Analysis Of Nosotros Los Pobres Film Studies Essay

In the 1948 film Nosotros Los Pobres the representation of maternal and paternal figures confirm Octavio Paz’ theories of the Mexican identity crisis as well as ascribe to the stereotypes described by Monsiváis. Octavio Paz’ states the Mexican race is subject to gsuspicion, dissimulation, irony, the courtesy that shuts us away from the stranger, all the psychic oscillations with which, in eluding a strange glace, we elude ourselvesh. To Paz the Mexican race is an oppressed one, a servant race hiding behind masks and smiles. The Mexican is of the subservient worker mentality, he/she always thinks of being brought down by external forces. These forces are not external gthey are impalpable and invincible because they are not outside us but within ush. For Paz the totality of the Mexican existence is that gonly when they are alone, during the great moments of life do they dare to show themselves as they really areh. To both Paz and Monsiváis the Mexican (male) is a person of many contradictions a person who is sensitive, angry, arrogant, wise, ignorant, dedicated, womanizing, distant, and emotional. The Mexican holds all of these things in himself at once and in extreme moments bursts out. Monsiváis makes the connection between the poor and the need for drama or melodrama; gthe audience could forget its own economic woes with the discovery that so many shared its own misfortuneh. For the Mexican female and male, the world and life makes the most sense when they are suffering. There is probably no better representation of this suffering, the trials of life, the melodrama, the extreme emotional contradictions of the Mexican than in Nosotros Los Pobres.

By isolating the paternal figure to the character Pepe, we can examine how he is a textbook representation of the contradictory Mexican male in an identity crisis. Pedro Infante as Pepe comes to be the archetypical Mexican male. Monsivais describes this male as ” alternatively and simultaneously brave, generous, cruel, rakish, romantic, obscene, able to make the greatest sacrifice, family-oriented and a friend until death”. Pepe as a father is a both times generous and cruel, this is evident throughout the film in various scenes with his daughter. Pepe’s dedicated paternalism comes out any time he has to console his daughter and reassure her that he will never replace her mother. His sweetness comes out in the scene in which he apologetically croons his daughter with a birthday song. His crooning for his daughter just comes after one of his cruelest moments in the film in which he slaps his daughter in response to her accusing him of killing her mother. In slapping his daughter Pepe literallizes Paz’ quote, his daughter becomes “the person who suffers this action is passive, inert, and open, in contrast to the active, aggressive and closed person who inflicts it”. Pepe is of course arrogant, prideful and closed, all because he wants to spare his daughter of the shame of knowing who her real mother is, by slapping his daughter Pepe all at once trying to protect is daughter and suffers from a moment of emotional outburst where he in Paz’ terms becomes the chingón. To say whether Pepe is a chingón is a paper topic in and of itself, for now his moments of being a chingón can be considered as part of himself, part of the bigger whole that is the Mexican identity, just one more part of the contradictory Mexican. Pepe’s chingón comes out in one other scene, the scene in which his sister reveals herself as the girl’s mother (to the audience) and begs for Pepe’s forgiveness. As presented his sister doesn’t seem to deserve the hatred and unforgiving emotional torment that Pepe heaps on her. It is as if his own pride, arrogance, and all-around Mexican identity keeps him from forgiving his sister. Pepe’s unforgiving of his sister can be chalked up to serving the melodrama of the film.

The Mexican romantic in Pepe comes out in any scene Pedro Infante shares the screen with the many women who adore him. Pedro Infante’s natural talent of singing comes into play as well. The whistling scene between him and his sweet innocent pure love interest Celia Pepe at his most romantic. Pepe reveals himself to be a man of honor and dedication when resists the advances of “La Que Se Levanta Tarde”, sometimes Pepe’s verbal sparring borders on cruel. The scene in which La Que Se Levanta Tarde forces Pepe’s face into her bosom through comic action is of course played for laughs.

The last facet and stereotype of the Mexican male is that of machismo. Pepe displays this machismo in the film’s later half which shows Pepe in prison and literally fighting for his life. Pepe violently beats the criminal responsible for the crime Pepe was accused of. Although this resolution is simplistic, it nonetheless serves the purpose of the melodrama, Pepe proves his innocence by beating the crap out of the other guy. By showing all these facets of the Mexican identity and male, Pepe fits the stereotypes suggested by Paz and Monsivá. Pepe through all his contradictions and variety as a man, he comes to represent the whole of the Mexican identity crisis.

The female that comes to represent maternity and the female stereotypes is the character of Celia. Celia is all at once pure, sweet, vulnerable and mistreated. To Paz, Celia comes to present the “chingada, female, who is pure passivity, defenseless against the exterior world”. Celia’s passivity comes out in a small scale in two scenes. The scene in which her father forbids her from seeing Pepe or being courted by Pepe, her response is of course emotional openness which makes her vulnerable and ineffective against her father who holds power over her. The other scene in which Celia is passive and open is the scene in which she confront Pepe for the truth. Again, Pepe shows his emotional contradictions in this scene, as Celia through her love and openness is simply trying to get Pepe to tell the truth of Chanchita’s mother Pepe in turn treats Celia cruelty. She is vulnerable and once again Pepe is a chingón, prefers to be in solitude rather than be open and vulnerable to Celia, and Celia is the one suffer from it, she even throughly expresses her love and care for Pepe, who in turn in only unreceptive not because he is because he is trying to save Celia as well. Through his emotional cruelty Pepe is saving Celia from being with him, sparing her of being with the complex man who would rather be anyone but himself.

Both Pepe and Celia come to represent a “sketched portrait of a people: generous, prejudiced, and more emotional than rational; pious and fanatic; an enemy of bigotry and more liberal than it seemed; inhibited by Lord and Master”. The people of Nosotros Los Pobres, whose nicknames define their personality traits, are people of a community suffering from the Mexican identities, all these facets at one. It comes as now surprise why Nosotros Los Pobres is considered on the best Mexican films of all time. It is a representation of universal truths specific to the Mexican and one of the finest examples of the Golden Age of Mexican Cinema.