Some critics have taken offense at Cuarón’s aestheticization of housecleaning—probably because black-and-white photography is equated with art and classic cinema—as if its depiction were a form of exploitation and a reconfirmation of domestic workers’ low social status. Ariel Dorfman, “Roma is a Cinematic Triumph. Too distant, too much a work of art. A new story, perhaps, for a new cinema. Miguel Salazar, “The Story Behind Roma: Alfonso Cuarón’s film magnificently portrays an overlooked life in 1970s Mexico City,” New Republic, December 18, 2018, https://newrepublic.com/article/152738/story-behind-roma. Aparicio, a school teacher who Cuarón discovered during his search for a leading lady, hails from Oaxaca and is of Mixtec descent, which means her … Moreover, Roma deals with a highly controversial and seldom treated theme – the plight of poor, women domestic workers. While training at Latin America’s oldest film school, the Centro Universitario de Estudios Cinematográficos (CUEC) in Mexico City, he began working with his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki as well as his tight band of cohorts Carlos Marcovich and Guillermo del Toro, plus the non-CUEC Alejandro González Iñárritu. Eileen Boris and Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, eds., Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies and the Politics of Care (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010), 2. ... Age Gap Controversy. Carlos Ramírez, “Las revueltas de Oaxaca,” Letras Libres, September 15, 2016, http://www.letraslibres.com/mexico/politica/las-revueltas-oaxaca. Roma is global not only in the scope of its address (as evidenced in its reception) but also in how Cuarón points, in discussions of the film, to the larger social dimension of the traffic in sixty-seven million domestic workers worldwide, according to the International Labor Organization.30. I didn’t calculate that people would find [something so personal, so universal]. 30. International Labour Organization, “Who Are Domestic Workers,” http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/domestic-workers/who/lang–en/index.htm. 34. Some Native Americans have celebrated her achievement. Compared to the uproar currently embroiling Green Book and Bohemian Rhapsody, Roma's controversies have remained somewhat under the radar. There are mentions of land grabs, which point to political tensions that prompt the internal migration that supplies the domestic labor of Indigenous women to urban centers like Mexico City. 1. Throughout his career, Cuarón’s work, according to Dolores Tierney, both “conforms to and frustrates a number of expectations of the Hollywood genre [that they] most resemble.”6 In Y tu mamá también, for instance, he revisits both the teen film and the road movie, but uses realist camerawork (long takes, handheld camera, critical voice-over narrative) to situate the film’s gender and sexual politics in the context of Mexico’s political system, and within the neocolonial race and class relations that inform the film’s progressive politics. An already legendary Cannes press conference was more like an open assault on the director and stars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. The structure of domestic work is a legacy of the caste system of New Spain (the colonial term for what is now Mexico), which encoded a system of racial classification tied to social status, whereby Indigenous people were obliged to work for criollos and mestizos for no compensation other than room and board. The Favourite, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, and The Wife all managed to have almost entirely white casts without any controversy. 13. It is a middle-class professional household of four kids and three adults: Sofía and her husband and mother Teresa (Verónica García). Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) comforts Sofi (Daniela Demesa) and Pepe (Marco Graf). There are exceptions. The film is set in Mexico City during 1970–71, the tail end of both the so-called Mexican economic miracle (1940–60) and the beginning of the end of the political domination of the PRI, the Institutional Revolutionary Party that governed Mexico for seventy-one years. Here, a guide to five separate controversies surrounding Roma, the 10-time Academy Award nominated movie from celebrated director Alfonso Cuarón. © 2016 The Regents of the University of California. ... Age Gap Controversy. Throughout, narratively and visually, the camera works to bring Cleo closer to the family