October 20, 2022 • 36 mins
Writer Erick Galindo grew up with American Me and remembers vividly the impact it had on the streets of L.A.
Podcaster and writer Erick Galindo doesn't hold back in the recounting of his childhood in East and Southeast LA in the 1990s. And in those days, the movie that every kid in the barrio knew backwards and forwards was American Me. Erick says he saw firsthand how the film impacted recruitment into gangs and the word on the street when it came to the murders connected to the movie.
More Than a Movie: American Me is a podcast that digs into the history and mystery of American Me, a film directed by and starring Edward James Olmos that had a huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. In every episode, our host, Alex Fumero will be diving into the controversy behind the movie.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back to More Than a Movie American Meat, a
podcast that digs into the history and mystery of American Meat,
a film directed by and starring Edward James almost that
had a huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm
your host, Alex Fromto and I'll be diving into the
behind the scenes controversy. I remember specifically arguments and playground
(00:25):
about like is that real? What they're really green light celebrity,
Like how are they even gonna get to him? He's
so famous, Like he's not you know, he's not fucking
on Florence. And the thing about the kids is like
you hear the stories from like your older siblings, you know,
and like they become like that game the telephone where
you know, by the end it's like Edward James almost
(00:48):
it's actually fucking a gangster, you know. On today's episode,
I'm speaking with a real Angelino, a Southeast Dela native,
specifically the type of guy for whom the Dodgers are
more important than the apost from the neighborhoods where American
me was not only part of the culture, it was
about them. Wow. I come from the Ellis Island of
the West coast, that's what it's called. So my my
(01:11):
background came from being just a kid in East l
A playing in in Uh. There was no grass or anything.
It was just there are lots and it was it
was beautiful. There was a lot of love, but it
was not any kind of fluent living whatsoever. That's a
clip of Edward James almost talking about growing up in
East Los Angeles. American Me is very much an l
(01:35):
A movie. It's a movie made by Angelinos for Angelino's.
More specifically, it's a movie made by East Los Angeleanos
for East Los Angelinos. That's why this entire episode is
an interview with Eric Gallindo. This is the target audience
e j O was trying to reach. Edward James almost
said over and over again, he used his Hollywood currency
(01:58):
in to make a movie to warn the kids in
Los Angeles, Hey don't get involved in gangs. This could
happen to you. Well, Eric was one of those kids.
But did it work? Did the movie have the impact
that Edward James almost wanted? And what did the street
really have to say about the murders and mysteries and
fall out after the film. I needed to answer this
(02:20):
question and get the bodio level view for l A.
My name is Eric Lindo. I am a writer and
a podcast host, and I grew up in, uh, you know,
the parts of Los Angeles where this movie American Me
really resonated because it was about the people I was
growing up with, you know, people in my community. Eric Allindo,
(02:42):
in addition to being a great journalist and podcaster, is
a screenwriter who specifically writes about his experience as a
Chicano growing up in l A. Literally, this fool's website
is this food dot com. That's not a joke. He's
an expert in all things Los Angeles Latino, not only
because he writes about it professionally, but because he's lived
it and breathed it l A and ninety two. The
(03:04):
hood's reaction to American Me, the fallout, and the rumors
he lived all that in real time. We talked to
Danny de la Pass and Daniel Vierel, who played Puppet
and Little Puppet in American Me. They told us about
the backlash they experienced from the community. People did not
get what they were trying to make, and people were offended,
including the Mexican mafia that the movie was supposed to
(03:28):
be about. Imagine. They're shock living it up at the
movie's premiere on the French Riviera when they find out
that back in l A, one of their co workers
from the movie was shot thirteen times in her driveway
and her death was just the beginning. We've spent a
lot of time talking about how this movie was made,
in the myths surrounding it about Edward James almost his
(03:50):
quest to end gang violence. Jacob Vargas wasn't sure if
American Me had that result. I feel like, I'm sure
it probably stopped a few kids, you know, Like I'm
sure a lot of people will see that and say
that I don't want any part of that as well.
It's like with certain movies, you know, it can it
can be singled out that American mu is the only
one like you look at, like, you know, the Good
(04:12):
Fellows and all the other films that are that are
cautionary tells about the mafia, you know, in a way
tend to glorify it, you know. And then just because
you know, these actors did a really good job and
all these characters work were cool and and uh, you know,
Santana was like a cool dude, and you know, he
was in charge and and uh, you know, held a
(04:33):
lot of power. So I just think there's an interttraction
to to that, and some people will look at that
above above what the real meaning of of, you know,
the film is that it's a vicious cycle. And in
terms of the murders connected to the film, the Puppets
seemed to think almost wasn't at fault. My understanding that
she she had a relationship with prior to the movie.
(04:56):
Obviously she was our our tank call advisor and she
ended up in the movie, but she was running because
she knew the world, and so my understanding was that
there was some kind of beef that had something to
do before the movie. I don't really know. I don't either,
but I think American me was, you know, maybe the
(05:17):
straw that broke the camel's back. But there was more
to it than just American as what you're trying to say.
We spoke to Sal Lopez, who talked about it from
the filmmaker's point of view. I think it's the brutality
of prison and the brutality of being in that world.
Maybe it's not based on fact, I don't know, but
(05:38):
certainly you know in film it's not real. You you
say it's based on a true story because you're able
to take uh licenses and create because you want to
make a point. You want to create drama. You want
to have an impact. You want to shock the audience.
(05:58):
You want to make them think. You want, you know,
to create a film that's going to be memorable. Scenes
that are going to be shocking and and and memorable.
But today I want to talk about how it landed
with the people living in l A in one of
the most violent periods in any American city ever. According
to the l A Times, homicides in sad a record
(06:20):
for l A County two thousand, five hundred and eighty
nine killings in one year, which was an eight percent
rise over the previous year. We want to go to
the streets now, we want to go on patrol with
Sergeant John Bell of the Englewood Police. You're going from
call to call. You're always waiting for that real big
thing to happen. It's going to Eric is light skinned,
(06:45):
he's redheaded, and he's Mexican. Those three things combined to
make his life pretty tough in l A. I always say,
like the night in these was a rough decade to
grow up in and and uh Southeast Los Angeles or
(07:05):
South l A. Did something happen in the nineties and
it was the last Well, there was a lot of war.
I mean there was like so there was Iraq was happening,
but that wasn't the real war. The real war was
in the streets. I mean there was the bloods and
the crips were at war, and also the Mexican gangs
(07:25):
were at war with the black gangs. And I was
like in my first race riot when I was like
an elementary school, you know, like I remember having to
fight like a bunch of black kids, um, because I
was like the nerd. You know, I was the I'm
(07:49):
a red I'm a redheaded Mexican. I was already like weird.
So they put me at the front of the line,
you know, and like you were the well, yeah, I
was the vanguard. Because it's like the people to fucking
hated me the most were like other Mexicans, you know,
because I look white, um, and and the black kids
(08:10):
dated me too because I was like why and then
the white kids say to me, everybody kind of hated me.
