The Essence of The Pachuco — Getting It Right Counts
Mexican Actor/Performer German Valdez AKA Tin Tan
The genesis and evolution of the pachuco in Chicano culture is still a matter for debate among Chicano scholars. What is not in dispute is the enduring influence and legacy of the pachuco as a symbol of Chicano pride, identity, defiance, non-conformity, style, and a perceived threat to genteel, Anglo society.
The earliest personification of the pachuco was popularized by Mexican movie star, Tin-Tan. It was his style of dress, attitude, and manner of speech, that was the earliest manifestation of what a pachuco would look and sound like.
Tin-Tan was a contemporary of Mexican world renowned comic actor, Cantiflas. Cantiflas managed to crossover into American Hollywood films, because he was a lovable, harmless clown, and therefore, acceptable to White America.
Tin-Tan, on the other hand, represented the dangerous, fringe element of a foreign menace to polite society and the pachuco association with marijuana and the dreaded Reefer Madness. ¡Ay, Dios mio!
Play Zoot Suit Poster Image: Ignacio Gomez
The apex of the pachuco was fully realized in the Zoot Suit era of the 40’s. Edward James Olmos, as El Pachuco, in Luis Valdez’s classic play and movie, Zoot Suit, epitomized, and forever enshrined all that is truly pachuco.
As I was growing up in the 50’s and early 60’s, the flamboyant zoot suit duds were replaced with other distinctive clothing, but the mannerisms, slang, outlaw attitude, the unique, urban Chicano accent and the prevalence of marijuana, remained.
So, it was with some disappointment, that the depiction of pachucos, in the otherwise enjoyable Penny Dreadful: City of Angels, on Showtime, bugged me.
The two pachucos, (Diego& Mateo) on City of Angels, just don’t “look and feel” right to me. Set in 1938 LA, the time of City of Angels, does predate the Zoot Suit era, but not by much.
The hair is all wrong. The pachucos I knew wore their hair in a kind of pompadour, hair piled up, sides combed over towards the top, a ducktail in the back, all held together with generous applications of Dixie Peach pomade.
For the final decorative touch, they would take a couple of fingers, push them in the front of their hair and then pull them down to have a portion sticking out, like a beak.
The accent is all wrong and they do not speak the colorful, Spanish slang, Cálo. The pachuco accent was far removed from a typical Mexican, or even a Mexican American accent. It was more guttural, urban, with rhythmic inflections and the stretching out of certain words or phrases, for dramatic effect.
A simple greeting like, ¡Horale, ese! , was delivered with a cadence and drama to it, that was pure Chicano street theater. By contrast, Diego and Mateo, sound more like Quaker Heights, not Boyle heights.
The walk is also wrong. The pachucos, I grew up with, walked with an affected, sort of duck strut, toes pointed outward, often with a clenched fist over the mouth. The greeting was a sharp upward tilt of the head—performed to perfection by Esai Morales in La Bamba. It underscored the defiance of the pachuco. It said, “I don’t look like you. I don’t walk or talk like you. I reject all your pinche, gringo ways.”
Physically, Diego and Mateo look like they belong more in a Broadway chorus line, rather than in a police line-up. They look frail, as if they have been subsisting on kale and tofu, rather than frijoles, papas con heuvos, arroz con pollo y tortillas de harina.
(L-R) Actors Natalie Dormer (Rio), Johnathan Nieves (Mateo Vega) & Sebastian Chacon (Fly Rico)
They should project the menace of a younger Danny Trejo. That’s a pachuco who’s bad boy image would strike fear into the hearts of cops and win the swooning heart of any lovely Latina.
By the 70’s, the pachucos I grew up with had morphed into the Low Rider car culture. But the vestiges of Tin-Tan, the Zoot Suiters and those that followed, is the “chile picante” that now forms the essence of what it is to be a Chicano.
I was not a pachuco but grew up within the culture. To paraphrase: “Some of my best friends (and relatives) were pachucos.” But I was not immune to the influence of these iconic Chicano anti-heroes.
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