Is Penélope to J. Lo as Culture Is to Nature? Eurocentric Approaches to "Latin" Beauties

Contemporary discussions of Latinidad signal the rising importance of Latina/o studies as an emergent interdiscipline. Foregrounding the role of popular culture, media studies scholars explore the location and representation of Latina/o and Latinidad across a wide range of media. On the one hand, we have the rise of Latina/o-themed broadcasting programming and Hollywood film, Latina/o-focused magazines, and Latina/o media and cultural celebrities, each with a specific if in some cases overlapping history whose complexity and difference are erased in a new version of the so-called Latin boom. Yet we also have enduring tendencies that simplify and flatten difference, as demonstrated by the category of Latina/o that aims at panethnic, pan-national, and pan-merican commonalities (Mayer 2003; Molina Guzmán 2005), without enough attention being paid to different historical and lived experiences. Highlighted in all of this coverage are the bodies of women who stand for, or signify, far more than women. Spanning many of these discussions is Jennifer Lopez, who is treated by all media, whether mainstream or ethnic, whether news or entertainment, whether national or Latin American and Peninsular-publications such as InStyle, Vanidades, and Hola-as a media celebrity and mogul extraordinaire. J. Lo is the contemporary signifier for Latinidad and stands alone in a nearly iconic position vis-à-vis other mainstream Latina actresses-cumentertainers. The fact remains, however, that there are other Latina/os who are often discussed in relation to and in concert with Jennifer. Mainstream Latinidad also includes some who are neither from the United States nor from Latin America. Foremost among them are a small number of relatively famous actors from Spain, including Antonio Banderas and Penélope Cruz. Quite often both are lumped into the discussion of Latinidad and categorized alongside the previously mentioned Latina/os, in locations ranging from Web sites and magazines to any kind of generalized Latina/o marketing strategy. In this essay I explore the relational representational strategies that are used for Jennifer Lopez and Penélope Cruz, both of whom sign in as Latinas but who have drastically different public images in the United States and thus in the many forms of U.S.-produced popular media, which often circulate globally. Such an investigation is aided by the growing body of scholarship on contemporary and historical iconic U.S. Latinas such as Carmen Miranda, Dolores del Río, Lupe Vélez, Rosie Perez, Salma Hayek, and Jennifer Lopez. Scholars, both those represented in this book and others (e.g., Fregoso 1993, 2001, 2003; Hershfield 2000; López 1991, 1998; McLean 1992-1993; Ramírez Berg 2002; Shohat and Stam 1994), have studied their ethnic otherness, as well as the fact that it was no coincidence that they were all women. Women continue to function as a very powerful sign for identity and nation (Rakow and Kranich 1991). As van Zoonen (1994) notes, this is not a new phenomenon. Both France and the United States are symbolized by a woman, the virtuous revolutionary Marianne for the former and the Statue of Liberty for the latter. National differences, usually reduced to stereotypic ethnic characteristics, can also be reduced to relationality between women, as witness the two examples of the revolutionary French woman and the welcoming Lady Liberty, which provide a commentary on the identity of and difference between those two nations. Race, ethnicity, and class compose another layer of differentiation for the sign of woman within and between nations. This signification process can and has to be extended to the U.S. Latina, especially in relation to both Latin America in general and individual Latin American nations and Spain in particular. López (1991) forcefully argues that Latin American women, and by extension U.S. Latinas, pose a double threat, sexual and racial, to the dominant popular culture and social and political order of a nation that continues to see itself in terms of a dominant white identity and a black minority. This perceived double threat is problematic on both counts. First, in terms of white dominance, 1970 was the last year that U.S. Anglos reproduced in numbers large enough to replace themselves in the general population (Hacker 2000). Second, the United States is increasingly composed both of other ethnic groups and of hybridities within these. At the same time, the dominant minority in the United States is Latina/o, not black. Moreover, Latinas are also coded as posing a class threat to the middle-class-dominant national imaginary of the United States as threatening and inescapably working class. Issues of ethnicity and class are collapsed into their signification. An example is the Hollywood film actress Rosie Perez, who is Latina in films because she is working class and working class because she is Latina (Valdivia 1998). Accordingly, the sexual and racial threat represented by Latinas is likely to be overrepresented across a spectrum of discourses, ranging from the oversignified freeway signs that prominently depict female border-crossers, discussed by Ruiz (2002), which are now on a best selling T-shirt in Southern California, to the media saturation of images of popular Latinas such as Jennifer Lopez and Penélope Cruz. Latin1 women continue to prominently sign in for sexual, class, and racial difference and excess, as we did at least once before, during the Good Neighbor Policy years. Latinas once again prominently grace the covers of our magazines, the screens of our theaters, and the many other locations where popular culture highlights particular bodies in a nearly ethnographic manner (López 1991). Finally, given the importance of the sign of woman as representing issues of nation, difference, and sexuality, it is not surprising that in today's market situation of synergy across media and general product domains, the bodies of women would lend themselves better to this diversified process of movie star, fashion spokesperson, and general style maven. This essay proceeds through two theoretical steps, both undergirded by an exploration of contemporary mainstream popular media ranging from film roles as well as general interest magazine stories, television entertainment news, Web sites, and fashion and beauty industry ads. The first part explores the internally contradictory construction of Latinidad as an ethnic identity and segment of the population and market. Since Latina/os present an instance of hybridity, drawing the boundaries around and differentiating within this ethnic group is most challenging. Second, and building on the first part, this essay investigates the differential representation of these two "Latinas." The easiest way within the mainstream to build difference within difference, as within an already gendered ethnicity, is through class differentiation and national origin. Different nations signify different class valuations in global geopolitics. As usual, the most prominent examples include the bodies of women, and thus this case study focuses on Jennifer Lopez and Penélope Cruz.