So when when the race wars popped off. It was
like they put me at the at the front, you know,
to start to get wasted, and I just remember being like, fuck.
We've heard from lots of people that Edward James almost
his intention with this movie was too encourage kids to
avoid gang life. He wanted them to see it for
(08:31):
what it was, cold and tragic and full of violence.
No one had to take it from whatever we had.
We gave it away. But if that was the intention,
it um didn't work. On Eric, It's really interesting that
you describe yourself as like a nerd, you know, growing up.
(08:54):
And when I think about that, I think about, you know,
like like a comic book nerd, right, like part of
the reason that we love these sup for hero movies
and they become like like the pantheon, they become our gods. Right,
It's like, oh fucking whatever, iron Man and Superman, Batman,
you're watching American Me. Does j D become that the
Santana become that? Like, do they enter that pantheon? I
(09:15):
think absolutely. I think I mean, like for for us,
like we didn't really have like I don't know who
the good guys were the good guys, if the good
guys were supposed to be the cops who are being
our asses all the time, who were harassing our parents,
who were deporting our family members. Like that was not
(09:36):
who we thought the good guys were. Like the good
guys to us were you know, the mobster, the gangsters,
the totals and um. And also I think that that's
why it hits hard when you see like the scene
with with little puppet, right, because you're like or you
see that the hard choices they have to make to
(09:59):
protect their family, to protect their way of life, telling
you this because you're not gonnah, she wanted to notice
the reason why they called me a little puppin with
you know, maybe real angry. I think she's brained in.
(10:20):
I guess they showed her high to look at me.
She don't fight. It's very similar to like you know,
watching Godfather Godfather Too, were like you see I mean,
especially in Godfather Too, when you see how um Vito Corleone,
(10:45):
Corleone is just this guy trying to make a living, right,
and then he gets sucked over and over and over again,
and he finally becomes the hardest guy on the block. Right.
And when you're growing up a neighborhood that's tough, that's hard,
like you feel like, oh ship, I gotta become the
(11:06):
hardest guy on the block in order to be a
provider for my family. On this episode, we'll hear about
little kids watching bootleg copies of American Me, what this
movie meant for representation, and what it was like to
grow up around real life gangs in East l A.
Coming up, we'll hear more from America on how this
movie hit the playground like a goddamn rocket. Welcome back
(11:34):
to More Than a Movie. I'm Alex Fometo and we're
talking to Eric Gallindo, a journalist who was a kid
in l A when Edward James almost made the movie
American Me. As a journalist, podcaster, and writer, Eric's a
guy who gets lost in details. He wrote a biography
of Frank Sinatra and did a podcast about the bill
that granted amnesty to undocumented people called Out of the
(11:56):
Shadows on My Hearts Network. He's done extensive reporting about
law So Angeles and it's Latino community, and beyond that,
he's lived it, which makes him the perfect person to
go deep into the aftershocks of American Me. So far,
we've connected three homicides to the movie, but killing people
because they made art. I mean, how are these murders
(12:16):
any different than killing a journalist because they use the
image of Mohammed? Is this terrorism you kill one person,
but you're trying to scare everybody? Or is this just
about a guy who felt he and his friends were
humiliated and attacked and we're gonna hit back the rules
of the street. Whether you consider it terrorism or not,
(12:37):
and I'm not saying it is, it's still scared the
ship out of people. I want to talk about the
myth and the lore that was built up around this movie. Um,
in your neighborhood, Like, do you remember any of Like
what are the rumors? What what had you heard? What
were the rumors that you'd heard about this movie, the
fallout from this movie, etcetera. I mean I had heard that,
(12:59):
you know, when they made it, they had to get
special permission from the real gangs to tell the story. Um,
you know definitely had heard that he was on green light.
UM you know, so green light what it basically means
is that you're you've been marked for death that the gangs.
(13:24):
It's called on site. You hear the term, now you
hear that term like on TikTok means it's on site.
It's on site. That's just about death. Like like a
lot of the a lot of the meme culture, it's
really just like gang slang turned you know, fucking like
(13:44):
put on with kiddy gloves. But green light means it's
on site. Like if they see you, they can kill you.
There's a contract on your head, you know, Like I
don't know, I don't know how to explain it without
using other slang terminology. No, No, that's pretty So you
heard another rumor you heard was e JL was there
was Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that that he was on
(14:08):
green Light, that all the guys that were in the
movie were on green Light. That sucking the studio that
made it was on green Light. Um yeah, Like I
remember specifically arguments and playground about like is that real?
What they're really green light celebrity. And the thing about
like the kids is like you hear the stories from
like your older siblings, you know, and like they become
(14:31):
like that game of Telephone where you know, by the
end it's like a Red James almost it's actually sucking
a gangster, you know. So elementary school kids spreading rumors
is one thing. By the way, fifth graders are way
too young to be watching this movie. But I wanted
to know what the reception was in general, how did
the grown ups take it? I mean, as from my
(14:53):
perspective and what I remember in mindument is this is
a great movie. I mean, we loved it. We thought
it was dub like we all, you know, get passed
around again like Menica Society. The tape we get passed
around the neighborhood because none of us could afford like
an actual you know, to go to the theater or
a tape like so it was bootlegs, right, these are
bootleg tapes that were being passed around the neighborhood. We
(15:15):
were told it's the most the most stolen film from
Blockbuster of all time. That e JL was told that
by like the head of Blockbuster, Rafa Agustine told us
that story. I believe it because I I watched a
dubbed over like Donna summer workout tape or some ship
where there was like recorded you know, you used to
(15:36):
you used to be able to take an actual cassette
and put a little piece of napkin in it, and
then all of a sudden it's a blank tape and
you can just record whatever you want on it, right,
and that's what that's what we're doing. So like when
someone passed us American me, we just dubbed it and
passed it to someone else, like and I'll respect to
the like very intellectual people, especially in East l A.
(16:00):
Sally has this grand, historic, beautiful history of just fighting
for Chicano rites. But for us kids who were growing
up in those neighborhoods, like, we didn't know anything about
that ship. Like when you're when you're being oppressed, like
you don't really know that you're being oppressed. This is
(16:21):
just life. You're just like trying to survive. Like I
didn't ship. I didn't know anything. I didn't know what
Chicana was, you know, until that HBO movie about the blowouts,
Like and my dad was like, Chicano don't like Mexicans.
Quick programming note here That movie is called Walkout. It's
from two thousand and six and it's on HBO. It's
(16:43):
about a series of walkouts by Chicano students in nine
who were protesting unequal treatment in the school system. It's
director Edward James. Almost all Mexican Americans because before we
moved to East l A and became about the locals.
I don't know what's going on in East l A.
