Like water for chocolate
This is a film that was beautifully written in 1989 by Laura Esquivel and it greatly offers seniors with an opportunity to experience literature of another culture. It was later published in Mexico in 1989 and is a genre of magical realism. The novel is however written so much using a strong voice of the females. The film is set in Northern Mexico as it was established during those eras of the Mexican revolution as from the year 1910-1920. Each chapter of this film starts with a recipe in Tita’s cookbook as it has been inherited from Tita’s great niece and told by the producer (Esquivel 1). The film starts by instituting the kitchen as well as Tita’s birthplace and the same place where she grew up. The story unfolds as it portrays the significance that this cooking and food will have on Tita’s life. As from the start, Nacha replaces Mama Elena as the true mother figure in her life showing us the importance of nourishing to a certain extent than child bearing as the most important act of maternal love. However, even before Tita’s birth, her emotions are supernaturally powerful and able of impacting others as well as altering the occurrences in various magical manners. Tita therefore grips her wide selection of colorful emotions as she also embraces the affluence and the variety of the food that she is taught to cook by Nacha. At this point in time the war between the characters was minimal and stories to do with violence were not regularly heard of. However, as the novel progresses, the war starts and it affects their lives in intimate manners. However, despite the fact that Tita was warned of marrying her childhood friend, due to his mixture of race, the descendants of this family continued to experience inequality and discrimination. Therefore, this paper will present and discuss how the characters in the film are presented as racial, gendered and as sexual objects. It will also present the roles, the costumes used I the film and sceneries that represent the issues of race, gender, class and sexuality.
Despite the popularity of the film with the public, the film is a poor imitation of the male canon as the producer feminizes the story line on showing a society of women who are maintained throughout the activity and the food preparation that rise above communal hindrances of either group, race and age bracket. Women in the Mexican nation are expected to be responsible for their mothers and that’s the sole reason as to why Tita is forbidden from getting married since she has to take care of her mother until she dies. The producer therefore, focuses mostly on the female characters all throughout her story depicting the place and the role of women in the society and some of the gender roles that are related with men. Mama Elena is however viewed as a cruel woman and an evil one as well who delights by means of her authority to tear down her daughters. She is heartless as well as a dominating head of the family who is emotionally detached. She dominates her children and it is evident that they fear her as they are ever obedient and they have to produce perfect work. She does not want Tita, who is her guardian angel who takes care of her to be married to Pedro but instead she forces Pedro to marry Rosaura and making Tita who is heartbroken to make food for the marriage party. This is a high level of cruelty and it killed Tita from inside slowly by slowly (Esquivel 47). The producer thus uses these screenplays so as to address the manner in which tradition as well as conservative thoughts is so well-established within the Mexican community. Her use of food in the scenes is to portray the storyline device that points at the manner in which women encounter with laws that they have not established over which they have no control. The violence that Tita is exposed by her mother represents the male brutality. For instance, Mama Elena seems to have characters that are mostly accredited to men instead of females while a closer interaction with the film indicates that women are stronger than their male equals. However, Tita in this case is the one who finally approaches her mother and sister as well as Pedro and through her power of dishes she wins Pedro back and makes him to sleep with her (Humbi53 0.21sec). On the other hand, Pedro and some of the other male actors as portrayed by the scenes as being uncertain, weak and vulnerable to small jealousies. Though Pedro states to be in love with Tita, he is not that tough enough to fight for his love through challenging Tita’s mother for refusing him to marry Tita and instead he accepts Rosaura as his wife. His feeble nature is thus clearly viewed in his negative response to carry out his marriage with Tita.
The male characters in the film also portray different kinds of characteristics that are typically viewed as feminine. For instance, the scenes shows the long term suffering that Pedro is undergoing through but decides to wait patiently for his woman whom he wants to marry. This feminism trait is also seen in the scene of Sargent Trevifio who in spite of the fact that he is a male, he manages to work out recipes which is basically regarded as feminine role in the society. Pedro’s insight is entirely feminine on the various occasions as is seen in his dramatic act of marrying Rosaura with so much love for Tita that he assumes will never end.
Sexuality on the other hand is one of the themes of this film. Tita in this case was the transmitter while Pedro acted as the receiver while the weak Gertrudis was the source of medium. The use of culinary powers by Tita made her conquer the battle of the man that she loved as she achieved sleeping with him and this caused her to lose his virginity (Esquivel 55).
