Reading Response 7: Due March 17

Reading Response 7: Due March 17 (Wednesday)

Deborah Shaw, “You Are Alright, But…”

1. How does the multi-plot structure of Traffic lead to a reversal of traditional ethnic hierarchies and a weakening of the traditional hero-centered narrative?

The ethnics that were the heroes were black and Hispanic, Javier, Ray, and Montel. According to Shaw, it is the Mexicans that normally need the help of Euro-American heroes to save them from Mexican villians.

With several story lines, this created numerous “good” characters, destabilizing the traditional hero figure. Their worlds overlapped, instead of having two separate ones. Wakefield’s white middle class family is “featured” as a dysfunctional unit. He stands down from his public role to get his personal life with his family back in order. As the movie continues, Ray is killed and Javier only asks for a safe place for children to play baseball in exchange for information. “What is significant is that the lowest character in terms of social hierarchy is the highest in terms of moral integrity and is successful in taking on the drug traffickers”

2. Despite the “positive” Mexican, Latino and African-American characters in the film, how does the film nationalize and racialize the drug trade and drug users?

The White man (in the US) is one of the top drug ring leaders. However, even with the positive Latino role, most of the bulk drug trading is done in Mexico. Salazar commented that treatment for drug users is to let them die, less of them to worry about. Then the drugs were sold in the US by African-Americans. “Traffic, which follows in a Hollywood tradition of representing Mexico and Mexicans as a country and a people who are in need of moral, political and institutional guidance from the United States,”

3. How does cinematography reinforce differences between U.S. and Mexico? What are the cultural associations associated with each?

An image of Anglo-America as industrial, wealthy, and cold-hearted is given in the blue metallic tones used whenever Wakefield, wife and daughter are seen. A backward feel is given to the Mexican scenes through the use of a sepia tone; other colors are drained to heighten the sense of a sun drenched, parched geography characterized by lack and poverty.21 The sunny locations of California are shot and produced using a more conventional Hollywood

approach reminiscent of 1970s television shows; the bright sun-filled wealthy suburban settings provide a further contrast to Tijuana’s poverty.22 This, once again, reinforces cultural geographical tropes of “first” and “third” world; none of Mexico’s modernity is seen, while poor North America is not visible.

What is Shaw’s argument about a sepia-toned point-of-view shot?

The sepia point of view is shown as Mexico’s underdevelopment perceived by the North Americans.

4. How does the General Salazar character reinforce common Hollywood stereotypes?

Salazar’s violence, his psychopathic tendencies and his involvement in illegal exploits. Like the Hollywood bandit he is also sadistic and power hungry, and will use any tactics to achieve his ends.

How does Javier (Del Toro) reinforce common Hollywood representations of Mexico as a country in need of guidance from the U.S.?

Javier failed a drug raid in the opening of Traffic. However, Javier provides the DEA with information relating to his dealings, suggesting that the good Mexican cop can only get results if he works for the U.S. agency.

5. How does the representation of the drug trade in Traffic reflect larger assumptions about American foreign policy?

It argues for treatment over imprisonment for addicts,

for a holistic approach to the drug problem, but it also, implicitly, advocates intervention by the DEA in Mexico itself. Mexico’s perceived inability and unwillingness to address the issue of drug trafficking could certainly be used to justify the DEA taking over many of drug enforcement roles as part of a “war on drugs,”

Kaufman, 125-165

“Emotion, Truth, and Celluloid”

6. What are some of the key lessons Soderbergh took away from the Richard Lester project, and how did he apply those lessons to specific films?

7. How does Erin Brockovich represent a key change in how Soderbergh viewed “personal filmmaking”?

“A Maverick Director’s Route” and “Man of the Year”

8. What were some of the key advantages of the “run-and-gun” approach of Traffic, particularly in terms of performances? How did this approach affect Soderbergh's presence on the set?