(17:03):
I just knew that in like in in South Central
and in South l A where we were living this ship,
the movie felt like a documentary. It felt like somebody
was actually telling a story about us. And I think
that that is something that's commendable because when you see
Blood and Blood Out, which I freaking love, but that's
(17:25):
a cartoon, bro, Like that's such a fucking cartoon, Like
I'm gonna paint you like an Aztec princess, you know, like,
like what is that ship? Like? You know what I mean? Like,
American Me felt more real and and I would say
like the other movie that felt I mean again, like
I compared to Menace Society all the time, because that's
(17:47):
another movie that is like because if you look at
American Me Boys in the Hood, Menaces Society, you don't
see these kids who were like, oh ship, I'm gonna
be a gangster. You know, that's not what you see.
You see kids who were just living in their neighborhood
and sort of being swayed by their environment. Some of
(18:07):
the real life kids swayed by their environment. They were kids.
Eric knew one of them was his own brother. Yeah,
I mean, like I didn't like my brother, you know,
who's a very good father, devout Christian all that now,
but at the time he was kind of thugging. And
I'll tell you a childhood story. My brother and cousins
used to take us to like these gang meetings they
(18:28):
would have just they were just having in like this
house there were parties whatever, And we were at hill
at the park next door. You know, we were just
all the other the little kids right with all hang
out the park, these all the little brothers, and we talked.
You know, you'd hear stories about American me you to
hear stories about menister society. People start talking, tapes get
(18:49):
passed around, and like I remember one time, like we
heard a gun shop like coming from the house and
it was just a single gun shot, which is not
something you usually here, right, One gun shot is strange.
One gun shot is usually an accident because people, even
people who are like killing someone, shoot multiple times, right, um.
(19:11):
And we all ran into the house and it turns
out they had been playing Russian Roulette and someone lost.
And I'm telling you right now, like if you're gonna
blame the movies for ship like that, Like I mean that.
That's another movie coming up. We'll hear more from Erica
on the real life clicks in l A that organized
under one big gang, the Mexican Mafia. Welcome back to
(19:38):
More Than a Movie. I'm Alex Fumeto, and we're talking
to Eric Galindo, a journalist and showrunner who was a
kid in l A when Edward James almost made the
movie American Me. Eric says gang life wasn't something he noticed.
It was just around something people did without really thinking
about it, like breathing. There were a bunch of smaller
(19:59):
neighborhood gangs, and then the big boys showed up. They
were called the Mexican Mafia, the same gang depicted in
American Met. The Arian Brotherhood and the Blood Gorilla Family
shared the yard, but folsome belonged to us, the oldest clicker,
(20:21):
the Mexican Mafia. Eric remembers what it was like when
they started to flex their power throughout southern California. Yeah,
they were you know, it was like it was a
weird time. But it was also during the time when
like the gangs were becoming um organized, right like the
dresses were becoming a thing. I think right around the
(20:42):
time when I was kind of coming of age. And
this big gangster dude who like almost like in the
movie Um the Warriors, he had this big as meeting
at this park in Orange County, UM and he basically
like organized the little gangs because it was gangs all
(21:03):
over l A like Mexican gangs, and he organized them
and into uh Lamla mafia right like it was like
he was bringing orders from prison, you know. And it
was around this time that the the gangs started getting
organized and controlling a lot of the crime that was
coming through l a lot of the drugs and prostitution,
(21:26):
and in doing so, it actually let these neighborhoods that
were so fucking riddled with crime and brutalized by the
l A. P D and the sheriffs UM actually kind
of thrive because they stopped doing drive bys, they stopped
(21:47):
shooting people innocent people. They started they start stopped doing
violence for violence sake and started doing it for money.
And that really changed things. And so the LA that
you see now is a result of like the gangs
becoming organized. It's hard to like know what you remember
versus what you've learned. But as I understood it, like
(22:09):
especially growing up, um, like you said, on the peripheral
of all this was like the gangs had called the
truth and they were all joining forces to control narcotics
and prostitution in Los Angeles and also taxed the street
(22:30):
vendors and tax the mom and pop shops. I remember
there was certain neighborhoods that were very much controlled by
a linement um, you know, and and and then even
though they had called a piece, there were still gangs
who were not in them, like m S thirteen, like
the like the Northaniels, right, and that in prison and
(22:54):
you know, a lot of what happens when you're growing
up in these neighborhoods, just like a lot of the
stuff you would learn you hear gets passed down from
the elders in prison, and so like the order from
prison was like all I mess thirteen on not Daniels
are on green light. And then there was eighteen Street gang.
I don't know if people remember that one, but eighteen
(23:15):
Street was like the original MS thirteen in terms of
fearmongering by the media. Like the way we saw it
was like it was like a map of how not
to get killed, right, how not to get in trouble,
And it was like these are who these guys funk with?
These are these guys funk with? You? Don't wear red
and Compton right, you know, don't like don't wear them
(23:37):
death row necklaces, like unless you want to get hit up,
be careful when you're walking in the street tonight. It's
like the same thing. It was like the m M
is like the top of the food chain. Don't funk
with people in the MM, right. And we had this
gang here that was like we had a little crew
called ourselves Truth Dogs Dogs and we had this and
(24:01):
like all the little crews kind of report to like
the low guy on the on the on the totem pole,
you know. And the guy the low guy on the
totem pole was part of one of the dress is
here and uh, he was like the guy he reported
to Florida. His stress reported directly to Florencia. And that
(24:22):
was the guy who would come down and like talk
to us and like show us the ropes and give
us like the tea or whatever. And as we got older,
like like it's just so much of the culture is
like there's i don't know, man, it's just there. It
feels like trying to describe how you learned that oxygen existed,
Like I don't know, Like I was just breathing and
(24:44):
someone told me that was oxygen, and like I was
just chilling in the hood and someone told me the
hood was run by these gangs, you know, and and
like my first kiss was with like and around the
way girl on orders from these fucking gangsters that were like, yo,
go kiss Red, you know, like like that's how it was,
(25:04):
Like I don't I don't know how to how to
like separate that from like growing up. You know, that
combination of the movie feeling authentic and the actual lived
experiences of people in Los Angeles made the movie real
to a young kid like Eric. In that sense, Edward
James almost seemed to accomplish his objective. And what happened
(25:26):
after there were so many stories about that movie this
is this was happening. There's these rumors, you know, like,
but all that really did for for like my my
little group of friends was like it just added to
the authenticity. Like it was more like, that's how fucking
real this is that there are real gangsters involved, that
people are getting killed over this, Like it wasn't again,
(25:50):
we were just we just didn't We lacked and the
tools to really process violence in a way that that,
you know, I hope everyone has now. But at the time,
it was just like, well, that's that ship is just
life like there was. It wouldn't have scared us. It
wouldn't have been like, oh, it's the movie's fault, Like
(26:11):
that's just it's fucking chaos theory. Right. But now, looking
back as an adult, isn't that kind of the problem though, Right,
It's like like, like you keep using words and this
is I'm not accusing you of anyday. This is like
you're you're you are the audience, right, Like you keep
using words like authentic, you know, like like this was
just our experience, right. But there are very specific scenes
(26:32):
in this movie that folks like Joe Peg, like Morgan
take great issue with, you know, like and and and
claim are completely false, right, scenes that include sexual assault,
you know, and and and and almost really weaponizes sexual
assault in this movie as a way to sort of
dissuade young Latino men from like the Latino Boys, from
(26:54):
joining these gangs or whatever. Doesn't the filmmaker have some responsibility,
Like it's not like he just made a movie that
was b for be true, right, Like if he made
stuff up that got people killed, is that just life?
