<\/p>\n
The Bowl of Being<\/span><\/i> is Culture Clash\u2019s most well-known theatrical play. It is accessible online because the play was adapted into a PBS television special. <\/span>The play chronicles Chicanos over 500 years from their origin in 1492 until the 1990s. <\/span>The Bowl of Being <\/span><\/i>and more specifically the sketch \u201cA Chicano in the \u201990s,\u201d is Culture Clash commenting on the state of <\/span>Chicanismo<\/span><\/i> and<\/span> El Movimento<\/span><\/i> (The Chicano Movement) in the early 1990s. Culture Clash achieves this by using archetypal characters to portray the message. \u201cChuy the Chicano\u201d epitomizes is the 90\u2019s Chicano while \u201cChe\u201d represents the heroified historical figure of Ernesto \u201cChe\u201d Guevara. Women are represented by the nameless mother of Chicanos.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0 The sketch opens in the year 1492, with an interaction between Spanish and indigenous people. Here, Culture Clash, traces the \u201cChicano” back to their origin, to the earliest interaction of the Spanish and Mexica civilizations.\u00a0 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 \u201990s, it includes monologues by \u201cChuy\u201d (portrayed by Richard Montoya) in <\/span>which he addresses his struggle with <\/span>the dualism of identity. <\/span>\u201cChuy\u201d is the representation of Chicanos struggling to find themselves<\/span>.<\/span> The camera zooms in on a giant Che Guevara poster. Montoya\u2019s character \u201cChuy\u201d is on a phone call and says that he can\u2019t attend a rally because something is coming up for the <\/span>Movimento<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Viewers see that \u201cChuy\u201d 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 \u201cdown for the Cause.\u201d After this, he speaks to the poster of Che.\u00a0 He articulates that being a Chicano in the \u201990s is going to be more difficult than he thought; and that the \u201cDecade of the Hispanic\u201d ended up being a \u201cweekend sponsored by Coors.\u201d\u00a0 So, he shouts from his Lazy-Boy recliner that the only way to reconquer <\/span>Aztl\u00e1n<\/span><\/i> is through armed revolution. Montoya ends the monologue with \u201cViva Che!\u201d but then immediately realizes that he is missing the televised football game. While\u00a0 \u201cChuy\u201d talks the talk of <\/span>La Causa<\/span><\/i>, he appears to lack any real dedication. <\/span>Montoya\u2019s character displays a loquacious personality who fails to act.<\/span> Twice in the skit, he skips rallies for the <\/span>Movimento<\/span><\/i> to watch a game. Montoya portrays an armchair Chicano.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n A look into each character is vital for analysis. Each character parodies an idea that the group is trying to speak on. \u201cChuy the Chicano\u201d was presented as representing the Chicano of the early 1990s, who believes in <\/span>La Causa <\/span><\/i>but fails to act. The play juxtaposes Montoya\u2019s armchair Chicano with the \u201cChe Guevara\u201d character interpreted by Herbert Sig\u00fcenza In contrast to the embarrassing ineffectiveness of \u201cChuy,\u201d 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. \u201cChuy\u201d 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 \u201cBeaners in Beamers.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0The resurrection with Santeria succeeds and Sig\u00fcenza\u2019s \u201cChe\u201d 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 \u201cChe\u201d holds \u201cChuy\u201d at gunpoint. He asks \u201cChuy\u201d if he is Mexican, and Chuy responds \u201c No, I am Chicano,\u201d and this confused \u201cChe.\u201d When the disoriented, resurrected \u201cChe\u201d asks where they are, \u201cChuy\u201d responds with \u201c<\/span>Aztl\u00e1n.\u201d<\/span><\/i> Now \u201cChe\u201d 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\u2019s death. Capitalism has prevailed, which Culture Clash represents through references to American popular culture like the National Football League, Domino\u2019s, and Ronald Reagan.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Culture Clash makes Guevara the hero in the sketch, <\/span>although they cannot help making him somewhat comical. His dedication is held up as a model <\/span>for Chicano revolutionaries. \u201cChe\u201d and “Chuy\u201d are presented as two sides of a coin. \u201cChe\u201d is <\/span>committed <\/span>and \u201cChuy” is flawed and disappointing. \u201cChuy\u201d explains to \u201cChe\u201d what has happened since he died and how communism failed. This idea is epitomized when \u201cChuy\u201d tells \u201cChe\u201d that Reagan <\/span>is president. \u201cChe\u201d cannot believe that the B-list actor could become the president of the United States.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n 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. \u201cChe\u201d tells him that Domino\u2019s is the Yankee oppressor.\u00a0 \u201cChe\u201d proceeds to explain the steps to complete a communist takeover: \u201cWe will overthrow your pizzeria and then we will overthrow the entire franchise. Then Dominos will fall one by one.