and to the viewer. Netflix reportedly had to intervene, and deal with the U.S. Embassy in Mexico on Guerrero's behalf. Considering the controversy surrounding Farrelly’s dramedy, people assumed one of the aforementioned movies could nab the top prize. In conversation, Cuarón and Lubezki have noted that Cuarón is pushing film language in new directions. Kristopher Tapley, “Alfonso Cuarón on the Painful and Poetic Backstory Behind ‘Roma,’” Variety, October 23, 2018, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/roma-alfonso-cuaron-netflix-libo-rodriguez-1202988695/. For an overview of their careers, see Deborah Shaw, The Three Amigos: The Transnational Filmmaking of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso Cuarón (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2013); and Dolores Tierney, New Transnationalisms in Contemporary Latin American Cinemas (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 2017). The numbers of dead and imprisoned were in the hundreds. ), The Cherokee scholar Joseph M. Pierce indicts Roma for its naturalization of Indigenous labor and erasure of Indigenous futurity, for its extraction of “emotional value,” and for its inability to imagine Indigenous life other than in relation to serving settler colonialism. Some critics have found the film patronizing, and blame it for enacting symbolic violence, while others question Cuarón’s right to tell this story at all. However, the film has also been associated with controversy from the beginning: first, because of its launch on Netflix—a decision that kept the film out of Cannes due to the festival’s new rule (continued for the 2019 edition) banning from competition any films without a theatrical release in France; and second, because of an escalating critique of its representation of Cleo, the family’s live-in maid/nanny.2 The different ways of perceiving its representation of Mexican history, and race and class relations, have generated debates about racism, privilege, power, empathy, and compassion. Sophie Lewis, “I Like Being Dead,” Blind Field, February 13, 2019, https://blindfieldjournal.com/2019/02/13/i-like-being-dead/?. Olivia Cosentino, “Feminism and Intimate/Emotional Labor,” Mediático (blog), December 24, 2018, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2018/12/24/special-dossier-on-roma-feminism-and-intimate-emotional-labor/. CBS has been accused of 'hypocrisy' over The Talk controversy by industry insiders - and a source close to Sharon Osbourne claims network is 'exploiting the controversy for ratings'. In Mexican cinema, female domestic workers tend to be portrayed as comical and gossipy or as erotic objects, or they remain marginalized in the narrative.11. Eager to avoid a controversy about the devil looking like the president, Roma Downey and Mark Burnett decided to leave the character out of their film, which is based on "The Bible" miniseries. Both the movie and the miniseries were shot in Ouazanni's native country of Morocco. One sequence in particular honors the labor of domestic workers. 10. In Mexico, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has recognized Mexico’s supreme court ruling that domestic workers have a right to social security.28 Cuarón posted a video on his Twitter account celebrating this achievement.29 The ruling includes access to health care, sick leave, and retirement. Roma has also unleashed a wave of racist commentaries directed at Yalitza Aparicio. Roberto Ortíz, “Special Dossier on Roma: Recuerda, Notes on Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma,” Mediático (blog), December 24, 2018, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2018/12/24/special-dossier-on-roma-recuerda-notes-on-alfonso-cuarons-roma/. Deborah Martin and Deborah Shaw (London & New York: I. 25. Roma is part of a distinct trend in contemporary Latin American cinema: stories of domestic workers, servants, and their masters, many of them made by women directors. And that’s exactly why its placement on Netflix has proven controversial. The film is also dedicated to her. None of them did, and people were less than pleased about it. Both Libo and Yalitza Aparicio are from Oaxaca, one of three states with the highest levels of poverty in the entire country, partially as a result of its large Indigenous population, whose levels of poverty are “four times higher than the national average.”19 Many Oaxacans migrate elsewhere in search of work, but the state also has a history of resistance and robust oppositional political organizing, with conflicts between Indigenous groups and a colonizing ruling class that go back for centuries.20, For Deborah Shaw, Roma reflects Cuarón’s acknowledgement that he and other middle-class Mexicans enjoy lives that are built on the exploitation of poor Indigenous or mestiza women. However much it is a domestic view of familial drama, Roma keeps politics in its peripheral vision, showing how domestic and personal politics reverberates with the public and exterior. The film’s depiction of domestic work as racialized servitude lies at the center of these debates. Courtesy of Carlos Somonte/Netflix. 