Mapping Borders and Identity: Representation, Transformation, and Ethnicity

  • Stephanie Fuller
Chapter
Part of the Screening Spaces book series (SCSP)

Abstract

As a car approaches a checkpoint along the US-Mexico border in the film Borderline (Seiter, 1950), its American passengers prepare to have their identity checked. The two protagonists of the film have been sent undercover into Mexico to bust a cross-border smuggling ring, and in the course of their investigations they assume different layers of disguise. As they complete their investigations and head to the American border, both characters are performing three separate identities concurrently: US police officers, criminals, and honey-mooners. The audience is aware of these shifting personas but neither character knows the real identity of the other. They cross back into the United States with their various layers of disguise intact, despite undergoing interrogation by an immigration official. This emphasis on disguise and identity is typical of several of the border-crossing films from this period. Alongside Borderline , for Border Incident (Mann, 1949), His Kind of Woman (Farrow, 1951), and Wetbacks (McCune, 1956) too, crossing the border initiates a process of identity transformation. These movies display a focus on undercover agents, disguise, and identity alongside their central thematic concern with journeys across the border.

Keywords

Police Officer Identity Transformation Racial Profile Mapping Border White Actor 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Notes

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© Stephanie Fuller 2015

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  • Stephanie Fuller

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