From Drug Mule to Miss America: American Exceptionalism and the Commodiﬁcation of the “Other” Woman in Marı´A Full of Grace Silvia Schultermandl

From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 275 From Drug Mule to Miss America: American Exceptionalism and the Commodiﬁcation of the “Other” Woman in Marı´a Full of Grace Silvia Schultermandl

Commenting on his motivations for his movie young Colombian actress who plays the role of Marıá Full of Grace (2004), director and writer Marıá. While her convincing performance cer- Joshua Marston explains that he intended to tainly aided in the successful transference of the make an educational movie about the people movie’s intended message about the complicated who are engaged in international drug traffick- entanglements that affect the lives of transna- ing and about the dangers that such work tional drug mules, the ways in which many entails.1 His choice to depict Colombia’s drug movie critics (professional and amateur) see in industry echoes his deep interest in world poli- Moreno a representative of the Colombia she tics, Colombia’s forty-year civil war and guerilla depicts is rather troublesome. wars, and the country’s stagnant economy. With However, as this article argues, such reso- Marston’s advocacy of issues in world politics nance with the audience is not entirely beyond and human rights, HBO, the movie’s US distrib- Marston’s control. On the contrary, there are utor, continues to add diversity to its playbill.2 several instances in the movie that invite the Still, despite these noble intentions of promoting audience to see in Moreno a spokesperson for issues of Third World countries, the movie only Colombian social realities, and in Marıá a partly succeeds in its attempt to “humanize the “ ‘windows[]’ into the presumed alterity of drug mule.”3 This becomes evident from the other cultures” (Amireh and Majaj 2). One general response the movie received from Amer- movie review makes a particularly problematic ican viewers: while many are positively capti- assumption about the movie when it character- vated by the movie, the attention of their izes Marıá Full of Grace as a portrayal of “the enamored attachment to the movie almost exclu- enormous complexity of Hispanic life in Amer- sively focuses on Catalina Sandino Moreno, the ica, especially of the illegal variety” (Brunette).

Silvia Schultermandl is an assistant professor of American Studies at the University of Graz, Austria. Among her most recent books are Transnational Matrilineage: Mother-Daughter Conﬂicts in Asian American Literature (LIT, 2009) and Growing Up Transnational: Identity and Kinship in a Global Era (Toronto University Press, 2011, co-edited with May Friedman). The Journal of American Culture, 34:3 © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 276 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011

Such is the general tenor in the responses Mar- and ruthless, and portrays the protesters without ston’s movie has received from journalists and respecting their right to anonymity (Third online bloggers alike. World 83). The second concept, the “King Kong While this essay does not endorse such syndrome,” which Chow defines as intricately reviews, it addresses a selection of such connected to the sensationalism that is at the responses for its investigation of the degree to center of China watching (Third World 84), ech- which Marston’s movie itself suggests an objec- oes Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s contention tified representation of Colombian female drug that the Third World is often depicted as a site mules. Such representation, it seems, appears to of “raw” materials that invoke “monstrosity,” resonate with the American audience more than which appears in contrast to the First World the careful crafting and sensitive gaze with both as entertainment and as evidence for the which Marston approaches the subject of his persisting, Western notion of cultural elevation film. It is therefore particularly interesting to (In Other Worlds 90). In another essay, Chow examine in what way the movie objectifies defines the “fascination with the native, the Colombian women by appropriating Colombia oppressed, the savage, and all such figures” as “a as stereotypical global South. Taking its cue desire to hold onto an unchanging certainty […] from recent discussions in transnational femi- a desire for being ‘nonduped,’ which is a not- nism, this essay analyzes a recurrent dilemma in too-innocent desire to seize control” (“Where Western representations of the Third World Have All” 141). This fascination with violent through images of the “Other” woman to and/or sensational spectacles “over there” there- emphasize the difference between the First and fore, deduces Chow, assures Western audiences the Third World for an ultimate projection of that, guarded by democracy and political and American supremacy. social freedom, “over here” everybody is safe and everything is in order. Chow asserts: “Locked behind the bars of our television Third World Women on screens, we become repelled by what is happen- American TV-Screens ing ‘over there,’ in a way that confirms the cus- tomary view, in the US at least, that ideology exists only in the ‘other’ (anti-US) country” Recent US feminist culture criticism has (“Violence in the Other” 84). The ubiquity of increasingly shown interest in transnational fem- representations in US mass media that exhibit inist issues,4 most particularly in the orientalist these two syndromes, concludes Chow, charac- and essentialist over-generalizations of Third terizes American media productions as instru- World cultures that US academia, popular cul- ments of Orientalism. ture, and the mass media have produced when Like many film projects before his, Marston’s attempting representations of Third World movie also runs the risk of conflating candor women.5 Recognizing the danger of such gener- with sensationalism and political interest with alizations, Rey Chow offers two useful concepts Orientalism. Exploring the motivations for drug for a critical evaluation of Western mass media’s muling from a Western perspective might make depiction of “the other country.” In her critique for an empathetic depiction, but the subject of of American coverage of the “China crisis” of his movie alone cannot succeed in exposing the the late 1980s, Chow refers to a sensationalist international commercial and strategic interest interest of Western audiences that manifests the First World has in the Third World. In other itself in what she calls “China watching.” Symp- words, it is important that the movie addresses tomatic of China watching, specifies Chow, are issues of international drug trafficking but it is detailed accounts in which US mass media problematic how it frames such issues. In partic- depicts