Director:
Patricia Cardoso (2002)
Cast:
America Ferrera,
Lupe Ontiveros, Ingrid Oliu, George Lopez
The
Story
Set in East Los
Angeles, this is the story of Ana, a plus-sized Mexican-American teenager
who finds herself struggling to break free of the responsibilities and
expectations of her mother, Carmen (Ontiveros) and sister, Estela (Oliu).
The conflict is between college and work: she wants to study so she
can better herself, at Columbia University in New York where she recently
won a full scholarship, but she's needed in the sewing sweatshop that
her sister runs, where she, Ana's mother and other Latina women work
laboriously to make dresses that are then sold for many times what the
shop is paid to make them. Another complex issue at work in the film
is the concept of self-image, and how people can learn to love themselves
for whom they are, regardless of their body types or social expectations.
ACTIVITIES
FOR EOI STUDENTS
1st
and 2nd year students.
This is a summary of the film, but the
sentences are disorganized. Put them in the right order to know what
the film is about. You can write the number in the spaces on the left.
._____. When a crisis arises
at the factory, it seems as if Ana's fate is unhappily sealed.
._____. Ana secretly is
excited about the possibility.
._____. Because she is
a talented writer, a caring teacher urges her to apply to go to university.
._____. Despite her interest,
her mother Carmen who is very critical, insists that it is time for
her to help the family by working in her sister's sewing factory.
._____. However, her great
strength will make her confront all difficulties and limitations in
her life.
._____. Ana, a first generation
Mexican American teenager living in East Los Angeles, has just graduated
from high school.
Activities for 3rd,
4th and 5th year students.
Read the following review
of the film by ROGER EBERT published at the Chicago Sun-Times
and fill in the spaces with the missing words from each paragraph.
Ana's boyfriend, Jimmy,
tells her, "You're not fat. You're beautiful." She is both. "Real Women
Have Curves" doesn't argue that Ana is beautiful _____ the "inside,"
like the Gwyneth Paltrow character _____ "Shallow Hal," but that she
is beautiful inside and _____--love handles, big boobs, round cheeks
and all. "Turn the lights on," she shyly tells Jimmy. "I want you to
see me. See, this is what I look _____."
Prepositions and adverbs: ON OUT LIKE IN
Ana has learned to _____
herself. It is more than her mother can do. Carmen (Lupe Ontiveros)
is fat, too, and hates herself for it, and wants her daughter to _____
her feelings. Ana is smart and could get a college scholarship, but
Carmen _____ she go to work in a dress factory _____ by a family member:
It's her duty to the family, apparently, to sacrifice her future. The
fact that the dress factory is pleasant and friendly doesn't _____ the
reality that it's a dead end; you are at the wrong end of the economy
when you make dresses for $18 so that they can be _____ for $600.
Verbs: INSISTS ACCEPT RUN SOLD CHANGE SHARE
Ana is a Mexican American,
played by America Ferrera, an 18-year-old in her first _____
role. Ferrera is a wonder: natural, unforced, sweet, passionate and
always real. Her _____
with her mother is convincing in the movie because the director, Patricia
Cardoso, doesn't force it into shrill melodrama but keeps it within
the boundaries of a plausible family _____.
It is a tribute to the great Lupe Ontiveros that Carmen is able to suggest
her _____ for her
daughter even when it is very hard to see.
There have been several
movies recently about the second _____
of children of immigrants--Indian, Filipino, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese--and
they follow broad outlines borrowed from life. The parents try to enforce
conditions of their homeland on the _____,
who are becoming Americanized at blinding speed. While Carmen is insisting
on her daughter's _____,
Ana is buying condoms. She insists in a view of her life that is not
her parents'. That includes college.
Nouns: MOVIE GENERATION BATTLE FIGHT LOVE KIDS VIRGINITY
The film focuses on Ana at
a _____ moment,
right after high school, when she has decided with a level head and
_____ eyes to come
of age on her own terms. Her parents would not approve of Jimmy, an
Anglo, but Ana knows he is a _____
boy and she feels tender toward him. She also knows he will not be the
last boy she dates; she is mature enough to understand herself and the
_____ weathers
of teenage love. When they have sex, there is a sense in which they
are giving each other the gift of a _____
initiation, with respect and tenderness, instead of losing their innocence
roughly to strangers in a way without love.
Adjectives: STORMY CLEAR CRUCIAL
SWEET GOOD
The film's portrait of
the dressmaking factory is done _____ great good humor. Yes, it is very
hot there. Yes, the hours are _____ and the pay is poor. But the women
are happy to have jobs and paychecks, and because they like one _____
there is a lot of laughter. That leads to one of the sunniest, funniest,
happiest scenes in a long time. On a hot day, Ana takes _____ her blouse,
and then so do the other women, giggling at their daring, and the music
swells up as their exuberance flows over. They are all _____, but Ana,
who has a healthy self-image, _____ them in celebrating their bodies.
A little bit of everything:
OFF WITH LEADS ANOTHER PLUMP LONG
I am so relieved that the
MPAA rated this movie PG-13. So often they bar those under 17 from the
very movies they could benefit from the most. "Real Women Have Curves"
is enormously entertaining for moviegoers of any age (it won the Audience
Award at Sundance 2002). But for young women depressed because they
don't look like skinny models, this film is a breath of common sense
and fresh air. "Real Women Have Curves" is a reminder of how rarely
the women in the movies are real. After the almost excruciating attention
paid to the world-class beauties in a movie like "White Oleander" (a
film in which the more the women suffered the better they looked), how
refreshing to see America Ferrera light up the room with a smile from
the heart.
