Tuesday, April 9, the Media Arts & Culture (MAC) department will present “Real Women Have Curves” in Choi Auditorium at 7 p.m., the last film in the “Los Angeles and Film” screening series spearheaded by Professor John Trafton.
“Real Women Have Curves” is a 2002 comedy-drama set in Boyle Heights depicting the efforts of a Mexican-American girl, Ana, trying to convince her family to let her go away to college despite her mother’s wishes for her to stay working close to home. Praised for its depiction of a Latine family in East LA and its contributions to the coming-of-age genre — reflected in films like “Lady Bird” (2017) — “Real Women Have Curves” has had a long-lasting impact on cinema. The film has earned a spot in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress and an exhibition at the Academy Museum.
Trafton, who is currently teaching a course titled “Los Angeles and Film” in the MAC department, said the series is linked to the class but open to the wider campus community.
“I really wanted to showcase for Oxy the diverse and broad range of cinema and cinematic voices that are in the college’s host city,” Trafton said.
According to Trafton, he chose films for this series that come from outside the mainstream Hollywood studio system.
“I wanted to give students something a little different and to show them that essentially film is everywhere, and it’s not just what we see at the multiplex or on Netflix,” Trafton said.
Other films in this series have included “The Crimson Kimono,” “Messiah of Evil” and “To Sleep with Anger.” Trafton said that the screening of “To Sleep with Anger” took place at the Vidiots Theater on Eagle Rock Boulevard and included a live conversation with its director, Charles Burnett, and a musician from the film, Steven James Taylor.
Abigail Montopoli* (sophomore) is the Education-in-Action (EIA) facilitator for Trafton’s class and said via email that the screening series has spanned several years of Hollywood film, showing the growth and changes of LA. Montopoli said via email that she helped organize the class field trip to Vidiots for the screening of “To Sleep with Anger,” and that upcoming field trips include going to Little Tokyo, where “The Crimson Kimono” was filmed.
“This screening [of “Real Women Have Curves”] is more specifically to look at LA closer to the end of the decade — late 90s-early 2000s. I would say a lot of the course has to do with the time periods in relation to the setting,” Montopoli said via email.
According to Trafton, he wanted to end this series with “Real Women Have Curves” because of LA’s strong history with Latine filmmaking.
“I wanted to have a film that puts women and women filmmakers at front and center, and Patricia Cardoso is a filmmaker that really embodies that,” Trafton said. “This film has America Ferrera in one of her earliest roles. She’s now known as the Oscar-nominated actress from hits like ‘Barbie,’ but over 20 years before that happened, there was this independent film from HBO called ‘Real Women Have Curves’ that really ended up taking the world by storm.”
Trafton said that it will be interesting for students to notice themes in the movie that are either still relevant or have matured.
The guest host of the evening will be film critic Claudia Puig. According to Trafton, he is excited to bring in someone who is both a film critic and a film festival programmer because he said these professions tend to go overlooked by MAC students.
“I wanted students to hear a voice from the Latine community on this film,” Trafton said. “[Students will] have the opportunity to not only talk to Claudia about her thoughts on the film, [but also] the state of Latine filmmaking today.”
Trafton said that this film is a coming-of-age tale and that this genre never gets old because young people always need to see themselves on screen.
“Students in the Oxy community can recognize this as a film that looks at issues of body positivity, as the title suggests, but also at the strong mother-daughter relationship at the center of the film,” Trafton said.
According to Trafton, he also chose “Real Women Have Curves” because of its setting in East LA.
“It’s nice to see East LA depicted on screen in films that are not about LA crime or sensationalizing poverty,” Trafton said.
Maria Paula Munoz (senior) is a MAC major on the Critical Media track. According to Munoz, she was asked to host the Q&A portion of the screening, as she is a Latine member of the Womxn of Cinema and Television club on campus.
“This film is such an important film in terms of representation of Latina women on the screen. Not only that, but it also explores important themes like intergenerational relationships, femininity, body image, self-love, sisterly love, first-gen college students and immigrant families,” Munoz said via email. “It’s the coming-of-age movie for Latina women. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it, and I love it even more with every screening. It’s so ahead of its time.”
According to Munoz, she made a video essay on “Real Women Have Curves” for her “Female Filmmakers Producing, Performing, & Screening Racial Identity” class this semester.
“I focused a lot on body image and beauty standards set for women and policed by other women even within the family. The film is very nuanced — to me, its antagonist is the societal norms that women are pushed to adhere to,” Munoz said via email. “My video essay focused mostly on Ana, the [main character], and her resistance to the construction of femininity that her mother is trying to instill in her and other women. It’s a coming of age for both Ana and Carmen, her mother.”
Munoz said via email that “Real Women Have Curves” is perfect for the Occidental community because anyone can see its beauty and walk away with a new perspective on the many themes it explores.
*Abigail Montopoli is a photographer for the Occidental.
Contact Ava Lalonde at lalonde@oxy.edu