the Chinese government as controlling ular, Marston’s movie relies for the most part on From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 277 a depiction of Colombia in terms of a single cat- Marıá carries with her and question the purpose egory and thus reinforces Western prejudices of of her trip to the United States, she has to the Third World as site of rawness and mon- undergo interrogation and possibly an X-ray strosity. The rawness and monstrosity that the examination which would show the pellets in film conveys do not stem from overt depiction her stomach. Once the officers find out that she of violence, dire poverty or the dangers of the is pregnant, however, they are unable to per- drug war onto everyday life; on the contrary, form the X-ray, and they release Marıá. Marston does not depict any of these circum- The plot is a mixture of suspense and careful stances which his American audience surely delineation of the lives of drug mules, primarily knows from other movies set in the drug milieu. that of Marıá’s life. For instance, while the audi- The problem comes more from the fact that the ence gets a good glimpse at the living conditions movie reduces the issue of transnational drug of each of the three lead female protagonists, trafficking to a single experience with a happy Marıá’s plight is depicted in perhaps the most ending without fully investigating the complexi- empathetic way. The movie’s opening scene ties of the issue. From this distanced and biased depicts Marıá trimming roses in a factory out- perspective, depictions of Colombian drug mul- side of Bogota´, amidst a large group of women ing remain a mere “spectacle for the West” all performing the same job, all looking a bit (Chow, “Violence in the Other” 83) and are like Marıá. And already in this opening scene not, as Marston intends, a means to convey, does the audience get a feel for the claustropho- much less entice, political agency for and trans- bic space that Marıá works in, and perhaps national solidarity with Colombia on the part of already begins to understand why she “wants the Western audience but. After all, as Susan out.” But her desire for something higher Sontag affirms, any attempt to regard the pain becomes even more evident from one of the fol- of others through the mass media, even if by lowing scenes, where Marıá climbs a high wall “watching up close––without the meditation of with confident stride and determination, leaving an image––is still just watching” (117). And her frustrated boyfriend Juan (Wilson Guerrero) Marston’s movie at times seems to do mostly standing at the foot of the wall. Such moments that, offer to an American audience an opportu- in the movie are symptomatic for Marıá’s char- nity to indulge themselves in some “Colombia acter, including her refusal to comply with rules watching.” and norms that others impose on her. This determination in the end costs her her job in the rose trimming factory, creates constant conflict Entering the United States within her family, and brings about the end of through the Drug Business her relationship with Juan. In contrast to Marıá, two of the other three drug mules appear less determined: Marıá’s After seventeen-year-old Marıá Alvarez (Cat- friend Blanca (Yenny Paola Vega) seems to get alina Sandino Moreno) leaves her job trimming into the drug business simply by copying Marıá, flowers on a rose plantation in rural Colombia, but, as especially the scenes in New York sug- she accepts a job as drug mule, which means she gest, is much less prepared for a life on her has to swallow latex pellets filled with heroin own. Similarly, Lucy (Guilied Lo´ pez), an expe- and smuggle them into the United States. rienced drug mule whose third trip to New Together with three other women, Marıá flies to York this is, seems to be driven by her desire to New York where American-based drug dealers reconnect with her estranged sister, who leads a await the mules and the goods they carry. When well-established life in Jackson Heights, Queens. the customs and immigration officers become Lucy’s gripping story about her attempts to suspicious of the eight hundred dollars in cash reconnect with her sister, especially her account 278 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011 of the sense of alienation she feels toward her accident. And the hotel room itself, although sister and the fact that even when in New York claustrophobic, does not evoke the horror of the on a previous trip as a drug mule, she was too business in which they all participate: they eat afraid to even contact her sister, certainly move pizza, watch TV all the time, and all respect the audience. But since she appears at once each other’s privacy. The verbal abuse at the haunted and stifled by the prospect of going to beginning of the plot sequence in the hotel aside the United States, her quest beguiles much less (one of the thugs hands out laxatives to the agency than Marıá’s. three women and orders them to clean the At the same time, the movie positions all the passed pellets carefully with toothpaste, threat- mules in similar measures in relation to the ening them, “I don’t want to be smelling your complex power structures of the drug trading shit”), the women are not put under additional business: this becomes most apparent in the pressure. scene that depicts the women’s flight to New In lieu of spontaneous outbursts of violence, York. In the claustrophobic space of the air- the movie increasingly builds on the tension plane, all of them seem equally wary of possi- between the characters, at times even by replac- bly getting caught. Being the most experienced ing dialogue with long inquisitive gazes. And of the three, Lucy informs Marıá and Blanca contrary to the constant tension that surrounds that there is actually a fourth woman on the the depiction of the drug trade, the movie’s cli- plane who also carries drugs and tells them mactic moment occurs in a happy resolution, about a practice that is known as “shotgun- namely the scene where Marıá sees for the first ning,” that is, the fact that the drug bosses send time a sonogram picture of the baby she carries. several mules on the same flight, and sometimes This is one of the few scenes in which Marıá is report one of them to the international police depicted as smiling, and this positive image also so that the other ones may more easily pass foreshadows the movie’s rather positive ending. immigration. In Marıá Full of Grace, the anon- The absence of dialogue in important moments ymous forth woman indeed does get caught, a of the movie also enforces a certain enigmatic fact that the movie plays out much less than flair. The character’s actions often are much more the anxieties of the three remaining mules, both telling than their words. For instance, in the their realization that