Real Women Have Curves, starring America Ferrera and Lupe Ontivario, was released on October 18, 2002. The film was created from a screenplay by Josefina Lopez and George LaVoo and was directed by Patricia Cardoso. Debuting at the Sundance Film Festival, the film won an Audience Award, Special Jury Prizes for Ferrera and Ontivario’s roles, and also won the unique Humanitas Prize for promoting human dignity, meaning and freedom.
Real Women Have Curves is a coming-of-age film that focuses on the life of Ana Garcia, a Mexican-American teenager growing up in an East Los Angeles neighborhood. Ana comes from very traditional, old-fashioned parents that believe that now is the time for Ana to help provide for the family and that she can continue onto higher-education at a later time. Ana is a very bright student who is graduating from Beverly Hills High School and has to travel on two different buses everyday in order to get to school. Ana lives with her mother, father, 30 year-old sister (who she shares a room with), grandfather, aunt and two cousins. Ana’s father is a laborer who mows lawns and her mother is an employee at her sister Estella’s seamstress factory. While one of Ana’s high school teachers, Mr. Guzman, tries to help Ana apply to her dream school— Columbia University, Ana’s mother tries to convince her that she has a responsibility with her family and that she needs to help out at her sister’s factory. Ana eventually earns a full-ride scholarship to Columbia, but has to decide if she will continue on with her ambitions or satisfy her family in living in her mother’s traditional view of women who have to work, cook, maintain their clean homes and provide for their husbands.
One of the main themes seen throughout the film is about upholding family values and responsibility within the family. Ana is a Mexican-American teenager, who constantly struggles with living within her cultural heritage and growing up with Americanized traditions. Ana’s main...