Or is that is that are you? Are you sort
of poking the bear? I mean, like I don't, I
(27:16):
feel like it's not just life. I mean death, death
is hard, and the choices that we make are the
choices that we live with. But I will say, like
it's a fucking movie, like people are gonna make shut up,
you know, and there's a lot to unpack here. One
of those is like this very very hard to ignore
(27:39):
homophobic culture that exists within the Latino community, especially back then.
So to me, for me, just like, I don't know,
it's crazy to think like that, like a violent rape
assault that ship is not cool. It's never been cool.
(28:00):
I don't think anybody thinks that's cool. But I think
you know, what people are really really like offended by
is that it's men on men um And so I
think that that like the dudes that say, you know,
there's never really happened to me, I never you know,
that's never happened to me. I was never violated in
(28:22):
that way. And it's strictly because it sucks for somebody
to start a rumor that you were rape because rape
is a very like I don't even know how to
describe it, but it's a topic that it's very personal
to actual victims of rape. Right. But if it's because
they showed you having sex with the man and that's
what's offending you, like, I feel like that's that's a
(28:42):
whole different like problem. Right, And and if and if
the director was using male sex as a weapon to
dissuade people from joining the gang, that's also problematic. Obviously
we've all grown as a society blah blah blah whatever.
But like Ship was wrong back then, Ship is wrong now,
(29:03):
like you know. And I would say though that there's
a lot of pressure on someone like Edward James almost
to get everything right and not offend anyone and not
make any fucking mistakes. But when like you know, Tom
Cruise makes, uh the fucking Top Gun movie and a
(29:28):
bunch of people run enjoying the military and then they
get their fucking hands blown off. Nobody's blackballing Tom Cruise,
no offense. I fucking love you know, those movies, Like
I love Top Gun. I don't like to use the
word unfair, But it's fucking not fair that Edward James
almost has to deal with so many things that other
(29:49):
directors don't, and he made a movie that fucking slap
there was bars were still talking about it today and
he should have got to make more. If there's something
else tragic about this movie that was never talked about
because it might have seemed trivial in the wake of
the murders, it's the impact it had or didn't have
on Latino Hollywood kids like Eric never found out that
(30:14):
this movie was made by people that looked like them
and sounded like them. Remember this was a mostly Chicano production.
The director and star, Yeah, but the people behind the
scenes too. Eric didn't even know that when he was
a kid. You said, I wish that, Uh, I wish
that we had known that this was a movie made
(30:35):
essentially by somebody like me, right, like a Chicano from
East l A. What would that have meant if you
if you've been sort of more aware of that, that's
another option. It's not just a victim copp or criminal like.
It's artist, you know, storyteller. It's an actor like I
don't fun man, like I didn't know, like I wish
(30:55):
I knew. I wish I would have put the time
in like when I was in you know, I wish
I would have how to go to USC Film School
that's just down the street, and I didn't even know
that was there, you know what I mean, Like I
got this student debt, I got the student then, and
I went to fucking business school. Because that's what they
tell all all Latino kids, is like, go to business school,
(31:16):
go to business cal go to business school. That's what
your parents know, right, They're like, like my dad didn't
know what careers were available. He was just like business,
do business, you know. And I never used my business degree. Um,
like I'm not even good at business, you know. But
I'm like I'm a good storyteller, and if I knew
(31:36):
that was an option, maybe I could have, you know,
started sooner. And it took me, like I took a
lot of resilience to sort of fight to get to
a point where like I want to be like Edwards
James almost and I want to tell these nuanced portraits
from my community. And I fucking hate it when someone
tells me I can't tell an answer story because that
(31:59):
means I'm you know, contributing to the image of latinoss gangsters,
because these are my these are the people I grew
up with, and unless we like who who are these
gatekeepers have decided that our story, our stories are no
longer valuable. The part of the movie that sticks with
him is not the one we hear about often. It's subtle.
It's when the main character, Santana, gets out of prison
(32:22):
before he goes back in, and he went in as
a juvenile, so he doesn't know how to drive a car,
or how to dress right, or how to talk to
a girl. Listen to his response to me asking what
his favorite scene in the movie is. The one was
the last time he danced? They never really try to,
(32:45):
you know, ship, I guess this really is the first time,
all right. The one that stuck with me the most
is when um Edward names almost his character is trying
to adjust to life after getting out of Gail and
(33:06):
like he's back with this with this Ruca, his like
main squeeze right, his his high school sweetheart and like
they're about to have sex and he starts to cry
and then he like sexually assaulter essentially, And to me,
like the reason to stick out was you know, for
(33:27):
the longest time, I don't know. Sometimes you feel like
you're destined to to repeat these fucked up circles, right,
and you know, having a lot of family members who've
been to jail, Like, what I do know is that
there is and even myself, right, transformation is possible. You
(33:49):
can actually get better. You can actually become an outstanding citizen. Right.
You can become a pillar to your community. You can
become a better version of your off. You can fight
against these like outside forces that are trying to get
you right back to where you started. So when I
think about that movie, I think about, like how doomed
(34:13):
this character seemed, and how once I thought I was
also doomed. And like that's why I feel like Edward
James almost did it, Like because I see it now
and I'm like, oh, ship, Like I got I got
out of that, like I am not that I'm not
and I got nowhere close to ever being that, and
and it serves as a lesson of like what not
(34:34):
to be, you know. On our next episode, we talked
to the documentary filmmakers who were on set during the
filming of American Made. They made a companion movie, Lives
and Hazard, where they followed the actual gangsters cast in
the movie. When it aired on NBC, it was introduced
by Bill Clinton in a message from the White House.
(34:57):
We were on location in East l A. I was
I was always a little worried about dry eyes because
we were we were a pretty big target. And uh,
I'm doing the sound mostly when we would be out
on a sidewalk kind of away from the shooting, talking
to one of the gang members who was a character
(35:18):
in our film. So of course I'm hyper aware of sirens.
I'm hyper aware of cars going by, and uh, you know,
it's so I was concerned sometimes when I'd hear a
cargo by quickly. Um, and this maximum, I mean fulsome
(35:38):
state prison is a place where I hope I never
have to go back to. That was a really intense
environment to be in. That's on our next episode of
More Than a Movie, American Me. More Than a Movie
American Me is a production of Exile Content Studios in
(35:58):
partnership with I Hearts, Mike Duda Podcast Network, and Trojan
Horse Media. The show is produced by me Alex Fometo
at Angory Yuka on the Internet, and our senior producer
is Nigel dra Our executive producers are Rose Red, Nando
Vila and Kareem Tap Production assistants from Sabine Jansen, Anna
Octavio and Stella Emmett. Mixing and sound designed by Guadlo Albornos.
