The Latinx Fantastic: Robert Rodriguez and the Power of His Speculative Storytelling

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Robert Rodriguez is an innovator of cinema that exalts the speculative over the constraints of realism, a fact made all the more conspicuous by the sheer dearth of Latinx-identified directors in this filmic tradition. The historical importance of Rodriguez’s concerted efforts to claim this expansive mode of storytelling is crucial to assessing his contributions, which recalibrate audience’s expectations of Latinx culture in speculative cinema specifically and visual narratives more broadly.