one of them could have above mentioned climactic moment of the film, got caught instead, and the increasing worries Marıá’s smile carries as much momentum about about Lucy’s health. the further development of the plot as her slow Such subtle depictions of the general tension counting out of the several twenty dollar bills of transnational drug trafficking determine the with which she pays for the sonogram. In such overall mood of Marston’s movie. Unlike other scenes, the audience is supposed to empathize contemporary films on the drug business, it does with Marıá and to imagine her thoughts and feel- without expressive depictions of overt violence ings. At the same time, Marıá’s real feelings are (Davis 58). Even the depiction of the US-based left unsaid: there are no scenes that present any thugs is in large measures empathetic: Marston’s interior monologue, no visualization of flash- film suggests that they, too, are ensnared in backs, and no depiction of dreams or nightmares. power structures in which they are vulnerable to In fact, Marston initially had planned a scene in orders and punishment, and that this oppression which Marıá has a nightmare in which she is nine that they feel makes them uneasy and anxious. months pregnant, gets shot, and drug pellets spill In one scene set in the sleazy hotel in which the from her body. This scene, however, was cut five young adults are literally trapped until the because it did not “go with the rest of the movie” women excrete the drug pellets, one of the thugs (Marston). Similarly, there are few scenes in kisses the small gold cross he wears on his which Marıá serves as focalizer for the camera necklace when he sees news coverage of a fatal and in which the audience sees the world through From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 279 her eyes. On the contrary, the movie places Marıá nonhierarchical conversation. An analysis of the at the center of attention: she is in every scene film’s reception in the United States reveals that and because of the absence of a subjective camera Marston does not reach his intended goal of view, the audience watches her every move clo- “humanizing the mules.” sely, many times even in medium close-up and close-up shots. Furthermore, the linear plot development also places Marıá at the center of Critical Reception in the attention. In fact, the other female characters in United States the film seem to serve primarily as foils for Mar- ıá’s character development and as indications of the alternative courses her life could have taken: The film’s reception in the United States the women on the assembly lines in the rose-trim- seems to suggest that Marston’s intentions of ming factory as well as her sisters, a single mother depicting the local/global, national/transnational, who relies on her family’s meager income to sup- individual/collective contexts that frame the port her and her child evoke the life that might business of transnational drug muling did not await Marıá if she did not accept the lucrative job fully elucidate his intended audiences. Both in as drug mule; and the women with whom she the United States and in Colombia, Marston travels to New York represent alternative fates feels that his intentions for his fictional por- that Marıá could have had being a mule: she could trayal of a drug mule were somewhat misunder- have been the one getting caught; she could have stood. In Colombia, for instance, Marıá Full of been the one dying from a heroin overdose Grace has been less received as a fictional story because a pellet broke inside her stomach; or she than as an educational documentary to inhibit could have been the one returning to Colombia the local population from participating in the to support her family with the money she earned. transnational drug business. More compelling Through such techniques, Marston offers a than the government-sponsored advertising compassionate image of the drug business and the campaign of “Don’t be a mule” billboards, intricate entanglement of the people whose every- Marston’s film has become the main antimuling day lives are affected by it. Thus also argues campaign material in Colombia, including the Emily S. Davis in her comparative analysis of request of the UN office in Bogota´ for a print body and border dialectics in contemporary films for “educational purposes” and two private on global drug and organ trafficking. Davis refers screenings in the presidential residence hosted to them as “uncomfortable intimacies” and speci- by Colombia’s First Lady Lina Marıá Moreno fies with regard to Marıá Full of Grace that Mejıá (Williams). Such, however, was against Marston’s script forces U.S. audiences to see how Marston’s ambitions for his film, as he confesses their consumption of drugs such as heroin and cocaine requires the murder of the largely invisible in an interview with fellow director Antonio people who produce and transport then inside their Minghella, reprinted in The Guardian as “Please bodies. This is the most pressing intimacy, the unrepresented, unspoken relationship between the send us all your 17-year old daughters”: “I strangers who will consume the drugs and Marıá and hoped we’d go beyond that and not lecture peo- her living and dead companions who carried the drugs inside them. (Davis 61) ple; I was really against the idea of using the film to try to teach people not to be a mule.” Davis’s assertion that Marston confronts US In the United States as well, Marston’s film audiences with a side of the drug business they received widespread recognition, but perhaps usually do not see makes an important point not to the extent in which he initially hoped. about the overall concept of the movie, but is Marıá Full of Grace was a box office success6 perhaps a bit too sanguine in its assumption that and gained numerous critical awards, including American audiences enter with the movie in a the 2004 audience award at the Sundance Film 280 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011

