The Bowl of Being is Culture Clash’s most well-known theatrical play. It is accessible online because the play was adapted into a PBS television special. The play chronicles Chicanos over 500 years from their origin in 1492 until the 1990s. The Bowl of Being and more specifically the sketch “A Chicano in the ’90s,” is Culture Clash commenting on the state of Chicanismo and El Movimento (The Chicano Movement) in the early 1990s. Culture Clash achieves this by using archetypal characters to portray the message. “Chuy the Chicano” epitomizes is the 90’s Chicano while “Che” represents the heroified historical figure of Ernesto “Che” Guevara. Women are represented by the nameless mother of Chicanos.
The sketch opens in the year 1492, with an interaction between Spanish and indigenous people. Here, Culture Clash, traces the “Chicano” back to their origin, to the earliest interaction of the Spanish and Mexica civilizations. The performance begins with the mythical creation of the Chicano by a Spaniard and an indigenous woman. The viewer is then teleported to the 1990s. In order to show the struggle of a Chicano trying to live in the ’90s, it includes monologues by “Chuy” (portrayed by Richard Montoya) in which he addresses his struggle with the dualism of identity. “Chuy” is the representation of Chicanos struggling to find themselves. The camera zooms in on a giant Che Guevara poster. Montoya’s character “Chuy” is on a phone call and says that he can’t attend a rally because something is coming up for the Movimento.
Viewers see that “Chuy” is referring to the fact that the San Francisco 49ers are playing and the game is on the TV. He then states he will be at the next collective and he is “down for the Cause.” After this, he speaks to the poster of Che. He articulates that being a Chicano in the ’90s is going to be more difficult than he thought; and that the “Decade of the Hispanic” ended up being a “weekend sponsored by Coors.” So, he shouts from his Lazy-Boy recliner that the only way to reconquer Aztlán is through armed revolution. Montoya ends the monologue with “Viva Che!” but then immediately realizes that he is missing the televised football game. While “Chuy” talks the talk of La Causa, he appears to lack any real dedication. Montoya’s character displays a loquacious personality who fails to act. Twice in the skit, he skips rallies for the Movimento to watch a game. Montoya portrays an armchair Chicano.
A look into each character is vital for analysis. Each character parodies an idea that the group is trying to speak on. “Chuy the Chicano” was presented as representing the Chicano of the early 1990s, who believes in La Causa but fails to act. The play juxtaposes Montoya’s armchair Chicano with the “Che Guevara” character interpreted by Herbert Sigüenza In contrast to the embarrassing ineffectiveness of “Chuy,” Culture Clash furthers the mythification of Guevara, holding the Cuban Revolutionary up as a model for contemporary Latinos. It is worth noting that Culture Clash did not begin this myth but continued the trend. Next, a Santeria priest, interpreted by Ric Salinas, enters the scene and portrays a highly exaggerated version of the Afro-Caribbean religious practice. The priest controls the present and even brings back people from the dead. “Chuy” immediately tries to resurrect Che Guevara. Chuy believes that the Left needs a catalyst for the movement. There are too many Chicanos who fall in the category of “Beaners in Beamers.”
The resurrection with Santeria succeeds and Sigüenza’s “Che” comes onto the stage. The stage is lit up with lightning and other visual effects. The two characters are surprised to see each other, and “Che” holds “Chuy” at gunpoint. He asks “Chuy” if he is Mexican, and Chuy responds “ No, I am Chicano,” and this confused “Che.” When the disoriented, resurrected “Che” asks where they are, “Chuy” responds with “Aztlán.” Now “Che” is even more confused. Montoya explains to him that they are in the southwest of the United States. This scene shows a view of the natural evolution of the Chicano Movement. The world has evolved since Guevara’s death. Capitalism has prevailed, which Culture Clash represents through references to American popular culture like the National Football League, Domino’s, and Ronald Reagan.
Culture Clash makes Guevara the hero in the sketch, although they cannot help making him somewhat comical. His dedication is held up as a model for Chicano revolutionaries. “Che” and “Chuy” are presented as two sides of a coin. “Che” is committed and “Chuy” is flawed and disappointing. “Chuy” explains to “Che” what has happened since he died and how communism failed. This idea is epitomized when “Chuy” tells “Che” that Reagan is president. “Che” cannot believe that the B-list actor could become the president of the United States.
The final character to enter the scene is a dissatisfied pizza worker. Ric Salinas portrays a pizza delivery man who is full of rage but doesn’t know what to do. “Che” tells him that Domino’s is the Yankee oppressor. “Che” proceeds to explain the steps to complete a communist takeover: “We will overthrow your pizzeria and then we will overthrow the entire franchise. Then Dominos will fall one by one.” Culture Clash could not resist making a joke about the Domino theory.
The speech about Domino’s seems to light a fire in both “Chuy the Chicano” and the delivery man, but in the end, “Chuy” stays home to watch the game. He watches on the TV news about an uprising that fails because only two people showed up. The skit ends with this sardonic anti-climax.
