Whiteness and superiority

To what extent did the normalization of whiteness, as a symbolic sign of superiority, contributed to an erroneous interpretation of the film Roma?

Abstract

After the premiere of the movie Roma, directed and written by Alfonso Cuarón, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek stated that the film’s predominant perception was based on a misreading. The assertion of the State reproduces the symbolic sign of whiteness, if true, can be explained from the following hypothesis: the ideological apparatuses of the State reproduce the symbolic sign of whiteness. Therefore, this article aims, through an analysis of the functioning of classism and racism as dominant ideologies, to illustrate the cultural and historical conditions that allowed the emergence of an interpretation that reproduces the mechanisms of discrimination and asymmetry in Mexican society; it is also intended to study, from a semiotic perspective, the link between the

northwestern European features norocidential European traits of the colloquially-called “white” race, with the notion of superiority to understand the constitution of the sign of whiteness and the impact it has had on social mobility, as well as on employment opportunities in Mexico. The purpose, then, is to apprehend the extent to which the normalization of whiteness, as a symbolic sign of superiority, contributed to asymmetry and discriminatory interpretation.