“Real Women Have Curves”An Old Title to a New Story
... to Ana washing windows in the house of her family before her last day of high school at Beverly Hills while her mother Carmen, pretending being ill, calls her for help from her bed. The following dialog between the two strong-willed women, a self-confident teen and a domineering mother, lays open the film’s main theme: the conflict with the youthful generation and the older one. Cardoso puts her audience in a well dramatized struggle. The focus in nearly all its scenes is hold upon Ana and her mother, who is the one in wrong. There is no question that the film is all about Ana: Whether will she get off to college and discover the independent values of a modern American career woman or will she stay home, work in her sister Estela’s dress factory and accept the traditional lifestyle of her overbearing mother based on marriage, keeping house and raising children? On the way to make it out, the audience understands that it is actually invited to examine the role of the women within the contemporary Hispanic family in America. In order to create the new character of Ana, Cardoso’s film makes qualitative and quantitative changes. Differently to the play, the character of Carmen is drawn here rather as one of a tyrannical mother, who is understandable tired and wants to see her children taken care of, than a person who is able learn from her children, to accept something new and change herself. The male characters (teacher, boyfriend, father, and grandfather) are supporting Ana who tries to strike a happy balance. In contrast to the play, these men are presented as icons of male honour. They have qualities of love, honesty, and gentleness that every woman would want in man. They all are created to influence...