Festival; the silver bear for best actress at the certain (stereo)type of a Third World woman. 2004 Berlin Film Festival, a best-actress nomina- Hence, the proposition of viewing Moreno and tion for the role of Marıá at the 2005 Academy her character Marıá “as if” she were representa- Awards. The movie’s great appeal to the audi- tive of her culture/country is doomed to pro- ence, as many movie reviews suggest, may stem duce biased representation of cultures and from the realistic, if not to say anthropological countries and thus reinforces prevalent stereo- approach the film takes. This approach scruti- types (Schwarz 15). Perhaps because Marıá Full nizes in particular the lead actress, Catalina San- of Grace entered the American market with the dino Moreno. As far-fetched as this speculation phrase “Based on 1000 true stories” on the might sound, some recent reception of the cover, but perhaps also because it caters to pre- movie in US mass media indicates that American conceived notions of Colombia, the general con- movie audiences see Moreno as the character she sensus among movie critics (amateur and plays. For instance, Moreno confronts interview professional alike) is that Marston offers an questions such as “And the character that you authentic perspective into the business of trans- play, is that very similar to your life or very dif- national drug trafficking. In this light, it ferent from your life?” (Tanzer).7 Moreno’s per- becomes understandable why some audiences formance of Marıá also gave many viewers the see in Marston’s film an accurate representation impression that Marıá’s experiences are “lived in of Colombia and accept the movie on that basis. rather than acted” (Holden). Clearly, the stereo- This notion that the character of Marıá substi- type the actress Moreno is up against is that tutes an entire social group in Colombia, and Colombia is known only for its massive produc- perhaps by extension, represents Colombia at tion of heroin and cocaine and its international large, also raises issues about the ways in which crime, which somewhat implies that all Colom- Marston negotiates Marıá’s agency in the film. bians must be connected one way or another to The movie’s, in Marston’s words, “loose docu- the drug trade. This also becomes evident from mentary feel” (audio commentary), achieved by the need that some reporters feel to highlight a hand-held camera and “various slices of life” the different social realities experienced by (Brunette), evokes the idea that the character of Moreno and the character she plays. For instance, Marıá is a case study of drug muling. Most of Zoe Williams describes “Moreno’s journey to the shots are taken from the perspective of an America […] as different as is possible from that objective or omniscient camera, which empha- of her character Marıá.” The reception of Mar- sizes the notion of spectacle and voyeurism. At ston’s movie in the United States in England the center of this spectacle is Marıá; she is in exemplifies to which degree Third World every scene and the camera follows her moves women and their representation in Western closely. For an American audience, the fact that cultures are often restricted to and viewed as the movie is in Spanish further emphasizes the “markers of ‘cultural authenticity’ ” (Amireh act of looking (as opposed to listening) and thus and Majaj 2). might further exoticize Marıá. The narrative The movie’s allegedly authentic quality is an construction of Marıá’s story, a story though interesting aspect among the various positive which Marston reportedly wanted to offer an responses Marston’s project received. As many alternative image to the one usually associated critics of multi-ethnic studies have pointed out, with the drug trade, echoes Spivak’s provocative mainstream Anglo-American culture continues question as to whether the subaltern can speak to be full of images that link the Third World at all. In her seminal essay, Spivak argues that with the exotic, an exotic that “is always already because there are always traces of an image of a known” (Rony 6). In this light, the US market constructed colonial “Other” in the predomi- perhaps demands that Moreno be the character nantly homogeneous representations of the she portrays, and that Marıá in the movie be a Third World in Western discourses, the subaltern From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 281 cannot speak (“Can the Subaltern” 308). No drug pellets comes up several times: twice, the matter how sincere its determination to decon- movie shows Marıá practice by swallowing struct the persisting images of the Third World, entire grapes, it shows her swallow the pellets, Western media inevitably, as soon as they and finally, it shows her rinse, cover with tooth- attempt to represent or speak for the oppressed, paste and re-swallow some pellets after they assumes the role of a patronizing agent of colo- passed through her digestive tract. The movie’s nial power. This patronizing by the dominant preoccupation with the specific process of drug society speaking for the subaltern—or any eth- trafficking creates a spectacle around the nic, sexual, religious or cultural minority for women’s bodies. This fascination with the abuse that matter—ultimately reinforces the power of the female body is apparent from the sensa- division between the dominant and the marginal, tionalist depictions of the pellets’ entrance into which renders the oppressed subject voiceless in and exit out of the organism. The movie’s the first place. It is based on these very power “meticulous detail used in presenting the process structures that the film adopts that Marston’s from start to finish” seems to put more empha- intended project of humanizing the mule failed sis on the mechanics of drug muling than on the in its noble attempt. social circumstances in which it occurs (Berardi- nelli). Certainly in Lucy’s case, whose dead body the dealers cut open in order to get at the A Matter of Focus pellets, the movie makes evident that the women’s bodies transporting the drugs are mere commodities in a well-structured network of While zooming in on the lives of the people international crime. This commodification also who are engaged in transnational drug business, becomes apparent when the drug boss presses Marıá Full of Grace at times seems to put more onto Marıá’s abdomen to realign the pellets so emphasis on the process of drug trafficking than that she can finish swallowing the number of on the depictions of the political context in pellets she is supposed to transport. In addition, which it occurs. Despite the fact that Marston’s the scene where the drug boss is feeding her a movie makes strong political statements about pellet also paints a compelling picture of male the realities of drug trafficking in Colombia, it agency over the female body. In fact, the cover hardly addresses the social and economic dimen- picture on the movie’s case shows Marıá sions of life in Colombia. That is even though devoutly gazing up at the hand over her head there are depictions of the poor living condi- that seems to lead a pellet down to her mouth. tions in Marıá’s environment, there are no Thus, although the movie makes visible Marıá’s accounts of the social, demographic and eco- commodification, its documentary feel objecti- nomic development in contemporary South fies Marıá in a similar manner. America that would emphasize Colombia’s In “Home of the Brave,” an interview with dependency on global economic structures. The Ali Jafaar, Marston defines the character of only hint at the socio-political goings-on in con- Marıá as a protagonist who communicates a