Latin American Literature Commons^™

Seeing (As) The Eroticized And Exoticized Other In Spanish Im/Migration Cinema: A Critical Look At The (De)Criminalization Of Migrants And Impunity Of Hegemonic Perpetrators, Maureen Tobin Stanley

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

This article examines cinematic perspective in six Spanish im/migration films to show that by resituating the identification from an alignment with that of a hegemonic character (who accepts the systematic bias that confers impunity to perpetrators) to identification with a criminalized migrant subject, these films 1) denounce systemic intersectionality that confers impunity to perpetrators and criminalizes the racialized and/or feminized other and 2) aim at fostering empathy in the hegemonically identified viewer. Parameters for the selection of the six films are: immigration to Spain, African (whether geographic or ethnic) origins, eroticization of the migrant, objectification/(ab)use/commodification/victimization of the Other, criminalization of …