(36:19):
Our Executive producers at I Heeart are Gisel Bansas and
Arlene Santana. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows
Welcome back to More Than a Movie American Meat, a
podcast that digs into the history and mystery of American Meat,
a film directed by and starring Edward James almost that
had a huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm
your host, Alex Fromto and I'll be diving into the
behind the scenes controversy. I remember specifically arguments and playground
(00:25):
about like is that real? What they're really green light celebrity,
Like how are they even gonna get to him? He's
so famous, Like he's not you know, he's not fucking
on Florence. And the thing about the kids is like
you hear the stories from like your older siblings, you know,
and like they become like that game the telephone where
you know, by the end it's like Edward James almost
(00:48):
it's actually fucking a gangster, you know. On today's episode,
I'm speaking with a real Angelino, a Southeast Dela native,
specifically the type of guy for whom the Dodgers are
more important than the apost from the neighborhoods where American
me was not only part of the culture, it was
about them. Wow. I come from the Ellis Island of
the West coast, that's what it's called. So my my
(01:11):
background came from being just a kid in East l
A playing in in Uh. There was no grass or anything.
It was just there are lots and it was it
was beautiful. There was a lot of love, but it
was not any kind of fluent living whatsoever. That's a
clip of Edward James almost talking about growing up in
East Los Angeles. American Me is very much an l
(01:35):
A movie. It's a movie made by Angelinos for Angelino's.
More specifically, it's a movie made by East Los Angeleanos
for East Los Angelinos. That's why this entire episode is
an interview with Eric Gallindo. This is the target audience
e j O was trying to reach. Edward James almost
said over and over again, he used his Hollywood currency
(01:58):
in to make a movie to warn the kids in
Los Angeles, Hey don't get involved in gangs. This could
happen to you. Well, Eric was one of those kids.
But did it work? Did the movie have the impact
that Edward James almost wanted? And what did the street
really have to say about the murders and mysteries and
fall out after the film. I needed to answer this
(02:20):
question and get the bodio level view for l A.
My name is Eric Lindo. I am a writer and
a podcast host, and I grew up in, uh, you know,
the parts of Los Angeles where this movie American Me
really resonated because it was about the people I was
growing up with, you know, people in my community. Eric Allindo,
(02:42):
in addition to being a great journalist and podcaster, is
a screenwriter who specifically writes about his experience as a
Chicano growing up in l A. Literally, this fool's website
is this food dot com. That's not a joke. He's
an expert in all things Los Angeles Latino, not only
because he writes about it professionally, but because he's lived
it and breathed it l A and ninety two. The
(03:04):
hood's reaction to American Me, the fallout, and the rumors
he lived all that in real time. We talked to
Danny de la Pass and Daniel Vierel, who played Puppet
and Little Puppet in American Me. They told us about
the backlash they experienced from the community. People did not
get what they were trying to make, and people were offended,
including the Mexican mafia that the movie was supposed to
(03:28):
be about. Imagine. They're shock living it up at the
movie's premiere on the French Riviera when they find out
that back in l A, one of their co workers
from the movie was shot thirteen times in her driveway
and her death was just the beginning. We've spent a
lot of time talking about how this movie was made,
in the myths surrounding it about Edward James almost his
(03:50):
quest to end gang violence. Jacob Vargas wasn't sure if
American Me had that result. I feel like, I'm sure
it probably stopped a few kids, you know, Like I'm
sure a lot of people will see that and say
that I don't want any part of that as well.
It's like with certain movies, you know, it can it
can be singled out that American mu is the only
one like you look at, like, you know, the Good
(04:12):
Fellows and all the other films that are that are
cautionary tells about the mafia, you know, in a way
tend to glorify it, you know. And then just because
you know, these actors did a really good job and
all these characters work were cool and and uh, you know,
Santana was like a cool dude, and you know, he
was in charge and and uh, you know, held a
(04:33):
lot of power. So I just think there's an interttraction
to to that, and some people will look at that
above above what the real meaning of of, you know,
the film is that it's a vicious cycle. And in
terms of the murders connected to the film, the Puppets
seemed to think almost wasn't at fault. My understanding that
she she had a relationship with prior to the movie.
(04:56):
Obviously she was our our tank call advisor and she
ended up in the movie, but she was running because
she knew the world, and so my understanding was that
there was some kind of beef that had something to
do before the movie. I don't really know. I don't either,
but I think American me was, you know, maybe the
(05:17):
straw that broke the camel's back. But there was more
to it than just American as what you're trying to say.
We spoke to Sal Lopez, who talked about it from
the filmmaker's point of view. I think it's the brutality
of prison and the brutality of being in that world.
Maybe it's not based on fact, I don't know, but
(05:38):
certainly you know in film it's not real. You you
say it's based on a true story because you're able
to take uh licenses and create because you want to
make a point. You want to create drama. You want
to have an impact. You want to shock the audience.
(05:58):
You want to make them think. You want, you know,
to create a film that's going to be memorable. Scenes
that are going to be shocking and and and memorable.
But today I want to talk about how it landed
with the people living in l A in one of
the most violent periods in any American city ever. According
to the l A Times, homicides in sad a record
(06:20):
for l A County two thousand, five hundred and eighty
nine killings in one year, which was an eight percent
rise over the previous year. We want to go to
the streets now, we want to go on patrol with
Sergeant John Bell of the Englewood Police. You're going from
call to call. You're always waiting for that real big
thing to happen. It's going to Eric is light skinned,
(06:45):
he's redheaded, and he's Mexican. Those three things combined to
make his life pretty tough in l A. I always say,
like the night in these was a rough decade to
grow up in and and uh Southeast Los Angeles or
(07:05):
South l A. Did something happen in the nineties and
it was the last Well, there was a lot of war.
I mean there was like so there was Iraq was happening,
but that wasn't the real war. The real war was
in the streets. I mean there was the bloods and
the crips were at war, and also the Mexican gangs
(07:25):
were at war with the black gangs. And I was
like in my first race riot when I was like
an elementary school, you know, like I remember having to
fight like a bunch of black kids, um, because I
was like the nerd. You know, I was the I'm
(07:49):
a red I'm a redheaded Mexican. I was already like weird.
So they put me at the front of the line,
you know, and like you were the well, yeah, I
was the vanguard. Because it's like the people to fucking
hated me the most were like other Mexicans, you know,
because I look white, um, and and the black kids
(08:10):
dated me too because I was like why and then
the white kids say to me, everybody kind of hated me.
So when when the race wars popped off. It was
like they put me at the at the front, you know,
to start to get wasted, and I just remember being like, fuck.
We've heard from lots of people that Edward James almost
his intention with this movie was too encourage kids to
avoid gang life. He wanted them to see it for
(08:31):
what it was, cold and tragic and full of violence.