This film re-establishes a pre-industrialized rural Mexico through its costumes, lights and the dramatic settings. Tita is therefore a paradigm of femininity as portrayed in her costumes, that is, long and flowing skirts and loose fitting blouses. This is in contrast with that of her mother and Rosaura’s her sister as they wear tightly buttoned restraining dresses. Pedro and John, who is a doctor and is in love with Tita, are rarely seen out of their formal suits as well as bow ties. The sepia tones that are used in the inside scenes make an old-fashioned stage for this story which is as well an unfashionable kind of film. Most of the actions in the film take place in the ranch and this offers accord of place of the traditional heartbreak. This therefore offers a chance for several highly staged social occasions such as the wedding for Pedro and Rosaura, Roberto’s baptism who is a nephew to Tita, Esperanza’s wedding with Alex which serve as platform to showcase the colorful as well as exotic dishes made by Tita (Shaw 41).
The plot and the structure of the film show the struggles that the film makes in bringing about individuality and communism. This is emphasized in the theme of the interrelationships of the human beings despite the various spaces that these social groups occupy. The structure as well as editing of the film demonstrates the correlation between the characters of the film and their personal worlds. Individual characters fight to be independent and to stand by their principles and as per their personalities. Tita fights for her freedom even by telling John of her affair with Pedro and it is after this that they start meeting with Pedro in the open after the death of her sister. However the situations that are posed to them by others make them lead a pretence kind of life that has no joy in it but regrets. The fact that Pedro and Rosaura were forced to marry by Mama Elena even when they were not in love, portrays how hard it is to live one’s own life and how difficult it is to make the right decision for one own self without other forcing one to do as they want. This is enhanced by the dominance power that most of these characters have. Thus Pedro is seen sneaking out and having an affair with Tita as Tita also uses her prowess in cooking so as to seduce Pedro (Humbi53 0.09sec). The situations force them not to be together despite their love for each other and in this case they fight silently without anyone knowing. Pedro is unable to exist independently as they are haunted by Mama Elena’s ghost even after her death. They thus tend to lead pretence life as individuals even after Tita’s mother dies (50). Food genre is greatly used by the author to effectively and strongly communicate views on cultural formations as well as identity. Thus the audiences can be able to bypass nationality and it’s meticulous to establish a complex approach of symbolism which can be identified without necessarily having to take individual positions.
It is therefore important to note that this film portrays women as those who has the male traits while the men on the other hand has the women traits and thus they are regarded as the weaker sex in the Mexican society. In this, she expresses the manner in which the issue of domesticity has evidenced to be negating to most home and the meaning of being a woman in the contemporary Mexico is undermined. The film demonstrates the formulas that are used to achieve success through the use of the traditional products in the use of the time consuming recipes. This film is therefore represents gender, racism as well as sexuality back in the old eras when the women were represented as being more innocent as well as submissive while gender divisions were more clearly defined. It has thus offered an image of the Mexican nation that fits in the idea that the ideal land which has maintained its culinary as well as social traditions through establishing and view through the ideology of the femininity by use of Tita character and demonizing the mannish trait of Mama Elena. The film thus suggests that women have the potential to reach their goals but only within the patriarchal codes. This outwardly harmless romance thus covers up an antifeminist subject. Beauty, cooking proficiency, obedience and kind of Magical femininity portrayed by Tita seduced Pedro and made her to reach into her fulfillment. Thus she is one of the characters of the film that is used to act as a form of role model female to all the female audiences as well as an ideal fantasy wife or mother for oblique male audiences. The romantic love between Titan and Pedro that is greatly exalted all through the film can thus be linked to the Mexican Revolution since the Mexican revolution power was only vested on the selected few. Thus in the case of the film, power was in the hands of only a few characters who dominated in all that they did and this made it hard for others and thus causing them to be indecisive. The parallel setting of the Mexican revolution with that of the film shows a great intensity as time moves on and as complications yields up.
References
Esquivel L. Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances and Home Remedies. Trans. Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen . New York: Doubleday, 1992.
Shaw D. Contemporary Cinema of Latin America. Retrieved from: http://www.asu.edu/courses/fms504/total-readings/Shaw%20--%20SeducingThePublic.pdf
Humbi53. Like Water for Chocolate—1992
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb2QJvmETL4