uni- temporary Colombia appears in the form of a versal message: he emphasizes that while the radio news report about paramilitary activities milieu of the movie is set in the realm of trans- and—as Marston points out in his audio com- national drug trading, the narrative itself simply mentary—since this report is in Spanish, an tell “a story about a girl trying to figure out the American audience is unlikely to “get it.” meaning of her life” (24). Most of the reviews Instead, the movie focuses on the activity of suggest, however, that the movie’s audience drug muling, including the production of the seems to be more impressed with Moreno’s pellets and their transfer inside the women’s beautiful face than with the movie’s compelling bodies. In particular, the issue of swallowing the message: “What keeps the movie watchable isn’t 282 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011 its politically, culturally charged material, but “Columbia watching” Marston invites his audi- something more elemental—the fact that its ence to engage in. Instead of humanizing the young star, Catalina Moreno, is strikingly beau- mule, the movie “others” her in such terms that tiful and photographs like a dream” (Thomp- are relatable to an American audience. This son). While it is true that the movie zeros in on image of the “Other” woman, as Chandra Tal- Moreno, and especially on her “stunning, ser- pade Mohanty has noted, serves as alternative enely revealing face” (Schager), to reduce the image to the progressive Western woman. It is movie’s message simply to a story about a an image that “discursively colonizes the mate- “pretty face” not only evokes the implicit sex- rial and historical heterogeneity of the lives of ism of the male gaze, but also fails to recognize women in the third world, thereby producing/ that the movie is not just about the life of one re-presenting a composite, singular ‘third world drug mule, but about international drug traffick- woman’—an image which appears arbitrarily ing in broader terms. constructed, but nevertheless carries with it the Although the movie favors Marıá’s personal authorizing signature of Western humanist dis- quest for a better future, it depicts her as one of course” (Mohanty 19). This form of “Othering” many Colombian drug mules. For instance, is particularly noteworthy in the part of the Marston cast for the roles of Marıá, Lucy, and movie which is set in Colombia. The part of the Blanca three women who look very much alike. movie which is set in the United States adopts a And even the fact that all the drug mules more empathetic approach to Marıá’s choices. depicted in the movie are female is interesting, What comes across as recklessness and discon- in particular since Marston in his audio com- tent in the scenes in Colombia connotes endur- mentary speaks exclusively of male drug mules ance and mobility in the scenes in the United who where his informants when he worked on States. If the first part of the movie is “a plaint the film. As complex as Marıá’s character is against poverty and exploitation before it based on her determination and rebellion, the mutates into a more conventional (but success- movie in part reduces her complexity to a one- ful) exploitation of a rebellious teenage girl try- dimensional representation that a renders Marıá ing to assert her independence in a patriarchal as a stereotype. Her recklessness and discontent world” (Brunette), the second part is a success- evoke the “Anglo American stereotype of the ful immigrant tale that celebrates Marıá’s sur- Latin woman as childlike, pampered, and irre- vival of the drug trafficking business and sponsible” (King 209), a stereotype which the introduces her into a world full of possibilities. movie acknowledges readily raising the question on the front cover: “How far will she go before she’s gone too far?” This question isolates Marıá American Exceptionalism from all political contexts and suggests that the choices she makes are solely based on her capri- cious character. At the same time, the one- In contrast to the depiction of Marıá as dimensional depiction of Marıá inscribes in her “Other” in relation to her American audience, a preconceived cultural idea of Colombia and her decision to stay in the United States seems perhaps of Latin American in general at the to be based on values that her American audi- expense of a more stratified representation of ence can empathize with. The movie does so by the local and global power dynamics that affect glorifying the United States as land of opportu- her life. nity for Third World immigrants. First of all, it In the context of the movie’s attempt to strategically places Marıá in a well-knit social humanize the drug mule, this practice of casting community of Hispanics in Queens. By compar- Marıá as representational of an entire Colom- ison, Marıá seems to lack support and empathy bian subculture is an example of the form of from her community in Colombia, as her From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 283 secrecy about her pregnancy and her job as drug a contradiction to its overall argumentation of mule implies. Secondly, Marıá’s decision to stay an insurmountable divide between the First in the United States coincides with her assuming World and the Third World, especially when it responsibility for her unborn child. With the comes to images of women. But while the movie cash allowance she got from the drug boss in characterizes Marıá as one on many Colombian Colombia, she has a first sonogram taken. It is women by integrating her in a community in the United States that Marıá becomes certain where almost all women look alike, it also of her pregnancy. Such positioning of Marıá in underscores the degree to which Marıá does not the United States implies that she “finds in the fit into Colombia society. In this light, the frightening exile the inner strength and moral movie’s ending clearly places its emphasis on fortitude which is reflected in the film’s title” arrival rather than departure. For instance, the (French) und promotes a positive ending to movie depicts Marıá as never really “at home” Marıá’s quest which implies an “old-school in Colombia: she is different from her submis- New World view of America” (Jaafar, sive coworkers on the flower plantation because “Madonna of the Mules” 22). The underlying she quits her job; she is different from her suggestion here is that in the United States mother and sisters with whom she always gets Marıá finally finds closure to her identity quest. in to fights about money and responsibilities This feeling of closure is also maintained by toward the family; and finally, by refusing her the movie’s ending. The audience sees Marıá boyfriend Juan’s ‘unromantic’ offer to marry her walking assuredly toward the camera and, by once she tells him