No one had to take it from whatever we had.
We gave it away. But if that was the intention,
it um didn't work. On Eric, It's really interesting that
you describe yourself as like a nerd, you know, growing up.
(08:54):
And when I think about that, I think about, you know,
like like a comic book nerd, right, like part of
the reason that we love these sup for hero movies
and they become like like the pantheon, they become our gods. Right,
It's like, oh fucking whatever, iron Man and Superman, Batman,
you're watching American Me. Does j D become that the
Santana become that? Like, do they enter that pantheon? I
(09:15):
think absolutely. I think I mean, like for for us,
like we didn't really have like I don't know who
the good guys were the good guys, if the good
guys were supposed to be the cops who are being
our asses all the time, who were harassing our parents,
who were deporting our family members. Like that was not
(09:36):
who we thought the good guys were. Like the good
guys to us were you know, the mobster, the gangsters,
the totals and um. And also I think that that's
why it hits hard when you see like the scene
with with little puppet, right, because you're like or you
see that the hard choices they have to make to
(09:59):
protect their family, to protect their way of life, telling
you this because you're not gonnah, she wanted to notice
the reason why they called me a little puppin with
you know, maybe real angry. I think she's brained in.
(10:20):
I guess they showed her high to look at me.
She don't fight. It's very similar to like you know,
watching Godfather Godfather Too, were like you see I mean,
especially in Godfather Too, when you see how um Vito Corleone,
(10:45):
Corleone is just this guy trying to make a living, right,
and then he gets sucked over and over and over again,
and he finally becomes the hardest guy on the block. Right.
And when you're growing up a neighborhood that's tough, that's hard,
like you feel like, oh ship, I gotta become the
(11:06):
hardest guy on the block in order to be a
provider for my family. On this episode, we'll hear about
little kids watching bootleg copies of American Me, what this
movie meant for representation, and what it was like to
grow up around real life gangs in East l A.
Coming up, we'll hear more from America on how this
movie hit the playground like a goddamn rocket. Welcome back
(11:34):
to More Than a Movie. I'm Alex Fometo and we're
talking to Eric Gallindo, a journalist who was a kid
in l A when Edward James almost made the movie
American Me. As a journalist, podcaster, and writer, Eric's a
guy who gets lost in details. He wrote a biography
of Frank Sinatra and did a podcast about the bill
that granted amnesty to undocumented people called Out of the
(11:56):
Shadows on My Hearts Network. He's done extensive reporting about
law So Angeles and it's Latino community, and beyond that,
he's lived it, which makes him the perfect person to
go deep into the aftershocks of American Me. So far,
we've connected three homicides to the movie, but killing people
because they made art. I mean, how are these murders
(12:16):
any different than killing a journalist because they use the
image of Mohammed? Is this terrorism you kill one person,
but you're trying to scare everybody? Or is this just
about a guy who felt he and his friends were
humiliated and attacked and we're gonna hit back the rules
of the street. Whether you consider it terrorism or not,
(12:37):
and I'm not saying it is, it's still scared the
ship out of people. I want to talk about the
myth and the lore that was built up around this movie. Um,
in your neighborhood, Like, do you remember any of Like
what are the rumors? What what had you heard? What
were the rumors that you'd heard about this movie, the
fallout from this movie, etcetera. I mean I had heard that,
(12:59):
you know, when they made it, they had to get
special permission from the real gangs to tell the story. Um,
you know definitely had heard that he was on green light.
UM you know, so green light what it basically means
is that you're you've been marked for death that the gangs.
(13:24):
It's called on site. You hear the term, now you
hear that term like on TikTok means it's on site.
It's on site. That's just about death. Like like a
lot of the a lot of the meme culture, it's
really just like gang slang turned you know, fucking like
(13:44):
put on with kiddy gloves. But green light means it's
on site. Like if they see you, they can kill you.
There's a contract on your head, you know, Like I
don't know, I don't know how to explain it without
using other slang terminology. No, No, that's pretty So you
heard another rumor you heard was e JL was there
was Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that that he was on
(14:08):
green Light, that all the guys that were in the
movie were on green Light. That sucking the studio that
made it was on green Light. Um yeah, Like I
remember specifically arguments and playground about like is that real?
What they're really green light celebrity. And the thing about
like the kids is like you hear the stories from
like your older siblings, you know, and like they become
(14:31):
like that game of Telephone where you know, by the
end it's like a Red James almost it's actually sucking
a gangster, you know. So elementary school kids spreading rumors
is one thing. By the way, fifth graders are way
too young to be watching this movie. But I wanted
to know what the reception was in general, how did
the grown ups take it? I mean, as from my
(14:53):
perspective and what I remember in mindument is this is
a great movie. I mean, we loved it. We thought
it was dub like we all, you know, get passed
around again like Menica Society. The tape we get passed
around the neighborhood because none of us could afford like
an actual you know, to go to the theater or
a tape like so it was bootlegs, right, these are
bootleg tapes that were being passed around the neighborhood. We
(15:15):
were told it's the most the most stolen film from
Blockbuster of all time. That e JL was told that
by like the head of Blockbuster, Rafa Agustine told us
that story. I believe it because I I watched a
dubbed over like Donna summer workout tape or some ship
where there was like recorded you know, you used to
(15:36):
you used to be able to take an actual cassette
and put a little piece of napkin in it, and
then all of a sudden it's a blank tape and
you can just record whatever you want on it, right,
and that's what that's what we're doing. So like when
someone passed us American me, we just dubbed it and
passed it to someone else, like and I'll respect to
the like very intellectual people, especially in East l A.
(16:00):
Sally has this grand, historic, beautiful history of just fighting
for Chicano rites. But for us kids who were growing
up in those neighborhoods, like, we didn't know anything about
that ship. Like when you're when you're being oppressed, like
you don't really know that you're being oppressed. This is
(16:21):
just life. You're just like trying to survive. Like I
didn't ship. I didn't know anything. I didn't know what
Chicana was, you know, until that HBO movie about the blowouts,
Like and my dad was like, Chicano don't like Mexicans.
Quick programming note here That movie is called Walkout. It's
from two thousand and six and it's on HBO. It's
(16:43):
about a series of walkouts by Chicano students in nine
who were protesting unequal treatment in the school system. It's
director Edward James. Almost all Mexican Americans because before we
moved to East l A and became about the locals.
I don't know what's going on in East l A.
(17:03):
I just knew that in like in in South Central
and in South l A where we were living this ship,
the movie felt like a documentary. It felt like somebody
was actually telling a story about us. And I think
that that is something that's commendable because when you see
Blood and Blood Out, which I freaking love, but that's
(17:25):
a cartoon, bro, Like that's such a fucking cartoon, Like
I'm gonna paint you like an Aztec princess, you know, like,
like what is that ship? Like? You know what I mean? Like,
American Me felt more real and and I would say
like the other movie that felt I mean again, like
I compared to Menace Society all the time, because that's
(17:47):
another movie that is like because if you look at
American Me Boys in the Hood, Menaces Society, you don't
see these kids who were like, oh ship, I'm gonna
be a gangster. You know, that's not what you see.