\u201d Culture Clash could not resist making a\u00a0 joke about the Domino theory.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The speech about Domino\u2019s seems to light a fire in both \u201cChuy the Chicano” and the delivery man, but in the end, \u201cChuy\u201d stays home to watch the game. <\/span>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.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The question \u201cwhat would Che think about this?\u201d\u00a0 is the central idea of this sketch. Culture Clash\u2019s sketch argues that Guevara\u2019s method was not practical in 1991; although they seem to praise Che\u2019s revolutionary vision. The world in which Guevara lived and the present are different. As Richard Harris observed,<\/span> \u201cChe felt that the struggle against capitalism and the construction of a new socialist society which required\u00a0 a new type of human being who would be willing to make the personal sacrifice for the good of others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n In this performance, Culture Clash assert that such a vision was unrealistic.\u00a0 On the other hand, Culture Clash<\/span> 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\u2019s \u201carmchair Chicano\u201d is pivotal. \u201cChuy,\u201d says explicitly, \u201cChicanismo is on the way down.\u201d This is a serious criticism of the 90\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0By 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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. <\/span>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 <\/span>Bowl of Being,<\/span><\/i> 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<\/span> by Columbus and the Spaniards <\/span>and is also <\/span>guilty of\u00a0 <\/span>birthing a child with Columbus.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere, Culture Clash has been critiqued for not effectively representing women and the LGBTA community in their performance. An article entitled \u201cBuilding Latinidad, Silencing Queerness: Culture Clash’s Nuyorican Stories\u201d examines the failure of Culture Clash to embrace queerness in one the play,<\/span> Nuyorican Stories<\/span><\/i>.<\/span>\u00a0Patricia 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Culture Clash did attempt to revise one woman\u2019s depiction in history. It was not ideal but it was an attempt. In <\/span>Bowl of Being<\/span><\/i>, 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 \u201cconquerors\u201d prevail. In <\/span>Bowl of Being, <\/span><\/i>the female indigenous woman was played more as a victim than as a villain<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>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.<\/span>\u00a0But this framing of women is limited, and still reflects the <\/span>state <\/span>of the Chicano Movement of the 90s, where women’s roles and feminism were not fully embraced. Elizabeth Jacobs discussion of <\/span>machismo<\/span><\/i> and other gender equality issues in Luis Valdez\u2019 play <\/span>Zoot Riot<\/span><\/i> is relevant here.<\/span>\u00a0If the Malinche myth is a byproduct of colonialism and pervasive colonialist thinking, Culture Clash took steps to humanize the Mother of Chicanos.\u00a0 But while the woman was not simply a scapegoate, she was not presented as a fully actualized women with full human agency.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Culture Clash\u2019s argument about what the Chicano Movement of the 90\u2019s should be like did include a critique of <\/span>machismo<\/span><\/i> in the Movement. A<\/span>s mentioned before, machismo was a comedic theme used by creating <\/span>hyperbolic<\/span> characteristics. \u201cBeing Edward James Olmos: Culture Clash and the Protrayal of Chicano\u201d by Nohemy Sol\u00f3zano-Thompson examines \u201cStand and Deliever Pizza,\u201d a sketch in <\/span>The Bowl of Being.<\/span><\/i> Sol\u00f3zano-Thompson argues that Culture Clash uses different Edward James Olmos\u2019 roles to show masculinity. Yet, under this hypermasculintiy there is a subtle homosexual undertone to them. <\/span>Bowl of Being<\/span><\/i>. The characters are united by their angst and it is resolved when they understand their Chicano identity.<\/span><\/p>\n In <\/span>Bowl of Being<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0 Culture Clash is speaking out to the Chicanos from the 90s in a call to action. \u201cChuy the Chicano\u201d is a protagonist who fails to act. It is complemented with a purposefully distorted idea of the Chicano Movement to show that the 90\u2019s version of the Chicano Movement is not the same as the original. Guevara becomes <\/span>a <\/span>figure <\/span>who <\/span>has distorted the ideas with the use of Communist and Marxist ideologies, <\/span>while Chuy refuses to sacrifice anything for the cause.\u00a0 <\/span>Culture Clash uses the <\/span>Return of Che <\/span><\/i>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.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n