Latino Youth in Film: McFarland, USA and Spare Parts

Abstract

The representation of youth in American cinema has undergone many changes in the last decade. The “teen film” identified by Timothy Shary, emerged in the 1950s and fully developed in the 1980s with varieties ranging from horror and rock to beach teen. Until the first decade of this century, all these forms of the American teen film represented mainly one social class and ethnicity. In the introduction to Youth Culture in Global Cinema (2007), Shary and Alexandra Seibel explain, “When Hollywood has focused on characters between childhood and adulthood, the films tend to follow the dreams of success and popularity that many young people share, and youth culture is portrayed as primarily white, middle class, non-religious, and fun” (2007, 1). In 2015, McFarland, USA (Niki Caro) and Spare Parts (Sean McNamara) were released. Produced by two major studios—Walt Disney and Pantelion respectively—, these films focus on Latino youth, both immigrants and first-generation Americans. Interestingly, these films bring to the fore a demographic that has been characterized by Victor Sáenz and Luis Ponjuan as “vanishing from the American education pipeline” (2009, 54). Based on real-life stories, McFarland, USA and Spare Parts show low-income and undocumented Latino students dealing with high school life. Ronald Chennault notes two patterns: “all the films share the centrality of a white educator who is depicted as the savior of the students in the film” (2006, 152) and “a reliance on disparaging stereotypes of racial minorities to propel their narratives” (2006, 153). In this essay, I examine the challenges that Latino teens face in their high school education and analyze their representation in McFarland, USA and Spare Parts, arguing that these films, released at the end of the second Obama administration, present Latino teens as having the talents and qualities needed to achieve their potential and become good American citizens. I begin by contextualizing common features of Latinos’ education.