You see kids who were just living in their neighborhood
and sort of being swayed by their environment. Some of
(18:07):
the real life kids swayed by their environment. They were kids.
Eric knew one of them was his own brother. Yeah,
I mean, like I didn't like my brother, you know,
who's a very good father, devout Christian all that now,
but at the time he was kind of thugging. And
I'll tell you a childhood story. My brother and cousins
used to take us to like these gang meetings they
(18:28):
would have just they were just having in like this
house there were parties whatever, And we were at hill
at the park next door. You know, we were just
all the other the little kids right with all hang
out the park, these all the little brothers, and we talked.
You know, you'd hear stories about American me you to
hear stories about menister society. People start talking, tapes get
(18:49):
passed around, and like I remember one time, like we
heard a gun shop like coming from the house and
it was just a single gun shot, which is not
something you usually here, right, One gun shot is strange.
One gun shot is usually an accident because people, even
people who are like killing someone, shoot multiple times, right, um.
(19:11):
And we all ran into the house and it turns
out they had been playing Russian Roulette and someone lost.
And I'm telling you right now, like if you're gonna
blame the movies for ship like that, Like I mean that.
That's another movie coming up. We'll hear more from Erica
on the real life clicks in l A that organized
under one big gang, the Mexican Mafia. Welcome back to
(19:38):
More Than a Movie. I'm Alex Fumeto, and we're talking
to Eric Galindo, a journalist and showrunner who was a
kid in l A when Edward James almost made the
movie American Me. Eric says gang life wasn't something he noticed.
It was just around something people did without really thinking
about it, like breathing. There were a bunch of smaller
(19:59):
neighborhood gangs, and then the big boys showed up. They
were called the Mexican Mafia, the same gang depicted in
American Met. The Arian Brotherhood and the Blood Gorilla Family
shared the yard, but folsome belonged to us, the oldest clicker,
(20:21):
the Mexican Mafia. Eric remembers what it was like when
they started to flex their power throughout southern California. Yeah,
they were you know, it was like it was a
weird time. But it was also during the time when
like the gangs were becoming um organized, right like the
dresses were becoming a thing. I think right around the
(20:42):
time when I was kind of coming of age. And
this big gangster dude who like almost like in the
movie Um the Warriors, he had this big as meeting
at this park in Orange County, UM and he basically
like organized the little gangs because it was gangs all
(21:03):
over l A like Mexican gangs, and he organized them
and into uh Lamla mafia right like it was like
he was bringing orders from prison, you know. And it
was around this time that the the gangs started getting
organized and controlling a lot of the crime that was
coming through l a lot of the drugs and prostitution,
(21:26):
and in doing so, it actually let these neighborhoods that
were so fucking riddled with crime and brutalized by the
l A. P D and the sheriffs UM actually kind
of thrive because they stopped doing drive bys, they stopped
(21:47):
shooting people innocent people. They started they start stopped doing
violence for violence sake and started doing it for money.
And that really changed things. And so the LA that
you see now is a result of like the gangs
becoming organized. It's hard to like know what you remember
versus what you've learned. But as I understood it, like
(22:09):
especially growing up, um, like you said, on the peripheral
of all this was like the gangs had called the
truth and they were all joining forces to control narcotics
and prostitution in Los Angeles and also taxed the street
(22:30):
vendors and tax the mom and pop shops. I remember
there was certain neighborhoods that were very much controlled by
a linement um, you know, and and and then even
though they had called a piece, there were still gangs
who were not in them, like m S thirteen, like
the like the Northaniels, right, and that in prison and
(22:54):
you know, a lot of what happens when you're growing
up in these neighborhoods, just like a lot of the
stuff you would learn you hear gets passed down from
the elders in prison, and so like the order from
prison was like all I mess thirteen on not Daniels
are on green light. And then there was eighteen Street gang.
I don't know if people remember that one, but eighteen
(23:15):
Street was like the original MS thirteen in terms of
fearmongering by the media. Like the way we saw it
was like it was like a map of how not
to get killed, right, how not to get in trouble,
And it was like these are who these guys funk with?
These are these guys funk with? You? Don't wear red
and Compton right, you know, don't like don't wear them
(23:37):
death row necklaces, like unless you want to get hit up,
be careful when you're walking in the street tonight. It's
like the same thing. It was like the m M
is like the top of the food chain. Don't funk
with people in the MM, right. And we had this
gang here that was like we had a little crew
called ourselves Truth Dogs Dogs and we had this and
(24:01):
like all the little crews kind of report to like
the low guy on the on the on the totem pole,
you know. And the guy the low guy on the
totem pole was part of one of the dress is
here and uh, he was like the guy he reported
to Florida. His stress reported directly to Florencia. And that
(24:22):
was the guy who would come down and like talk
to us and like show us the ropes and give
us like the tea or whatever. And as we got older,
like like it's just so much of the culture is
like there's i don't know, man, it's just there. It
feels like trying to describe how you learned that oxygen existed,
Like I don't know, Like I was just breathing and
(24:44):
someone told me that was oxygen, and like I was
just chilling in the hood and someone told me the
hood was run by these gangs, you know, and and
like my first kiss was with like and around the
way girl on orders from these fucking gangsters that were like, yo,
go kiss Red, you know, like like that's how it was,
(25:04):
Like I don't I don't know how to how to
like separate that from like growing up. You know, that
combination of the movie feeling authentic and the actual lived
experiences of people in Los Angeles made the movie real
to a young kid like Eric. In that sense, Edward
James almost seemed to accomplish his objective. And what happened
(25:26):
after there were so many stories about that movie this
is this was happening. There's these rumors, you know, like,
but all that really did for for like my my
little group of friends was like it just added to
the authenticity. Like it was more like, that's how fucking
real this is that there are real gangsters involved, that
people are getting killed over this, Like it wasn't again,
(25:50):
we were just we just didn't We lacked and the
tools to really process violence in a way that that,
you know, I hope everyone has now. But at the time,
it was just like, well, that's that ship is just
life like there was. It wouldn't have scared us. It
wouldn't have been like, oh, it's the movie's fault, Like
(26:11):
that's just it's fucking chaos theory. Right. But now, looking
back as an adult, isn't that kind of the problem though, Right,
It's like like, like you keep using words and this
is I'm not accusing you of anyday. This is like
you're you're you are the audience, right, Like you keep
using words like authentic, you know, like like this was
just our experience, right. But there are very specific scenes
(26:32):
in this movie that folks like Joe Peg, like Morgan
take great issue with, you know, like and and and
claim are completely false, right, scenes that include sexual assault,
you know, and and and and almost really weaponizes sexual
assault in this movie as a way to sort of
dissuade young Latino men from like the Latino Boys, from
(26:54):
joining these gangs or whatever. Doesn't the filmmaker have some responsibility,
Like it's not like he just made a movie that
was b for be true, right, Like if he made
stuff up that got people killed, is that just life?
