. Paredes, A. “With His Pistol in His Hand”: A Border Ballad and its Hero. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1958. Print. Paz, O. The Labyrinth of Solitude. New York: Grove Press, 1985. Print. Pérez, E. The Decolonial Imaginary: Writing Chicanas into History , Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1999. Print. Ramírez Berg, C. Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, Resistance. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002. Print. Valdez, L. Zoot Suit. In Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit and Other Plays. Houston: Arte Público, (1992): 23-94. Print. “YouTube Fact Sheet.” Web. 9 December 2010.