The Border, Performed in Films: Produced in both Mexico and the US to “Bring Out the Worst in a Country”

Abstract

Border scholars have long understood borders as social constructions around territories and identities. Drawing on interdisciplinary perspectives, my objective is to analyze the cultural production and “othering” processes of the multiple US–Mexico borderlands via good-quality films emanating from both Mexico City and the US, particularly Hollywood, in two periods: historical background on the 1930s–1980s and the contemporary period of the last two decades. I compare differences across multiple border sites along the near 2,000 mile line—west coast Pacific, central El Paso-Ciudad Juárez, and east coast Gulf of Mexico—as well as those sites inbetween. My overarching argument is that the film industry itself brings out the worst of countries in the US–Mexico borderlands. By “worst,” I mean lawlessness, sexual violence, deaths, and drugs, with “othering” processes alive and well on both sides of the border. As such, in both historical and contemporary films, everyday lives in the borderlands are not well represented.

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