Michaela Kainz-Potter
10182173
The film Carmin Tropical, is about a Mexican male to female transgender protagonist who returns to her home in Oaxaca in Mexico, to investigate the unsolved murder of one of her muxe transgender friends Daniela. The film conveys the struggle of the life of a transgender individual who finds it difficult to look at her past during a time when she did not feel comfortable in her identity. Carmin Tropical captures a unique perspective of the protagonist in the story because the film is centered on a transgender character from Mexican descent. Unlike most popular cultured films which predominantly base their main characters as a developed Caucasian heterosexual, Carmin Tropical’s idea of using a transgender character’s point of view is to break the the male gaze theory. Breaking the male gaze theory gives the audience the perception that goes beyond the typical straight man perceptual outlook of the film. The majority of pop culture films and literature give the audience the perception of a heteronormative and cisgender perspective. It is very rare for films to revolve the plot around a racial, homosexual or transgender protagonist. In some cases, films use a non-white and/or non straight antagonist but the lack character development in those characters can be an issue in certain popular culture. The directors of Carmin Tropical were able to capture the essence of the life of a male to female transgender in an uneasy environment.
http://variety.com/2014/film/awards/carmin-tropical-wins-top-prize-morelia-film-festival-1201339112/
O’Brien and Szeman state that the Western world is the most prevalent and dominant of popular culture (237). Carmin Tropical steps away from westernized culture by setting the plot in a small village in Mexico. Rather than portraying a transgender character progressing in the typical westernized world, Carmin Tropical represents a transgender character and her development outside the westernized world. Although the film takes place in a Mexican region, it still racializes a character within the film. Daniela who was Carmín’s recently murdered transgender friend, is portrayed as a black character. Racism is followed by the police’s unwillingness to care about the unsolved murder of Daniela. The film shows that although it is set outside the western world, racism exists evidently everywhere through certain cases. The carelessness of solving Daniela’s murder by the police resulted by their beliefs to think it is an unimportant case based on the victim, signifies racism outside the western world. O’Brien and Szeman explore dominance as something that they state, “can refer to the core set of beliefs, ideas and identities that are circulated through forms of popular culture” (237). Carmin Tropical breaks away from the dominant culture yet still instills the beliefs and ideas that are existent in the western world nations. The issue that Carmin Tropical instills include racism, classism and transphobia but emphasized in a part of the world that is outside the Canadian and American culture.
http://www.filmfesthamburg.de/en/programm/Film/25521/Carm_n_Tropical
In the film, Carmin Tropical shares romantic feelings for a taxi driver, which she connects with when he shows empathy towards her after her friend was murdered. Milestone and Meyer both express, “transgender individuals who undergo sex changes have to learn the rules of how to be and pass as feminine or masculine” (13), which the authors then state that this applies to transgender individuals when they “interact with the opposite sex” (Milestone and Meyer 13). The film Carmin Tropical portrays the development of a romantic relationship between a transgender character and a cisgender character. Although most western cultured films over represent female characters as individuals who prioritize relationships in order for them to find someone who can work and take care of them; it is not portrayed similarly in that way in Carmin Tropical. The incorporation of a romantic relationship into the film is significant to Carmin’s character because she begins to learn how to interact with the opposite sex and develops a stronger confidence in her identity.
http://www.filmfesthamburg.de/en/programm/Film/25521/Carm_n_Tropical
The film Carmin Tropical portrays evident discrimination against a lower class, black, transgender character characterizing the concept of Intersectionality. Intersectionality is defined as combinations of oppressive institutions and their interconnectedness as opposed to examining a single discriminative issue separately. Daniela’s character and her murder left the police responsible for solving the crime, however, the police care very little of the murder. The carelessness of the police and agents is categorized as an act of discrimination against the victim’s race, class and gender identity. The collective combination of racism, classism and transphobia describes Intersectionality of the police. Racial discrimination fundamentally prevails in the film to express the authenticity of its existence around the world. Susan Stryker stated that, “[b]ecause members of minority groups are, by definition, less common than members of their corresponding majority groups, members of minorities often experience discrimination and prejudice” (Stryker 5). Stryker’s statement of minority groups explains why the predominated audience is skewed towards western culture as the norm because the majority of audience are standardly used to heterosexual white characters as progressive, while characters who are portrayed as minorities often experience less development and focus from the audience. Carmin Tropical expresses this concept through the discrimination of her murdered friend Daniela, as well as herself since the agents that could help solve the mystery are inattentively refusing to respond respectably to Carmin’s grief and determination to find the killer of her good friend.
Overall, Carmin Tropical is recognized as an untypical piece of popular culture because it is set outside of the westernized world and portrays issues of Intersectionality that proclaim a strong representation that oppressive institutions are concentrated everywhere around the world. Carmin’s character is dynamic and develops throughout the film, giving the audience a unique perspective of a transgender individual as the focus. Carmin Tropical is a distinct piece of popular culture because of the different perspective of the protagonist that is untypical to the audience and its focus away from American and Canadian culture, yet it is still influenced by issues that are engrossed globally.
http://www.cinepremiere.com.mx/55895-carmin-tropical.html
Word Count: 985 Words
Works Cited
Milestone, Katie and Anneke Meyer. “Introduction.” Gender and Popular Culture. Malden:
Polity Press, 2012. 12-15. Print
O’Brien, Susie and Imre Szeman. “Subcultures and Countercultures.” Popular Culture: A User’s
Guide, 3rd ed. Toronto: Nelson Education Ltd. 256-268. Print
Stryker, Susan. “An Introduction to Transgender Concepts and Terms.” Transgender History.
Berkeley: Seal Press, 2008. 7-29. Print
-Michaela Kainz-Potter
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