The movie plays on the experience of the immigrant Latin@s in the United States and how family is always there. For instance, Carlito's grandmother gets sick after his birthday party and passes away, he immediately leaves everything behind and emerges in a journey to find his mom in Los Angeles. He crossed the border with only a backpack and his mom's P.O. Box address. The movie signifies the importance of family that many advertisements allude to. Furthermore, this movie shows the importance of work when Latin@s come to the United States, and that although their jobs are at times unjust they deal because that is what they are here to do.
Movie Trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6CAKadNqDw
So, even though I try to think critically about these images, I gotta say that just that trailer got me teary eyed. So one question we can ask is how are we manipulated by our emotions, by a story that is very very real (kids are separated from their families all the time), but also completely Hollywood. My guess is that this movie has some sort of happy ending, and probably a happy ending in the US, and that there is probably some really kind Anglo person who helps the boy reunite with his hard working mom, and there are probably really evil racist Anglos depicted too. So who are the different audiences for this film, and how does his story register differently for each for them? I should also mention that the star power in this movie is fierce! Kate del Castillo is a huge super-star of telenovelas, America Ferrera is probably one of the most well-known younger Latina actress (but less known in Spanish language media), and los Tigres del Norte--they are mega stars, 5 Latin grammy, 32 million records and probably almost completely unknown to non-Spanish language audiences. So that also tells you something about the multiple audiences this movie is marketed towards.
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