The question “what would Che think about this?” is the central idea of this sketch. Culture Clash’s sketch argues that Guevara’s method was not practical in 1991; although they seem to praise Che’s revolutionary vision. The world in which Guevara lived and the present are different. As Richard Harris observed, “Che felt that the struggle against capitalism and the construction of a new socialist society which required a new type of human being who would be willing to make the personal sacrifice for the good of others.”
In this performance, Culture Clash assert that such a vision was unrealistic. On the other hand, Culture Clash does not see the Chicanos of the 1990s as capable of making the great sacrifice needed to accomplish social change. It is not enough to simply idolize someone; action is needed. The skit’s “armchair Chicano” is pivotal. “Chuy,” says explicitly, “Chicanismo is on the way down.” This is a serious criticism of the 90’s generation of Chicanos. Self-proclaimed Chicanos who indulge in capitalist pleasures are failing the legacy of Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and Luis Valdez, who all made great sacrifices and big strides in the early days of the Chicano Movement. Culture Clash to be called for Chicanos to become movers and shakers, yet also expressed a skepticism of militants like Guevera, whose ideology did not address the realities of modern Chicano life.
By focusing in on this cultural characteristic of this prideful and aggressive masculinity, the members of Culture Clash were able to pull from their own experience in the Latinx community and approach the trope with humor. In doing so, space is provided for the negative impacts of machismo to be better unpacked and openly acknowledged for Latinx men within the ease of comedy. The Chicano Movement was not a self-contained movement. It had many branches connected to it: the farm workers, student activism, and, importantly, feminism, among others. The progress realized by the Movement was of course achieved with the contribution of women. One of the critics most often associated with Culture Clash is their exclusion of women in their performances. These performances are following a script that has been carefully written and edited by a handful of individuals. There is a layer of improvisation with each performance. Salinas commented about it during his oral history with me. Often times they will partake in improvised jokes depending on the audience and venue. In a Bowl of Being, a female character is shown only twice. The first is an unidentified woman who attempts to kill Christopher Columbus. She tells him all the crimes the Spaniards committed but then she is shot for telling the truth. She is dehumanized and villanized by Columbus and the Spaniards and is also guilty of birthing a child with Columbus.
Elsewhere, Culture Clash has been critiqued for not effectively representing women and the LGBTA community in their performance. An article entitled “Building Latinidad, Silencing Queerness: Culture Clash’s Nuyorican Stories” examines the failure of Culture Clash to embrace queerness in one the play, Nuyorican Stories. Patricia Herrera argues that there was an opportunity for Culture Clash to educate the audience about queerness but they did not. Herrera goes on to explore how the representation of the body in this play demonstartes certain gender norms without noticing it. The silence demonstrates that the members of Culture Clash do not want to fully embrace the LGBTA community. This is not a case of intent or bigotry but rather ignorance. Culture Clash did not intended to exclude but rather it was not in their usual scope. They were following the trend of heteronormativty of not including the LGBTA community.
Culture Clash did attempt to revise one woman’s depiction in history. It was not ideal but it was an attempt. In Bowl of Being, Culture Clash did allude to the role that Malinche and how she was portrayed in the history books, that she was the traitor who helped the Spanish “conquerors” prevail. In Bowl of Being, the female indigenous woman was played more as a victim than as a villain. The inclusion of Malinche-as-victim is Culture Clash’s attempt at correcting the reductionist, misogynist myth that would blame one woman for the Conquest of Mexico. But this framing of women is limited, and still reflects the state of the Chicano Movement of the 90s, where women’s roles and feminism were not fully embraced. Elizabeth Jacobs discussion of machismo and other gender equality issues in Luis Valdez’ play Zoot Riot is relevant here. If the Malinche myth is a byproduct of colonialism and pervasive colonialist thinking, Culture Clash took steps to humanize the Mother of Chicanos. But while the woman was not simply a scapegoate, she was not presented as a fully actualized women with full human agency.
Culture Clash’s argument about what the Chicano Movement of the 90’s should be like did include a critique of machismo in the Movement. As mentioned before, machismo was a comedic theme used by creating hyperbolic characteristics. “Being Edward James Olmos: Culture Clash and the Protrayal of Chicano” by Nohemy Solózano-Thompson examines “Stand and Deliever Pizza,” a sketch in The Bowl of Being. Solózano-Thompson argues that Culture Clash uses different Edward James Olmos’ roles to show masculinity. Yet, under this hypermasculintiy there is a subtle homosexual undertone to them. Bowl of Being. The characters are united by their angst and it is resolved when they understand their Chicano identity.
In Bowl of Being, Culture Clash is speaking out to the Chicanos from the 90s in a call to action. “Chuy the Chicano” is a protagonist who fails to act. It is complemented with a purposefully distorted idea of the Chicano Movement to show that the 90’s version of the Chicano Movement is not the same as the original. Guevara becomes a figure who has distorted the ideas with the use of Communist and Marxist ideologies, while Chuy refuses to sacrifice anything for the cause. Culture Clash uses the Return of Che as a call to action for Chicano to look internally to see where their ideologies truly lie all the while presenting a skit that can be enjoyed by the mass public.