Or is that is that are you? Are you sort
of poking the bear? I mean, like I don't, I
(27:16):
feel like it's not just life. I mean death, death
is hard, and the choices that we make are the
choices that we live with. But I will say, like
it's a fucking movie, like people are gonna make shut up,
you know, and there's a lot to unpack here. One
of those is like this very very hard to ignore
(27:39):
homophobic culture that exists within the Latino community, especially back then.
So to me, for me, just like, I don't know,
it's crazy to think like that, like a violent rape
assault that ship is not cool. It's never been cool.
(28:00):
I don't think anybody thinks that's cool. But I think
you know, what people are really really like offended by
is that it's men on men um And so I
think that that like the dudes that say, you know,
there's never really happened to me, I never you know,
that's never happened to me. I was never violated in
(28:22):
that way. And it's strictly because it sucks for somebody
to start a rumor that you were rape because rape
is a very like I don't even know how to
describe it, but it's a topic that it's very personal
to actual victims of rape. Right. But if it's because
they showed you having sex with the man and that's
what's offending you, like, I feel like that's that's a
(28:42):
whole different like problem. Right, And and if and if
the director was using male sex as a weapon to
dissuade people from joining the gang, that's also problematic. Obviously
we've all grown as a society blah blah blah whatever.
But like Ship was wrong back then, Ship is wrong now,
(29:03):
like you know. And I would say though that there's
a lot of pressure on someone like Edward James almost
to get everything right and not offend anyone and not
make any fucking mistakes. But when like you know, Tom
Cruise makes, uh the fucking Top Gun movie and a
(29:28):
bunch of people run enjoying the military and then they
get their fucking hands blown off. Nobody's blackballing Tom Cruise,
no offense. I fucking love you know, those movies, Like
I love Top Gun. I don't like to use the
word unfair, But it's fucking not fair that Edward James
almost has to deal with so many things that other
(29:49):
directors don't, and he made a movie that fucking slap
there was bars were still talking about it today and
he should have got to make more. If there's something
else tragic about this movie that was never talked about
because it might have seemed trivial in the wake of
the murders, it's the impact it had or didn't have
on Latino Hollywood kids like Eric never found out that
(30:14):
this movie was made by people that looked like them
and sounded like them. Remember this was a mostly Chicano production.
The director and star, Yeah, but the people behind the
scenes too. Eric didn't even know that when he was
a kid. You said, I wish that, Uh, I wish
that we had known that this was a movie made
(30:35):
essentially by somebody like me, right, like a Chicano from
East l A. What would that have meant if you
if you've been sort of more aware of that, that's
another option. It's not just a victim copp or criminal like.
It's artist, you know, storyteller. It's an actor like I
don't fun man, like I didn't know, like I wish
(30:55):
I knew. I wish I would have put the time
in like when I was in you know, I wish
I would have how to go to USC Film School
that's just down the street, and I didn't even know
that was there, you know what I mean, Like I
got this student debt, I got the student then, and
I went to fucking business school. Because that's what they
tell all all Latino kids, is like, go to business school,
(31:16):
go to business cal go to business school. That's what
your parents know, right, They're like, like my dad didn't
know what careers were available. He was just like business,
do business, you know. And I never used my business degree. Um,
like I'm not even good at business, you know. But
I'm like I'm a good storyteller, and if I knew
(31:36):
that was an option, maybe I could have, you know,
started sooner. And it took me, like I took a
lot of resilience to sort of fight to get to
a point where like I want to be like Edwards
James almost and I want to tell these nuanced portraits
from my community. And I fucking hate it when someone
tells me I can't tell an answer story because that
(31:59):
means I'm you know, contributing to the image of latinoss gangsters,
because these are my these are the people I grew
up with, and unless we like who who are these
gatekeepers have decided that our story, our stories are no
longer valuable. The part of the movie that sticks with
him is not the one we hear about often. It's subtle.
It's when the main character, Santana, gets out of prison
(32:22):
before he goes back in, and he went in as
a juvenile, so he doesn't know how to drive a car,
or how to dress right, or how to talk to
a girl. Listen to his response to me asking what
his favorite scene in the movie is. The one was
the last time he danced? They never really try to,
(32:45):
you know, ship, I guess this really is the first time,
all right. The one that stuck with me the most
is when um Edward names almost his character is trying
to adjust to life after getting out of Gail and
(33:06):
like he's back with this with this Ruca, his like
main squeeze right, his his high school sweetheart and like
they're about to have sex and he starts to cry
and then he like sexually assaulter essentially, And to me,
like the reason to stick out was you know, for
(33:27):
the longest time, I don't know. Sometimes you feel like
you're destined to to repeat these fucked up circles, right,
and you know, having a lot of family members who've
been to jail, Like, what I do know is that
there is and even myself, right, transformation is possible. You
(33:49):
can actually get better. You can actually become an outstanding citizen. Right.
You can become a pillar to your community. You can
become a better version of your off. You can fight
against these like outside forces that are trying to get
you right back to where you started. So when I
think about that movie, I think about, like how doomed
(34:13):
this character seemed, and how once I thought I was
also doomed. And like that's why I feel like Edward
James almost did it, Like because I see it now
and I'm like, oh, ship, Like I got I got
out of that, like I am not that I'm not
and I got nowhere close to ever being that, and
and it serves as a lesson of like what not
(34:34):
to be, you know. On our next episode, we talked
to the documentary filmmakers who were on set during the
filming of American Made. They made a companion movie, Lives
and Hazard, where they followed the actual gangsters cast in
the movie. When it aired on NBC, it was introduced
by Bill Clinton in a message from the White House.
(34:57):
We were on location in East l A. I was
I was always a little worried about dry eyes because
we were we were a pretty big target. And uh,
I'm doing the sound mostly when we would be out
on a sidewalk kind of away from the shooting, talking
to one of the gang members who was a character
(35:18):
in our film. So of course I'm hyper aware of sirens.
I'm hyper aware of cars going by, and uh, you know,
it's so I was concerned sometimes when I'd hear a
cargo by quickly. Um, and this maximum, I mean fulsome
(35:38):
state prison is a place where I hope I never
have to go back to. That was a really intense
environment to be in. That's on our next episode of
More Than a Movie, American Me. More Than a Movie
American Me is a production of Exile Content Studios in
(35:58):
partnership with I Hearts, Mike Duda Podcast Network, and Trojan
Horse Media. The show is produced by me Alex Fometo
at Angory Yuka on the Internet, and our senior producer
is Nigel dra Our executive producers are Rose Red, Nando
Vila and Kareem Tap Production assistants from Sabine Jansen, Anna
Octavio and Stella Emmett. Mixing and sound designed by Guadlo Albornos.
(36:19):
Our Executive producers at I Heeart are Gisel Bansas and
Arlene Santana. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows
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