Reframing Latin America: A Cultural Theory Reading ... - BGSU Blogs

film foray: THE THREE CABALLEROS 233
As recently as 1982, a fi lm historian wrote apropos of this fi lm that
Donald Duck’s “camaraderie with the caballeros from Brazil and Mexico
symbolized the idea of hemispheric unity.” 4 In fact, this male camaraderie
provides a thin pretext for (and eventually a major impediment to) Donald’s
real interest, the (hetero)sexual pursuit of “priddy girls” of uniformly pale
complexion. Donald’s feathered companions are fi rst potential rivals, later
indomitable restrainers and disrupters. The Disney team apparently felt
the need to reassure their Latin American counterparts that they need
feel no threat to their sexual hegemony from this North American neighbor
who, for all his quacking up and cracking up, is clearly incapable of
shacking up.
Sixth Proposition: Doña Juanita? The ultimate reassurance regarding
Donald’s nonthreatening nature is the recurrent feminization which
he undergoes immediately after his attempts to “connect” with the objects
of his desire—a desire no less fi ckle for all its obsessive intensity. Donald’s
surrogate femaleness at key moments is undermined by visual puns that
verge on the subliminal but compel an embarrassing blatancy on the part of
anyone wishing to describe them. (Oh well. Here goes.)
Seconds prior to the conclusion of both the Brazilian and the Mexican
sequences, Donald is literally swept off his feet by a stream of ejaculate.
His concluding appearance in the Brazilian sequence comes when he tries
to imitate Aurora Miranda, whose compelling gestures “animate” her cartooned
surroundings, making buildings and plazas pulse to a samba beat. In
response to Donald’s pathetic attempt at mimesis, a fountain shaped like
an elephant’s head extends is fl accid trunk into a rigid horizontal pipe and
proceeds to overpower Donald with its spray.
In the frenetic “climax” of the Mexican sequence, which also ends the
fi lm, Joe Carioca and Panchito combat Donald in a mock bull-fi ght. The
inept Donald has trouble maneuvering the bull armature which, with
the instantaneousness of nightmare, he suddenly inhabits. His assailants are
considerably more agile: Pancho goads him with red fl ags and wisecracks
while Joe sets a cluster of fi recrackers alight on his tail and then skewers him
with a pair of pokers. After his ejection (ejaculation?) from the make-believe
bull, which magically and terrifyingly continues to rampage unaided, Donald
redirects his combative fury away from its original target (the “friends”
who have so persistently thwarted his amorous efforts) and toward this
emblem of masculinity, charging the bull head-on as Panchito sings in ironic
voice-over, “like brother to brother/we’re all for each other . . .” The trail
of spewing fi reworks in the Mexican fi nale rockets Donald skyward;
embracing this stream, he then slides back “down to earth.” The fi lm’s