The Sunday Shelf: Roll out the red carpet
'Emilia Pérez' and the very "American" way
One of the things I learned from the ‘American Dirt’ controversy is that it would never go away for me. If you aren’t new here, you might think, “That’s correct. She brings it back up often.” And I think one of the reasons I return to that time is because it was one of those foundational moments when I was able to truly see how the United States lens narrows and constricts. How it molds the narratives of those in which it “others.” It’s not just that I was finally able to see the U.S. stereotype game, it was then that I finally understood its impact. American Dirt was published in 2020, a year in which the U.S. attempted to reckon with its systemic racism. As a result, the publishing industry was also pushed to reckon with its glorification of minority stereotypes in literature, its lack of diversity, and its racist practices.
American Dirt will never go away for me because it’s become a blueprint of sorts for understanding why certain “Americans” hold viewpoints and how they obtain them. The Britannica dictionary begins defining a stereotype as “an often unfair and untrue belief that many people have about all people or things with a particular characteristic,” while the U.S. most commonly used dictionary, Merriam-Webster, defines stereotype as “1: a plate cast from a printing surface 2: something conforming to a fixed or general pattern especially: a standardized mental picture that is held in common by members of a group and that represents an oversimplified opinion, prejudiced attitude, or uncritical judgment.” It’s only until you reach the noun definition that you arrive at a somewhat similar version that Britannica provides.
So I am not at all surprised to see parallels of the American Dirt dilemma in the ‘narco-musical’ Netflix feature film Emilia Pérez, which has landed a whopping 13 Oscar nominations. According to AP News “a record for a non-English-language film”. Karla Sofía Gascón, one of the leads in the movie, could make history tonight as the first trans actor to win an Academy Award. The accolades and spotlight for this movie follow the American Dirt blueprint, and it leaves me to continue to ask: why this one? weren’t there others that have come before it or exist that are more deserving of the recognition? and more importantly, aren’t there others who don’t follow the U.S.-made stereotypical mold for Mexicans?