that she is pregnant, Marıá implication, into her new life. In terms of what resents having to chose between being depen- the camera articulates in this last shot, the audi- dant on her mother and sister on the one hand ence sees Marıá as a person who arrives in the or on Juan and his family on the other. Given United States, and walks farther into the United Marıá’s frustration with her life in Colombia, States. This “happy” ending underscores the the movie invites speculations about what would image of the United States as offering a positive have to happen to make her happy. alternative to the miserable living conditions Through a depiction of the tensions between Marıá seems to have escaped from. The positive Marıá and her social environment, the movie feeling which the movie’s last scene conjures systematically prepares its audience for a suc- stands in stark contrast with the scene earlier in cessful “homecoming” of the young victimized the movie where Marıá is on her way to meet immigrant to the United States. In suggesting the drug boss in a bar in Bogota´. This scene, that the answer to all of Marıá’s problems lies in which operates with a similar framing, positions her immigration to the United States, the movie Marıá in a different way: she is walking away endorses an underlying belief in American from the camera, and therefore, in contrast to exceptionalism. As Henry Schwarz argues, the the scene on the airport, suggests departure. In “fundamental beliefs in justice, democracy, and addition, the scene in the bar implies more ten- equal opportunity” that characterize “America’s sion and uncertainty than the one set at the air- relations with the rest of the world are deeply port, even despite the fact that the latter one is enshrined in this American mythology and are shot in slow motion. The movie’s happy ending considered uniquely (‘exceptional’) American raises hopes that once Maria is in the United values” (9). Given Lucy’s description of the States, all of her problems will vanish although United States as “too perfect,” as a country she is a pregnant teenage illegal alien with lim- where “everything is straight,” the movie cer- ited financial assets, education or job training. tainly adopts this categorization of the United In such scenes, the movie constructs Marıá’s States. And that this American Dream is indeed upward mobility on the basis of her seemingly attainable for Colombian immigrants becomes easy assimilation to US culture. This is, however, apparent from Lucy’s sister Carla, who lives her 284 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011 version of the American Dream in Brooklyn between the lives of two young mothers, one in Heights. the United States, the other in Colombia, the Carla, who takes Marıá and Blanca in when movie empathizes with Marıá’s decision to stay they find themselves stranded in New York, in the United States. serves as model for the upward mobility of Another indication that Marıá might feel Colombian immigrants in the United States. more ‘at home’ in the United States than in Carla and her husband represent the picture- Colombia is her distanced perspective on her perfect nuclear family: in contrast to Marıá’s sister’s life and the sense of superiority she feel sister, mother and grandmother in Colombia, toward her family members, even toward Juan. Carla is financially secure, emotionally fulfilled, For instance, Marıá’s perception of her sister with a baby on the way and a working husband echoes stereotypical evaluation with which Wes- who treats her with utmost respect and devo- tern feminists regard Third World women. Mar- tion. Of course, the parallel between Marıá’s ıá’s distanced perspective of Colombian women pregnancy and Carla’s pregnancy is far from as oppressed and desperate enhances Western coincidental: it invites Marıá’s identification standards of feminism and thus further justifies with Carla’s happy and successful life. In one Marıá’s aspirations to a better life in the United scene, Carla tells Marıá that her main motivation States. As Chandra Talpade Mohanty notes: for staying in the United States was to offer her … baby a better life: “I can’t imagine bringing up Universal images of “the third world woman” [ ], images constructed from adding the “third world dif- my child in Colombia. Not with the situation ference” to “sexual difference,” are predicated upon being what it is.” Carla thus foreshadows the (and hence obviously bring into sharper focus) assumptions about Western woman as secular, liber- possibilities Marıá will have if she stays in the ated, and having control over their own lives. (42) United States. Carla’s success story also indicates how well women in the United States are By viewing her sister and female relatives protected and taken care of by social institutions with “western eyes,” Marıá possibly adopts the and the benefits of equal opportunity. After all, same vantage point and value system with which as Spivak has noted, “the protection of woman the American movie audience viewed Marıá’s (today ‘third world woman’) becomes a signifier life in Colombia. Once in the United Sates, she for the establishment of a good society” (“Can manifests herself as iconic figure of the Ameri- the Subaltern” 298; original emphasis). At the can Dream: she is entrepreneurial, assimilable, same time, the movie juxtaposes Marıá with her and determined and thus represents perfectly the older sister to justify Marıá’s choice of staying quintessential American national narrative of in the United States. Marıá’s perception of her individualism and self-invention. Hence, the sister’s life as miserable, wasted, and futile seems movie presents Marıá’s decision to stay in the to be the impetus for her desire to leave home. United States as climax of the movie’s portrayal In contrast to the well-organized life at Carla’s of US superiority. apartment, the household of Marıá’s family is The notion of the successful homecoming also overcrowded (four adult women), noisy (a bawl- reinforces images of Western/American culture ing baby whose mother cannot afford to see a as land of opportunities that grants rights to pediatrician), and leaves little room for privacy Third World women. Of course, there is a nota- (Marıá gets scolded for brushing her hair in the ble difference between Marıá and Carla, who kitchen). One of the few shots where Marıá’s did not enter the United States illegally, much perspective actually dominates the camera is less through the drug trafficking industry. Nev- when she looks at her sister who is sharing a ertheless, by modeling Marıá’s possible future bed with her baby son. This scene serves as ref- life in the United States after Carla’s success, the erence to Marıá’s assertion: “I don’t want to end movie romanticizes drug muling as viable way up like my