Films like Pearl (2023) and books like My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) guide peoples’ attention to a topic that’s brewing in our guts: female rage. It seems as if, for the first time, women are allowed to let out all the pent-up anger and frustration – and instead of being perceived as hysterical, they’re celebrated.
And while it did feel cathartic watching Dani, from Midsommar, set fire to her manipulative boyfriend, it didn’t really feel new. The screaming and yelling, the violent outbursts, all the melodrama surrounding these characters felt familiar. But why?
It was mid-afternoon and I was visiting my parents when I went to play cards with my mom’s friends. We ran inside, still wet from the rain, and settled around the dinner table, where the TV was on. A telenovela was playing. And as one of the female characters threw a vase towards another woman’s face, I had my answer.
Growing up in a Latino household, we always had on telenovelas. Originated from radio serials, where they would adapt famous books and plays in a serialized form, the telenovelas we now know started to appear – at least in my native Brazil – in the mid-1940s and truly found its footing in the 1970s.
As most of the audience were stay-at-home wives, show producers began to favor female leads. These characters strived to depict a more realistic version of womanhood. Sometimes they were heroic, yes, but they were also complicated and flawed. Slowly, through the combination of these new characteristics and the classic tropes melodrama – double identities, family betrayal, etc. – the characters we came to love were formed.
These telenovelas were about women and for women. They showed them fighting for their rights, plotting evil deeds, defending themselves and those who they loved, and all the other facets of their humanity. Without missing out on the spectacle.
Throughout the decades telenovelas began to travel outside Latin America. Shows like Slave Isaura (Escrava Isaura), The Rich Cry Too (Los Ricos También Lloran), and Ugly Betty (Yo Soy Betty, La Fea) reached international audiences and a great portion of North American viewers began to learn about South American cultures through them. To the point where US audiences began to associate the big dramatic behaviors of those female leads with how actual women from Latin America behaved.
Of course, telenovelas are not the only factor in creating this stereotype. How the news portrays Latinos also influences the spectator’s narrative. But according to a study by the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC), one of the most influential mediums in shaping the way people think about Latinos is entertainment television, following behind only the news.
So, slowly, a form of representation that was supposed to reflect the independence, free-spiritedness, and humanity of Latina women, was boiled down to a caricature of itself. We’re just the explosive and feisty opposition to the elegant and pleasant white American woman.
For decades this version of womanhood persisted in mainstream media. Latinas were either the hysterical uneducated maids or the femme fatale, gold digger types. Always reverting to their mother tongue and violence when provoked. Think Flor Moreno in Spanglish and Gloria Pritchett in Modern Family. While none of these characters are inherently bad, when they are the only versions of Latinas on screen, it is no surprise the world has a warped vision of who we can be.
However, as this stereotype became more prevalent, a new trend began to appear in US mainstream films. The elegant, sweet white women revolted.
Rom-coms faded to the sidelines and stories about female rage took the spotlight. We could find them as early as 1999 with Girl, Interrupted, but they truly came to the forefront in 2014 with films like The Babadook and Gone Girl. These were stories about women who no longer desired to appease their patriarchal societies. Be it by despising motherhood or by weaponizing the behaviors and personality traits society imposed on them.
For many women, this was the first time seeing other women allow their ugly feelings to surface. Confrontation, stubbornness, and, above all, female rage were presented as something to aspire to, not as a moral flaw.
These characters fulfilled a void left by the postfeminist line of thought. One that assumes because women apparently had won economic freedom and access to reproductive rights, they no longer needed feminism. That the fight for equality was over and that women were equal to men. Of course, that was not true, and these films were quick to point out economic disparity and the perilousness of our reproductive rights.
And while these movies served as a debate starter, they were far from expansive. While some women were given the space to vent, others, such as Latinas – and especially people of color – were still labeled “crazy” when showing anger.
To me, the biggest issue with how Hollywood portrays Latina rage is the lack of a reason behind the response. While some characters will, indeed, just be crazy, most people are angry for a reason. Our anger is not meaningless or a moral flaw that makes us unstable and hysterical. Rather, our anger is usually caused by our need to protect ourselves honor, our legacy and the people we love. It is to fight the oppressors, rather than to nuisance them. Just like those telenovela heroines first showed us.
Female rage in telenovelas is a form of resistance.
And, maybe, if we are searching for a better representation, we should look no further than our own living rooms.
