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 Marıá 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.

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