#seniorseminar Talia Kimelman & “Depictions of Machismo in U.S. Cinema, 1990s-2010s”

I think my interest in History started in middle school. Every year, we participated in the National History Fair, and that’s when I realized that you could make any of your interests fit into History. That’s definitely my favorite part of History, you can combine it any of your interests.

When I came to FSU, I planned to get my History degree and then go into filmmaking, specifically documentary filmmaking. I am majoring in History, with a minor in film studies and it turns out that’s only a small jump from there to History. Now, I am planning to attend a History graduate programs.

Why did you take this senior seminar?

In my freshman year, I took the “History of Cuba” course with Dr. Hicks. That was the first specifically Latin American history class, and then the “Social Revolutionary Movements” class, again, with Dr. Hicks. When I saw that there was a senior seminar with a Latinx theme, I knew that would be the most interesting for me. I had friends who were seniors, and they told me that if I saw a topic that I liked, I should do it early, because being interested in the topic makes all the difference for that class. So, I jumped on it.

The theme of the senior seminar was very broad and allowed for a wide range of topics. Initially, I had hoped to look at the women soldiers in Pancho Villa’s army in the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920), but that was located outside of the U.S. which was not an option. I decided to stay with a gender theme and pivoted to looking at machismo, and then decided to look at film, specifically in the 1990s and 2010s.

I chose three movies, Mi Vida Loca/My Crazy Life (1993), directed by Allison Anders, La Mission (2009), directed and written by Peter Bratt, and American Me (1992), directed by Edward James Olmos.

For the senior seminar paper, I concentrated on these three movies, but I will be doing an Honors in the Major project, and for that I want to look at films from the 1950s to the 1990s. 

How do you use film as a source?

The movies had very different receptions and afterlives. American Me, for example, was not well received. That meant that there was a lot of material on the movie when it was released, but since then there has been almost complete radio silence. Outside of the film itself, I looked into why they were successful, or not.

The biggest thing for me was finding interviews with the directors of the movies. I wanted to focus on their motivation for making the movies, and what they were hoping to achieve. There were clear differences between the three directors. They all wanted to make their films about the communities that they grew up in or lived in. It was an opportunity to narrate a story that had not been told before, but some were criticized for being an outsider, or for the creative decisions they made.

I also used the interviews to get more background information. Many of the interviews talked about using community members as extras in the film, which is not something that you can tell from watching the movie.

There were quite a few blog posts on the movies and YouTube videos by people who review films. It was interesting to hear how some described a film as vital for a certain community and others would say the films were awful. I found a wide spectrum of opinions.

What was the most challenging part of the class?

Writing the paper really was not bad, I sat down over spring break and wrote most of it. I set a goal of a few pages a day and got 90% done. Later on, I added the introduction and conclusion, which was really difficult. It was hard to step back at that point and write summary, overarching paragraphs like the conclusion after so much detail. It would have been a lot harder for me to write over a longer period and split up all the writing.

What surprised you the most about your project?

The different opinions and definitions of machismo as a concept. I discovered that a lot of academic literature states that machismo does not exist anymore, and that the term is used to “racially other.” In books and non-academic sources, it’s a given that the concept of machismo has been adopted by the mainstream, as well as within Latinx communities. There’s very little common ground in definitions of machismo. The gap between the academic material and all the other sources I found surprised me.

In class, we discussed how patriarchy is present in every culture, whether the term is machismo, toxic masculinity or hypermasculinity. For my paper, I used a definition of machismo that came from a contemporary survey of Latinx men, I think it was one of the most well rounded and self-aware options.

I also found other contemporary surveys, in cities like Miami where Latinx men were interviewed, which stated that now there is a push to have machismo recognized as a positive thing, how it means that you can take care of your family, for example.

Was it difficult to stay on top of your project?

Dr. Herrera gave us deadlines throughout the semester, which really helped me stay on top of everything. In the beginning, we had to decide on our research questions, then an abstract to narrow the topic, then a preliminary bibliography. Each assignment helped specify exactly what we were doing, and the amount of detail required made sure we thought about different parts of the paper.

The first two months, we all read books together, and we had to produce short papers and presentations on those. That was very helpful, as it taught me new ways to read a source. The grad read method was really beneficial and since we all read the same book, seeing what others took away from the readings was interesting as well.

In class, we spent a lot of time discussing our projects. We all critiqued each other's research questions, titles, and eventually full drafts. It was a very collaborative process in the beginning and that made me realize what a broad theme the seminar had. There were topics from the 1800s and others from 2016, which was super cool.

Over spring break, I watched the films and then wrote all my notes on it and consolidated those into my main paragraphs. I used those as the structure for the rest of my paper, but the rest of the assignments helped me with my research and research questions before beginning.

What advice would you give to other History majors?

For the senior seminar, pick something that you are interested in. Even if it is a broad topic, you can make it your own. This class requires a huge commitment which is obviously hard to stick to if you're not super interested in the topic.

The seminar also allows you to customize the broad theme of history to your own interests. For me, the gender and film aspects of my project were what really made it unique to my interests and helped me stay with it. And I got to delve into gender theory and use that as a framework, which made it a lot of fun.

There is no downside to taking the senior seminar early. I enjoyed doing it in my junior year and now I have a writing sample I’m really happy with for grad school applications. I would say, if you can do it early, do it.

What would you do differently?

I would have done more research in the beginning, making sure to check off the source checklist we got. There were certain categories of sources that I did not have, like dissertations, and I wish I had done a broader research sweep in the beginning, so I did not have to address that later.

The other thing is, I should have read through more of my material earlier in the semester. Being able to analyze the sources and put them in your own words to avoid quotes can be a slow process, so reading everything earlier would have been helpful.

Was it more stressful – or more fun to take this class?

It was stressful in the beginning, when we did the precis. That was a lot of reading and a kind of writing I had never done before. On top of that, writing the shorter assignments for the paper could be overwhelming, since there was so much going on. But once we got into our own research and writing, I had fun with that.

I also really enjoyed working with my sources. I found a lot of video interviews and podcasts, which provided me with more interaction than just reading.

The way the class is formatted, it’s so small, and there’s a lot of working one-on-one with a professor, was a very cool experience. The expectations are a lot higher than for other classes, but it challenges you to rise to them. I was really surprised by what I achieved in the course.