VLVL2 (3) Zoyd and Hector: Ricardo Montalban

[jbor]

on 14/8/03 12:30 AM, gumbo at fuse.net at gumbo at fuse.net wrote:

> Yes on the deliberate attempt, but I think the Montalban impression is
> something Hector uses occasionally and sparingly, for effect. I get a picture
> of the urbane, upper class Montalban of the 80s Chrysler commericals,
> caressing the r-r-rich Cor-r-rinthian leather of a convertible seat. That may
> be what Hector aspires to, but I don't think it's a characterization he can
> sustain. His default persona seems more like a weirdly inverted Cheech Marin
> than Ricardo Montalban.

http://us.imdb.com/Name?Montalban,+Ricardo

Ricardo Montalban was quite a suave and sophisticated Mexican film actor, on
the main billboard, if perhaps a token ethnic, in A-Grade dramas, romances,
comedies -- in the '50s and '60s at least, even if by the late '70s and
early '80s he had started to become almost a parody of himself as the guy in
the white suit on 'Fantasy Island' and on 'Dynasty', and perhaps those ads,
but he was pretty darn good as Khan the Klingon bad guy in a couple of those
'Star Trek' movies too -- but, no, I don't think that this is the intention
or that Hector's impersonating a "stereotype" (which seems to me to be a non
sequitur). It's the narrator, perhaps filtering Zoyd's pov, who indicates
that he has begun to adopt this Ricardo Montalban impersonation, and it
began back in the mid '60s.

As I've mentioned before, I'm doubtful about the idea that Pynchon's
characters are caricatures or cartoons, or if that's what he intended. And
I'm not sure how this suggestion fits with your -- I'll try not to say
"egregious" -- assessment of Hector as a psychopathic villain.

Hector's Mexican, he speaks Spanish as a mother tongue, and he code switches
into Spanish to accentuate his ethnicity. Ricardo Montalban would have been
a fairly legitimate Mexican role model back then I think.

best



> Are you suggesting that Pynchon
> decided
>> to use an ethnic stereotype to emphasise the point that the character is
>> morally reprehensible? I find that unlikely, and Hector doesn't strike me
> as
>> a cartoon-like character at all.
> 
> No, I'm not. 
> 
> Although the book compares Hector and Zoyd to cartoon characters, "cartoon"
> suggests flat colors and an absence of complexity, and that really doesn't
> apply. I think Hector is more of a caricature than a cartoon, of a cop who
> happens to be Mexican and has some workplace issues, among other aberrant
> qualities. There are elements of stereotype--a whiff of the dangerously
> corrupt federale, for example--but they are deftly applied.
> 
>> 
>> I think the notion -- Paul N's point I think -- that Hector has
>> self-consciously nurtured a "Ricardo Montalban impersonation" over the
> years
>> is the basic gist of the characterisation (23.21). And I'd say this has
> been
>> a deliberate effort on Hector's part to accentuate his ethnicity.