sister.” From this juxtaposition to surmount economic hardship and political From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 285 turmoil in the Third World. Moreover, return- intentions of “White men are saving brown ing to Colombia might also mean continuing to women from brown men” (“Can the Subaltern” work as drug mule, as one dealer suggests by 296). Marıá does not return to the father of her asserting: “You’ve been trained now.” In partic- child, for instance, which, had she stayed in ular, as the fates of Lucy and the anonymous Colombia, her mother and sister might have fourth drug mule on the plane imply, the risk of expected of her. What is important, moreover, getting caught or dying of an over-dose induced in the context of the judgmental approach with by leaking drug pellets exemplifies the life-dan- which the West evaluates the Third World, is ger drug mules are exposed to. Thus, staying in that Marıá’s entrance in the United States also the United States appears to be not only the marks her personal maturity. By constructing only sane choice but also a life-saving decision. Marıá as icon of American exceptionalism, the The movie supports this idea in the final scene movie implies that whoever does not seize the when Marıá starts walking toward the camera. opportunity of coming to or staying in the Uni- Right before the camera adopts a slow-motion ted States, such as Blanca, lacks determination mode, Marıá is depicted against a billboard and motivation. There is also something to be which reads: “It’s what’s inside that counts.” said about the fact that Marıá is the “object” of The slogan contextualizes Marıá’s attempt to the movie’s focus, instead of Blanca, Lucy, or build a better future for herself and her child the fourth woman who gets arrested by the and recalls the Carla’s decision to stay in the immigration officials. In other words, the movie United States for the sake of her child. It also makes a very simplified differentiation between reminds the audience that returning to Colom- women who stay in the United States and bia is out of the question for Marıá, since it women who do not: the strong and determined would mean admitting yet another failure to her woman stays in the United States, the passive mother and sister, who do not know that she is and naı¨ve woman returns to Colombia. involved in drug smuggling. In this context, Blanca embodies the missed opportunities and thus serves as counterpart to the ‘Westernized’ Conclusion Marıá. Although Blanca is depicted as rather obnoxious character, the movie suggests that by returning she loses any opportunity for a better Among other recent movies which depict life, and thus constructs an immediate juxtaposi- drug trafficking, Marıá Full of Grace offers its tion between the hopeful and determined Marıá audience a depiction of the drug business that is and the disappointed and disillusioned Blanca. less outwardly violent and turbulent than Steven Perhaps this characterization of Marıá as Soderberg’s Traffick (2000) or Stephen Frears’ assimilable immigrant is a clever way for the Dirty Pretty Things (2002). Through the many movie to get out of acknowledging that Marıá’s close-up shots and chokers as well as by paint- immigrant experience might be overshadowed ing an overall intriguing picture of Marıá, the by poverty, social stigmatization, ethnic margin- movie forces the audience to take a close look at ality and eventually even cultural alienation transnational drug trafficking and its victims and from her Colombian heritage. It is in this light agents. In Marston’s nonjudgmental portrayal, that Marston’s film assumes agency for rather the drug pellets that the mules carry across con- than promoting agency of Colombian female tinents are moved along a commodity chain in drug mules. Through the construction of the same manner as are many other products on Marıá’s homecoming into the ‘Land of the Free,’ the global market. They are no different from Marston employs the same objectification that the roses that Marıá dethorned in the factory Spivak asserts is a power enactment over the and that she later sees in flower shops in Jack- Third World disguised under the benevolent son Heights where are they sold to beautify 286 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011

American homes. Unlike the roses, however, the globalization.8 By extension, the movie’s appeal drug pellets do not “show up” on the American to the audience would less be on empathy than market. Cynthia Sorrensen points out that “[w] on solidarity. hat is blatantly missing from the commodity In her book, Feminism Without Borders chain is the demand side” (121). This may have (2003), Chandra Talpade Mohanty proposes an been an artistic choice that Marston made, given “anticapitalist transnational feminist practice” that movies such as Traffick and Dirty Pretty that promotes “cross-national feminist solidarity Things already successfully depicted the complex and organization against capitalism” (230). Moh- structure of supply and demand in the drug anty’s intervention of an anticapitalist resistance, milieu. But for a movie which places so much however, might not be made accessible to an emphasis on a linear narrative, to have left out American movie audience through the format of all allusions to the origins of the drugs or their a feature film. As the various comments on Mar- distributions invites speculations. ıá’s character in particular or Marston’s movie at In Marston’s movie, the drugs do have a cata- large make clear, very few, if any, movie Ameri- clysmic effect on the global market dynamics can audiences would see this film as primarily between Colombia and the United States, but being about them, and not about a Colombian are only relevant for the experiences of the woman. By placing the focus entirely on Marıá, Colombian protagonists; they never affect the Maston’s movie enforces a dichotomy that lives of any American protagonists nor is there places the concepts of safety, prospect and hope any acknowledgement of the demand end of the together with America into one category and commodity chain. Despite the reciprocal rela- poverty, danger and despair together with the tionship that abounds between Colombia and Colombia into another category without high- the United States through the transnational drug lighting the bias of such a categorization. trade, Marston’s movie only depicts the myriad The lingering question in this context, “Who’s experiences the Colombian protagonists: immi- to blame?” is one that raises issues about the gration and exile; death or death of a loved one; accountability of a fictional work for the losses to the immigrant community; and, of responses it may elicit from its readers, a ques- course, the bodily contact with the trade tion that may be too philosophical to answer