23. Center for Support and Training for Household Employees (CACEH), “Trabajadoras del hogar hablan de Roma,” AJ+ Español, http://www.facebook.com/ajplusespanol/videos/2229188530627132/. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window), View filmquarterly’s profile on Instagram, http://correspondenciascine.com/2018/12/roma-la-critica-de-la-critica-de-alfonso-cuaron/, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/netflix-cannes-rule-change-ted-sarandos-interview-exclusive-1202750473/, http://www.indiewire.com/2019/02/dga-awards-alfonso-cuaron-roma-oscars-1202040847/, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2018/12/24/special-dossier-on-roma-feminism-and-intimate-emotional-labor/, https://newrepublic.com/article/152738/story-behind-roma, http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/03/roma-cinema-trump-america-alfonso-cuaron-oscars, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rodrigo-aguilera/on-the-margins-why-mexico_b_7967874.html, http://www.letraslibres.com/mexico/politica/las-revueltas-oaxaca, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2018/12/24/special-dossier-on-roma-alfonso-cuarons-love-letter-to-his-nana/, https://variety.com/2018/film/news/roma-alfonso-cuaron-netflix-libo-rodriguez-1202988695/, http://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/01/30/roma-is-start-we-whitexicans-still-need-reckon-with-our-muchachas/?utm_term=.50388f9abdd1, http://www.facebook.com/ajplusespanol/videos/2229188530627132/, http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2019/02/21/roma-exposes-mexico-darkest-secret/kTzKun8NYAJn5I1IL78CQK/story.html, https://noticieros.televisa.com/historia/lopez-obrador-respalda-derechos-trabajadoras-domesticas-cuaron/, http://www.ilo.org/global/topics/domestic-workers/who/lang–en/index.htm, http://www.proceso.com.mx/572039/entrevista-con-libo-la-mujer-que-rie-de-todo-menos-de-roma, http://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/mediatico/2018/12/24/special-dossier-on-roma-recuerda-notes-on-alfonso-cuarons-roma/, http://www.letraslibres.com/mexico/revista/entrevista-alfonso-cuaron-roma-queria-honrar-el-tiempo-y-el-espacio-que-los-lugares-dictaran-lo-que-iba-pasar, http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/alonso-diaz-de-la-vega/roma-o-las-dicotomias-de-la-forma, http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/indigenous-peoples-long-road-visibility-hollywood-guest-column-1180631, https://newsmaven.io/indiancountrytoday/opinion/roma-is-a-beautiful-film-of-indigenous-erasure-BuOrS3iGSEmLaNZcSHP2Uw/, https://blindfieldjournal.com/2019/02/13/i-like-being-dead/, https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/roma-review-alfonso-cuaron-1202919033/, http://www.theringer.com/movies/2018/12/14/18139931/roma-alfonso-cuaron-netflix-review, https://variety.com/2018/artisans/in-contention/alfonso-cuaron-details-roma-cinematography-with-gravity-dp-emmanuel-lubezki-1203085424/. For Olivia Cosentino, however, “Cuarón’s use of black and white nods towards colorism and pigmentocracy. Televisa.news, “AMLO se une a Cuarón: Respaldará derechos de trabajadoras domésticas,” https://noticieros.televisa.com/historia/lopez-obrador-respalda-derechos-trabajadoras-domesticas-cuaron/. Both acts of state repression haunt the film. Dolores Tierney, “Constructing Cinematic Point of View in Roma,” talk at American University, Washington, DC, February 27, 2019 (text made available to author). Roma has already catalyzed widespread organizing. Protective hand over the head of Sofia, one of Cuarón 's past misdeeds her! The Wife all managed to secure a visitor visa Televisa 's Yeka Rosales sparked a backlash Moments. A number of sequences are shot through her point of roma movie controversy enough, fully... ” 30. International Labour organization, “ Roma is a middle-class professional household of four and. 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