ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 TABLE OF CONTENTS Essays • Thomas J. Blommers Social and Cultural Circularity in La historia oficial • Ivonne Bordelois/Angela Di Tullio El Idioma de los Argentinos: Cultura y Discriminación • Oscar Calvelo Memoria, olvido e histoira en Corazón tan blanco de Javier Marías • Juan E. de Castro José Carlos Mariátegui and Cultural Studies • Isabel Estrada Victimismo y violencia en la ficción de la Generación X: Matando dinosaurios con tirachinasde Pedro Maestre • Margo Glantz Carlos Monsiváis • Teresa Gómez Trueba Imágenes de la mujer en la España de finales del XIX: "santa, bruja o infeliz ser abandonado". • Hugo Hortiguera Entre palabras: partes privadas, silencios y cuerpos ocultos en la narrativa argentina de los ‘90. El caso Federico Andahazi • Andrew Munro Recalling Voice : La Muerte y la Doncella • Jorge Santiago Perednik Sarmiento y su reforma ortográfica • Carmen Perilli Narraciones de abolengo y educación sentimental en Elena Poniatowska • Gisle Selnes Borges, Nietzsche, Cantor: Narratives of Influence • Lía Schwartz De hispanismos, los siglos XVI y XVII y el olvido de la historia • Ignacio Tofiño-Quesada Censorship and Book Production in Spain During the Age of the Incunabula Reviews • Laura López Fernández Entrevista a Fernando Millán Reviews • Roger Bartra Los vientos y los vinos de María la Parda • Mara L. García Josefina C. López, La Casa del Poeta: Génesis y proyección. • M. Ana Diz Arambel-Guiñazú, María Cristina y Claire Emilie Martin, Las mujeres toman la palabra: Escritura femenina del siglo XIX en Hispanoamérica. 2 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 ESSAYS 3 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 Social and Cultural Circularity in La historia oficial Thomas J. Blommer California State University-Bakersfield The 1985 film La historia oficial (The Official Story), directed by Luis Puenzo from a script by Puenzo and Aida Bortnik, can serve as an excellent point of departure for the study of recent Argentine culture. As such, it has become a staple in many Latin American culture courses throughout the U.S. and Europe, keeping its relevance intact even though it is now well into its second decade (1). Furthermore, it is of particular interest at this time in light of the current efforts to identify potential children of the ‘disappeared,’ and the ongoing battles in the Argentine courts in an attempt to bring retribution to the perpetrators of kidnappings during the ‘dirty war.’ The film is set in Buenos Aires during the waning period of the military government in the early 1980s after the disastrous war over the Falklands, with a ‘live’ background of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo demonstrating regularly and loudly as they demand to know what has happened to their children. After an unsettling reunion with an old friend, Alicia, played by Norma Aleandro, an affluent wife and history teacher in a boys’ preparatory school, tries to investigate the circumstances of her adopted daughter’s birth. Her investigation leads her to the discovery that the biological mother of her daughter Gaby was one of the desaparecidas, victims of the military government’s repression of real and imaginary leftist groups (2). Her efforts to learn the truth result in the destruction of her marriage to Roberto and an uncertain future for her daughter, who at the end of the film faces the same uncertainties Alicia suffered as a young girl. 4 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 In spite of this seemingly tragic ending, it can be argued that there are hopeful signs pointing toward positive changes in the future. The mothers’ insistent demonstrations and their push for change in the streets seem to presage a greater political role for Latin American women in the future. The fact that Alicia’s friend Ana is able to return to Argentina after being tortured and exiled can be interpreted as a civil triumph over military authoritarianism. Similarly, the students’ rejection of the ‘official story,’ the government’s account of Argentina’s present as well as its past, looks toward an awakening among Hispanic youth regarding Latin America’s history and the possibility of making a better future based on its lessons. Alicia’s quest for the truth can be interpreted as a nascent desire to confront social reality and find positive solutions to existing problems. Indeed, Norma Aleandro herself has been quoted as saying, "Alicia’s personal search is also my nation’s search for the truth about our history. The film is positive in the way it demonstrates that she can change her life despite all she is losing" (Stone H1). Irrespective of these arguments, the allegorical nature of the film and the representativeness of its characters ultimately portray Argentina’s—and, by implication, Latin America’s—failure since