Recovering the Chicano Social Problem Film: Racial Consciousness, Rita Moreno, and the Historiography of The Ring (1952)

Film scholars who have analyzed the mid-twentieth-century Chicano social problem film have critiqued and dismissed this subgenre for its deleterious depictions of Mexican Americans. However, in reaching this conclusion, they have focused only on the films' narratives. This essay, instead, argues for a return to this subgenre that allocates thorough attention to each of these films and operates under both historiographic and narrative textual analysis methodologies. Doing so may reveal Chicano social problem films' impact on raising a critical consciousness of the sociopolitical position of Mexican Americans. Taking The Ring (dir. Kurt Neumann, 1952, United States) as a case study, I contend that, despite its problematic representations of Mexican Americans, this film garnered a wide audience and contributed to generating national discourses on racism toward Mexican Americans. Moreover, in analyzing the paratexts of The Ring, we can understand the film's promotional campaign and Rita Moreno's persona as circumventing The Ring's narrative marginalization of Mexican American women to critique Hollywood whitewashing practices and position Moreno as a non–status quo, anti-Americanization identificatory figure for Mexican American women.