Abstract / Resumen
Despite winning several international awards and being praised by the critics, the Peruvian film La teta asustada (The Milk of Sorrow, Claudia Llosa, 2008) was deemed racist by some blogospheres and critics. The indigenous peoples have not traditionally controlled their own representations, and thus have been subject to misrepresentations; exoticization, criminalization, infantilization, etc. This paper offers a nuanced multivalent analysis that regards not only images and stereotypes, but also voices, points of view, music and mise-en-scène, in order to argue that The Milk of Sorrow provides an ethnocentric view. Several trauma authors speak of the moral obligation of talking about trauma, to make the public “know,” to mobilize viewers’ responses and to give an opportunity for critical reflection. This last stance is more pressing in the case of indigenous trauma, as their anguish has been largely obliterated from public discourse. Llosa makes a decisive pro-indigenous move in denouncing the traumas, and the lack of citizenship rights suffered during and after the Peruvian Internal Armed Conflict (1980-2000). But, in the process, Llosa also places the path to recovery in the reconciliation between indigenous and “western” lifestyles, and in the necessity of looking forward to a hybrid society in order to recover from the inflicted trauma.
Recommended Citation
MASEDA, REBECA
(2016)
"Indigenous Trauma in Mainstream Peru in Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow.,"
Dissidences: Vol. 6:
Iss.
11, Article 13.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.bowdoin.edu/dissidences/vol6/iss11/13