Location
University at Albany, Humanities 290
Start Date
6-10-2017 2:30 PM
End Date
6-10-2017 3:00 PM
Description
Many contemporary Latin American films portray a character or a protagonist that strives to bring in an audience to emphasize the “underdog” and their role in society. In Sebastián Silva’s Chilean film, The Maid (2009), Raquel is a maid and nanny, who achieves the exact opposite throughout the movie. This servant’s societal perspectives concerning distinct classes and gender roles are shown through her photographs and passive aggressive actions towards some of the family members and the other women, who are hired to help her lighten the housework of the home. Raquel’s attitude, mistreatment and tricks demonstrate her apparent desire to consider herself a member of the Valdes family for whom she works for. The vision of a family that she wishes to construct with selected members of the family is established through her performance and in scenes such as the one when she scratches off certain faces in the portraits of family photos. She has isolated herself from her own family and some of the family for whom she works for, mainly the mother and daughter. She reveals this through her preferential treatment for the sons, her meticulous care for the husband’s space, and also through segregation, personally and via the family itself. This essay will analyze how this atypical representative illustrates a type of underdog in the Latin American social hierarchy, in that which is characterized by anti-heroic qualities through the main character’s actions that are represented through a reverse perspective in comparison with other similar Latin American films.
The Anti-Hero Perspective of Sebastián Silva’s The Maid
University at Albany, Humanities 290
Many contemporary Latin American films portray a character or a protagonist that strives to bring in an audience to emphasize the “underdog” and their role in society. In Sebastián Silva’s Chilean film, The Maid (2009), Raquel is a maid and nanny, who achieves the exact opposite throughout the movie. This servant’s societal perspectives concerning distinct classes and gender roles are shown through her photographs and passive aggressive actions towards some of the family members and the other women, who are hired to help her lighten the housework of the home. Raquel’s attitude, mistreatment and tricks demonstrate her apparent desire to consider herself a member of the Valdes family for whom she works for. The vision of a family that she wishes to construct with selected members of the family is established through her performance and in scenes such as the one when she scratches off certain faces in the portraits of family photos. She has isolated herself from her own family and some of the family for whom she works for, mainly the mother and daughter. She reveals this through her preferential treatment for the sons, her meticulous care for the husband’s space, and also through segregation, personally and via the family itself. This essay will analyze how this atypical representative illustrates a type of underdog in the Latin American social hierarchy, in that which is characterized by anti-heroic qualities through the main character’s actions that are represented through a reverse perspective in comparison with other similar Latin American films.
Speaker Information
Amber Bradley is a Teaching Assistant at the University at Albany where she teaches an introductory Spanish course and aids professors as a Research Assistant each semester. After living abroad in Mexico for a year, she completed a Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction at SUNY Potsdam, and taught introductory level Spanish courses as an Adjunct instructor for four years. She is currently studying towards her Master’s Degree in Latin American Cultural Studies. Her areas of research include gender studies, identity, and social classes in Latin American countries.