Stereotyping, Prejudice, And Ethnocentricity In "From Prada To Nada"

Even though we may live in a melting pot it doesn’t mean that all these various cultures combine. Everyone has a set of beliefs and values that they hold, which makes everyone unique; the same is said about cultures and how they can impact our lives. The movie I watched was “From Prada To Nada”, the cultures that were focused on in the movie were Mexicans and Americans. The movie took place in California where Marie and her sister were pulled out of their Beverly Hills home and placed in East L.A with her aunt. They went from their very American life style to being surrounded by a strong cultural difference of their Mexican roots. Through out the movie theirs various scenes involving big cultural clashes. I will be focusing on three main out-group biases including stereotyping, prejudices, and ethnocentrism from both cultures.

The movie starts off by introducing the Dominguez sisters; Marie, who is very self centered and completely ignores her Mexican heritage and calls hrself “American.” Her sister Nora is more preserved law student with higher values and she’s not ashamed and actually embraces her Mexican roots. Unfortunately, their father had a heart attack and passed away where they found out he was bankrupt which forced them to move out and go live with their aunt. Marie went from driving a brand new beamer to a much older Honda station wagon. Bruno is their aunts neighbor, he has many talents like painting and mechanics, he’s also secretly in love with Marie.

The first ICC concept in the out-group bias is stereotyping, which was shown in the first scenes of the movies where Marie and Nora are forced to go live with their aunt in East Los Angeles. (Minute 16:30) The scene opens up with Marie and Nora pulling into the house and taking in the neighborhood, they’re used to seeing shiny cars and mansions but instead are surrounded by people yelling in Spanish, which they don’t know how to speak, and other people selling fruit on streets. When they get out the house she spots a young man looking at her from across the street wearing ripped jeans a black hoodie. When he approaches her car to take out her bags her first thought, her first stereotypical thought, was “oh no please don’t steal my stuff.” When she enters the house the first thing she tells her aunt is “theirs a gang member on your lawn”. Her aunt then proceeds to explaining to her that that was her neighbor Bruno who was just helping out. This scene shows how her American roots got the best of her just because he wasn’t dressed in fancy clothes and spoke Spanish to her. Her Mexican family also takes part in stereotyping her because since she is always glammed up and dressed in designer clothes they nicknamed her “the Barbie”.

Ethnocentrism is when you see yourself better or above than someone else. Marie made it clear that she had the mentality that she was better than her Mexican family because of the way she was raised. When her new crush the T.A. is driving her “home” he asks her if she’s Mexican and she replies with “no I’m American but my parents are Mexican.” (Minute 40:50) She then has him drop her off at a beautiful white mansion instead of taking her to her actual home in East L.A because she was ashamed of him seeing her home in a Mexican neighborhood. In a later scene (minute 52:02) her aunt asks her if she was embarrassed of her family and told her that family was all she had.

The last concept is being prejudice, which is a false opinion with no justifiable reasons. When Marie was complaining about Bruno to her aunt and falsely accusing and making assumptions her aunt jokingly said, “ not everything that stinks is caca, and not everything that glitters is gold.” (Minute 18:32) This is also important later in the story, while Marie thinks she’s found her night in shining armor who’s going to make her fairy tales come true, she had an abrupt awakening when she finds out he’s married. (Minute 1:27:33) “Not everything that glitters is gold.”

To conclude, From Prada to Nada had various IC Concepts from out-group bias. Most of the characters specifically Maria and her aunt show signs of ethnocentrism, prejudice, and stereotyping. This movie very clearly expressed how cultural differences can affect our life and how the culture and people we associate with develop our values.