independence to achieve steady socioeconomic progress and political stability. Following a tradition of historiographical debate on past heroes and tyrants, the film portends continued chaos and failure. Lethargy and stagnation have become hallmarks of Latin American political culture, and the film, owing to its circularity, can be interpreted as suggesting that there is little hope for change. The development of the principal characters seems contrived so that they ultimately end where they began. They cannot escape their origins. Alicia, for example, 5 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 was orphaned at an early age when her parents were killed in a car accident. However, her relatives, wishing to spare her the pain of knowing her parents’ fate, withheld the truth. This resulted in Alicia feeling abandoned, uncertain and alone. During the course of the film, Alicia seeks the truth about Gaby, but rather than leading to satisfaction or some fortuitous resolution, this process and the truth lead to the destruction of her marriage and put Gaby’s own future in doubt. As the film concludes, Alicia once again is alone and facing personal uncertainty. Similarly, Gaby’s origin, shrouded in mystery at the beginning of the film, is only partially revealed by the end. A potential grandmother has been found, but nothing is settled. Indeed, the film ends with Gaby sitting alone in a rocking chair singing El país de no me acuerdo, the same nursery song of doubt and fear that she sang at the beginning of the film, apparently condemned to relive Alicia’s life (Bortnik 136). As the film opens we see Roberto as an upper-middle-class gentleman who has successfully climbed the socioeconomic ladder owing to his connections with the military leadership. But he has not always belonged to this class. The social standing of his family is made abundantly clear by his mother’s interaction with the maid. Whereas Alicia remains distant and polite, Roberto’s mother jokes with the maid and treats her as an equal (Bortnik 55). His lower-class immigrant family was forced to flee Spain during the civil war, and, apart from Roberto, remains mired in economic hardship. By the conclusion of the film, Roberto too is loosing everything—his job, his security and his family—in a sort of inexorable descent to his original roots. This circularity or inability to progress in a personally positive way is evident in most of the supporting characters as well. Although Ana, for example, has been able to 6 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 return from exile to Argentina, she is still insecure and unwilling to help Alicia in her efforts to find Gaby’s origins. She even goes so far as to try to warn Roberto of Alicia’s activities. In a similar fashion, Benítez, Alicia’s colleague at the boys’ school, the instructor of Argentine literature, exhibits independence of thought and unorthodox classroom methods. But his non-conformism has its limits. The film soon reveals that he was run out of his former position at a provincial university and has contented himself with his current position in the boys’ school in Buenos Aires, where he hopes to be less visible. Both Ana and Benítez have suffered the repression of the government and a complacent society, and have learned the obvious lesson: any attempt to alter the status quo has severe consequences. Roberto’s father and brother have also suffered a downward spiral. The father has not only lost his own country (Spain), but also his oldest son. He has failed to instill in him his own sense of ethics. The relationship between the two is strained; they have not spoken for months before they meet for a family luncheon, which ends in argument and unpleasantness. The brother has lost his wife and business, women reject him, and, according to his father, he appears to have developed a love of alcohol. He has had to return home a weak and broken man. Gaby’s potential grandmother likewise seems to have achieved little. In spite of her marching and her contact with Alicia, the end of the film leaves her uncertain, with no answers or solutions. Roberto’s client Macci has lost his fortune and may be headed for jail if he survives an apparent heart attack. Roberto and his colleagues are abandoning the ‘sinking ship,’ and so the list goes on. By the end of the film, not one of the characters has unambiguously succeeded. 7 ISSUE 6 January, 2002 ISSN: 1523-1720 Critics have found a myriad of cultural themes in the film. Amanda Brown, for example, writes that "[t]he film deals with pedagogical inquiry, classroom politics, the nature of truth, moral choices, the role of memorization, government-sanctioned terrorism, the nature of authority, the place of debate, the conditions of marriage, political protest, the church’s failure to react to political realities, and the authority of texts" (Brown).