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Abstract
Against the socio-economic and cultural backdrop of the ongoing Latina/o media “boom,” this critical literature review delineates the location and status of contemporary Latina/o Feminist Media Studies. Departing from a critique of current mainstream Feminist Media Studies research and citational practices, it traces the influence of rapidly expanding transnational Latina/o media markets, the gendering of Latinidad, and transnational feminisms on recent Latina/o Feminist Media Studies scholarship. As it not only breaks with exclusively domestic analyses of intersectionality and accurately reflects twenty-first century media’s transnational orientation, this essay argues that the theoretical paradigms and thematic concerns of Latina/o Feminist Media Studies must ultimately be reframed as central, not marginal, to Feminist Media Studies research.
Notes
1. Among the varied nomenclature employed within the broader field of Latina/o Studies, I utilize the phrase “Latina/o Feminist Media Studies” for two primary reasons. First, it is the most gender-inclusive, transparent language currently employed by specialists. Second, the inclusion of the masculine “Latino” attached to “Feminist Media Studies” reflects the small but expanding scholarly work dedicated to issues of Latino masculinities and media (see Casillas Citation2008, Citation2014; Cepeda and Rosales, Citationforthcoming; Habell-Pallán Citation1999, Citation2005; Carmen Lugo-Lugo Citation2012). Another important distinction is to be drawn between Latina/o Media Studies research that focuses on gender as a key variable and that which highlights gender within a feminist framework. Following Mendes and Carter (Citation2008, 1701), I maintain that these two forms of research differ in that the latter is intersectional in its approach to categories of difference and explicitly oriented toward the realization of gender justice. For the purposes of this essay, I am interested in the second strand of scholarship.
2. Transnational Spanish-language media is targeted at Spanish speakers, whereas transnational Latina/o-centered media may be produced in Spanish, English, or a combination of the two languages.
3. As posited by Frances R. Aparicio and Susana Chávez-Silverman, for Latinas/os, self-tropicalization is an oppositional strategy that entails “standing the dominant culture’s stereotypes and images on their heads from the margins, resemanticizing them … from hegemonic tools into discursive weapons of resistance” (Citation1997, 12).