through the act of drug smuggling. Marston’s within the scope of this essay. There is, how- movie refuses to recognize the participation of ever, room for speculation about the degree to the United States in this reciprocal relationship which Marston’s movie can successfully be and thus reproduces a biased acknowledgement, political without alienating his potential audi- which Arjun Appadurai terms as “anxiety” of ence. As Marston’s mentions in the audio-com- globalization, namely somebody’s uneasiness to mentary to the HBO edition of Marıá Full of investigate the ways in which a “world without Grace, his project did not land easily with pro- borders” may affect his or her daily practices ducers who apparently confronted him with (1). This notion of anxiety does not necessarily “absurd” suggestions as to how the movie apply to Marston himself, but comes into exis- should be. Moreover, he mentions a long editing tence through his aesthetic choices in creating a process before the movie fell into place in its movie about such a controversial subject. Were present format. Under the premise “You can’t Marston’s movie to investigate the participation really make a political movie” (audio commen- of the United States in the transnational drug tary), Marston edited out from the script all business, he would more forcefully address his dialogue that addresses the issues of political audience by raising issues about their ideological warfare and international dependency of complicity. Such a depiction would ultimately Colombia, for instance through the American offer less of a psychological journey into self project “Aid to Colombia,” 90% of whose and more of an anticapitalist social critique of money, argues Marston in his audio-commentary From Drug Mule to Miss America Silvia Schultermandl 287 included on the home-edition DVD, is being spent on military hardware, some of which is Works Cited produced in the United States. Marston’s statement that it is impossible to make a political movie might question the creative potential Alexander, Jacqui M., and Chandra Talpade Mohanty (Eds.). Femi- nist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. New which lies in depictions of the personal as politi- York: Routledge, 1997. Print. cal, but it might also be a comment on the Amireh, Amal., and Lisa Suhair Majaj. “Introduction.” Going movie industry and the marketability of movie Global: The Transnational Reception of Third World Women Writers. Eds. Amal Amireh and Lisa Suhair Majaj. New York: production that purport an outwardly political Garland, 2000. 1–20. Print. agenda. Perhaps Marston means by political that ——., and Lisa Suhair Majaj (Eds.). Going Global: The Transna- in a movie produced in the United States and tional Reception of Third World Women Writers. New York: distributed by one of America’s most influential Garland, 2000. Print. Appadurai, Arjun. “Grassroots Globalization and the Research companies, any overt political content would be Imagination.” Globalization. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. Durham: perceived by his audience as out of line. If so, Duke UP, 2001. 1–21. Print. then Marston confronts a similar dilemma as Berardinelli, James. “Marıá Full of Grace: Film Interview.” Web. Steven Spielberg did with his toned-down movie 16 July 2004. Briski, Zana., and Ross Kaufman. Born Into Brothels. India/USA: adaptation (1985) of the radical politics of Alice Home Box Office. 2004. DVD. Walker’s novel, The Color Purple (1982): in Brooks, Brian. “ ‘Maria Full of Grace’ Gets Box office Blessing; order for the movie to be made at all, it had to Focus’ ‘The Door in the Floor’ Opens up Well.” IndieWIRE 21 be “palatable to the mainstream viewer” (Dole July 2004. Web. 12 Feb. 2011. Brunette, Peter. “‘Marıá Full of Grace’: A Magnificently Low-Key 15). Look at the Dramatic World of Drug Smuggling.” IndieWIRE 7 July 2004. Web. 10 Feb. 2011. Cardose, Patricia. Real Women Have Curves. USA: Home Box Office. 2002. DVD. Notes Chow, Rey. “Violence in the Other Country: China as Crisis, Spectacle, and Woman.” Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism. Eds. Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Anne Russo and Lourdes Torres. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1991. 81–100. Print. 1. This statement from Marston is taken from the audio com- ——. “Where Have All The Natives Gone?” Contemporary Post- mentary that HBO put as special feature on the rental video ver- colonial Theory: A Reader. Ed. Padmini Mongia. New York: sion of Marıá Full of Grace. Arnold, 1996. 122–46. Print. 2. The “diversity factor” is especially prevalent in depictions of Davis, Emily S. “The Intimacies of Globalization: Bodies and Bor- Mexican American sweat shops in Real Women Have Curves ders On-Screen.“Camera Obscura 21.62 (2006): 32–73. Print. (2002) and prostitution in India in the Academy Award winning Dean, Jodi. Solidarity of Strangers: Feminism after Identity Politics. documentary Born Into Brothels (2004). Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. Print. 3. Marston, audio commentary; all quotes from Marston, Dole, Carol M. “The Return of the Father in Spielberg’s The unless indicated otherwise, refer to this audio commentary. Color Purple.” Literature/Film Quarterly 24.1 (1996): 12–16. 4. It is by no means possible to offer an exhaustive list, which Print. portrays adequately the diverse interests within feminist scholar- Frears, Stephen, dir. Dirty Pretty Things. UK: Celador Films, ship in and outside the United States to contemporary discussions 2002. DVD. of Women’s Rights. However, I would like to mention in particu- French, Philip. “Mule Strain.” The Observer. 27 March 2005. Web. lar the works by Jacqui M. Alexander and Chandra Talpade Moh- 10 Feb. 2011. anty (1997), Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan (1994), Amal Amireh and Lisa Suhair Majaj (2000), Uma Narayan and Sandra Grewal, Inderpal., and Caren Kaplan (Eds.). Scattered Hegemonies: Harding (2000), and Carole R. McCann and Seung-Kyung Kim Postmodernity and Transnational Feminist Practices. Minneapo- (2003). lis: U of Minnesota P, 1994. Print. 5. Cf. Wendy Kozol. Holden, Stephen. Film Review. “A Mule’s Long Trek in Search of the North American Dream.” New York Times. 16 July 2004. 6. Cf. Brian Brooks’ Review “ ‘Maria Full of Grace’ Gets Box Web. 16 July 2004. office Blessing; Focus’ ‘The Door in the Floor’ Opens up Well.” Jaafar, Ali. “Madonna of the Mules.” Sight and Sound. 15.4 7. See also Margy Rochlin’s interview for The New York (2005):22–23. Print. Times. ——. “Home of the Brave.” Sight and Sound 15.4 (2005): 23–24. 8. See Jodi Dean, Solidarity of Strangers: Feminism after Iden- Print. tity Politics (1996). 288 The Journal of American Culture Volume 34, Number 3 September 2011

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