Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Journal of Multicultural Discourses

Abstract

Historically, the cultural industries of the Global South have been relegated in the face of North American and European production predominance. In Latin America, the most internationally successful audiovisual productions, both at the cinema ticket window and festivals, usually deal with stereotypes of extreme poverty, rurality, delinquency, terrorism, and drug trafficking, which, in the collective imagination of foreign audiences, promote an exaggerated representation of the region's social problems, contributing to xenophobia, hate speech, and anti-migration discourses in countries in the Global North. This study conducts an analysis of five emblematic feature films of Latin American cinema: Cidade de Deus [City of God] (Brazil), La teta asustada [The Milk of Sorrow] (Peru), Cuando acecha la maldad [When Evil Lurks] (Argentina), Los reyes del mundo [The Kings of the World] (Colombia), and Amores Perros (Mexico). This study employs qualitative comparative discourse analysis to systematically examine the narrative structures, visual regimes, and symbolic motifs through which these five films construct meanings around poverty, violence, and marginality in Latin America. The results suggest that the representation of poverty in contemporary Latin American cinema not only responds to a narrative or aesthetic intention but is also deeply conditioned by the production structures.

DOI

10.1080/17447143.2025.2549693

Publication Date

9-2025

Language

eng

Rights

open access

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