Guillermo Gomez Peña- La Pocha Nostra
By Sabina Arias
I was very glad to be able to see Guillermo's performance live at CalArts. I was very impressed with the way that he addressed the audience. I liked the introduction given by Balitronica Gomez and how in a way she exposed the obliqueness of political correct culture that America is obsessed with by giving a million trigger warnings.
The video that Guillermo showed reminded me of the sketch about La Malinche by Jesusa Rodriguez. The film was interesting because it addressed issues of social justice, Chicano/Mexican identity, and the issues surrounding queerness with a lot of creativity and humor. I like the freedom that Guillermo employed in constructing his own version of history and the clips that he picked. For example when he was talking about the time before the Spanish Conquest and described the way of life of the "natives" as very erotic, sensous, and "paradise like." I really liked that because it exposes a stereotype about pre-hispanic cultures that people know nothing about yet it is obviously completely off. Although in the video he is obviously making fun of this, I learned from his other piece "The Couple in the Cage," how little the Western mind knows about non Western subjects.
At some point it crossed my mind that some people might get offended by the fact that he was antagonizing Americans calling them "gringos" the whole time and representing them with ridiculous clips, but he also represents himself and Mexicans in his film in goofy and absurd ways because the whole piece is making fun at the failure of words to represent us and how abusurd the reality that we live in is (in my opinion). The only criticism I would have about Guillermo's presentation is that when he performed the glitch poems and did the one imitating some Asian language, I definitely could see people getting offended by that. Over all, I was really impressed with Guillermo's freedom and creativity, it really inspires me to think of making art with so much freedom and play while still making a powerful statement.
By Sabina Arias
I was very glad to be able to see Guillermo's performance live at CalArts. I was very impressed with the way that he addressed the audience. I liked the introduction given by Balitronica Gomez and how in a way she exposed the obliqueness of political correct culture that America is obsessed with by giving a million trigger warnings.
The video that Guillermo showed reminded me of the sketch about La Malinche by Jesusa Rodriguez. The film was interesting because it addressed issues of social justice, Chicano/Mexican identity, and the issues surrounding queerness with a lot of creativity and humor. I like the freedom that Guillermo employed in constructing his own version of history and the clips that he picked. For example when he was talking about the time before the Spanish Conquest and described the way of life of the "natives" as very erotic, sensous, and "paradise like." I really liked that because it exposes a stereotype about pre-hispanic cultures that people know nothing about yet it is obviously completely off. Although in the video he is obviously making fun of this, I learned from his other piece "The Couple in the Cage," how little the Western mind knows about non Western subjects.
At some point it crossed my mind that some people might get offended by the fact that he was antagonizing Americans calling them "gringos" the whole time and representing them with ridiculous clips, but he also represents himself and Mexicans in his film in goofy and absurd ways because the whole piece is making fun at the failure of words to represent us and how abusurd the reality that we live in is (in my opinion). The only criticism I would have about Guillermo's presentation is that when he performed the glitch poems and did the one imitating some Asian language, I definitely could see people getting offended by that. Over all, I was really impressed with Guillermo's freedom and creativity, it really inspires me to think of making art with so much freedom and play while still making a powerful statement.
Comments
Post a Comment