The Caballero Revisited: Postmodernity in The Cisco Kid, The Mask of Zorro, and Shrek II
Catherine Leen
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

The mentor figure represented by Don Diego in The Mask of Zorro is as important to the transformation of Alejandro into a noble warrior worthy to carry on Zorro's work as the figure of Pancho was in The Cisco Kid. Time and again, Don Diego points out Alejandro's shortcomings. When Alejandro returns in triumph after stealing the Andalusian stallion, the response that greets him is far from celebratory:

Don Diego:    You're a thief, Alejandro, a pitiful clown. Zorro was a servant of the people. He was not a seeker of fame like you.

At length, Alejandro proves that he is able to meet Don Diego's exacting standards, and he is deemed worthy of being the next Zorro. In fact, at this point, it is the student who reminds the teacher of his obligations to the people:

Don Diego:    I have taught you everything you need to survive. Now I must look to my own heart. Elena is all I have left. I'm not going to lose her again.
Alejandro:    What about California? What about the people?
Don Diego:    They still have Zorro.

Alejandro finally becomes Zorro in his own right during his final showdown with Love. Before dealing him the blow that will end his life, he carves the initial "M" for Murrieta into his cheek, just as Don Diego did many decades before to Montero.

A further aspect of the Zorro figure that resembles the Cisco legend is his close relationship with the church. Time and again throughout the film, clergy step in either to praise Zorro, as when the priest points out to Montero that Zorro was the people's champion, or to aid him directly, such as the scene where Zorro is concealed in a confessional by a sympathetic priest. These interventions underline the morality of Zorro's enterprise by offering him the validation of the Catholic Church. The romantic aspects of the plot also echo Cisco's prowess as a ladies' man. Here, however, the romantic subplots are more than additions to the main narrative. Montero's obsession with the beautiful Esperanza, who does not reciprocate his feelings, is emblematic of his desire to possess California, which is never truly his. Meanwhile, the relationship between Alejandro and Elena further legitimizes Alejandro's right to be Zorro's successor.

* * *

A final indication of the success of the social bandit hero's reinvention lies not in The Cisco Kid or The Mask of Zorro but in Antonio Banderas's reworking of his character for the recent animated adventure Shrek II. Shrek II continues the story of the unlikely love affair between Shrek, a swamp-dwelling ogre, and the beautiful Princess Fiona from the land of Far Far Away. In the original film, Fiona was locked in a tower by her parents until a handsome prince could rescue her from a dragon and thus free her from a curse that turned her into an ogre by night. This plan is frustrated by the intervention of Shrek, who rescues Fiona but whose kiss makes her ogre state permanent, rather than reversing it. The sequel follows the pair's return to Far Far Away and Fiona's father's determination to get rid of Shrek and restore Fiona to her former state by uniting her with Prince Charming.

Banderas lends his voice to a new character, Puss in Boots, who in many ways resembles Zorro. Indeed, as Banderas points out in an interview that accompanies the DVD release of the movie, he relished the opportunity to parody the Zorro character: "I have the opportunity actually in this movie of taking a little laugh on Zorro. Zorro's character is serious, arrogant, brilliant, very sly, and in this character what I try to do is to actually laugh at myself a little bit."

He is introduced when the king goes to a seedy bar, the Poison Apple, in search of an assassin who will rid him of Shrek for good. Puss sits in a darkened room with only his boots and his eyes to identify him. The focus on his eyes is a wry allusion to Zorro, whose eyes are always visible through his mask. He springs into action soon after, when he ambushes Shrek and his friend Donkey in a forest near the castle, appearing with a flourish to the accompaniment of Latin-flavored music. As he urges Shrek to pray for mercy, he carves a "P," Zorro-style, on a tree trunk. His attack is not successful, however, as he is incapacitated while coughing up a hairball and is forced to beg for mercy and confess that he is a hired assassin: "Por favor. Please, I implore you. It was nothing personal, señor. I was doing it only for my family. My mother, she is sick and my father lives off of garbage. The king offered me mucho gold."

Puss's constant use of code-switching further identifies him with Zorro, as does his use of formal, flowery language. He pleads with Shrek to forgive him and to let him restore his honor, saying: "Stop, ogre. I have misjudged you. On my honor, I am obliged to accompany you until I have saved your life and you have spared me mine." Like Cisco and Alejandro, Puss is transformed from a self-interested mercenary to a champion of an oppressed minority, in this case the marginalized ogre. When Fiona learns that Shrek has been transformed by a magic potion, she mistakes Puss for him, asking him if he is Shrek. In a parody of the Latin lover's constant wooing of women, Puss replies, "For you, baby, I could be." In the final standoff at the castle between Shrek and his adversaries, Puss proves his nobility, holding off several soldiers with his skillful swordsmanship to allow Shrek to be reunited with Fiona. To eliminate any doubt as to his ethnicity, Puss leads the celebration at the film's conclusion with a rousing version of Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca."

The one sobering note in the generally lighthearted and sympathetic portrayal of the Puss character as an animated Zorro is in a scene that occurs when Shrek, Donkey, and Puss are on their way to the ball toward the end of the narrative. Before they near the castle, they are intercepted by royal guards, who imprison them before Pinocchio and others help them escape and continue their adventure. During the arrest, Puss is searched, and drugs fall from his pocket. This episode is out of place in a comic film largely directed at children. Far more damaging, however, is its anachronistic transposing of a modern-day negative stereotype of Latinos as inveterate drug smugglers to a fairy tale set in the Middle Ages. For all the humor and charm afforded to the portrayal of Puss, he is ultimately represented as a criminal, even after the point in the narrative when he has made good his initial lack of judgment in serving as the king's assassin.

To conclude, the continued relevance of the social bandit myth is clearly demonstrated by The Cisco Kid and The Mask of Zorro. Both films show how initially flawed or directionless characters can realize their potential to avenge the suffering endured by a subaltern community and in so doing become worthy heroes and role models. The Cisco Kid represents a parallel development to that of Ritchie in La Bamba in that the very qualities that Ritchie suppresses in order to succeed in North America become those that he treasures after his journey to Mexico, which leads him to create a version of the song that becomes a crossover hit emblematic of a positive cultural hybridity. Similarly, Cisco learns to appreciate his Mexican heritage and use it to his advantage in order to form a more meaningful identity. Despite its heavily ironic tone and its problematic and stereotypical representation of Puss as a drug smuggler, Shrek II does not diminish the importance of the Latino swashbuckler as a social bandit who comes to the aid of an oppressed minority. The vibrancy of the Zorro myth in particular is suggested not only by its appropriation in Shrek II but also by the fact that a sequel to the film is currently being made and that no less an author than Isabel Allende has based her latest work, Zorro: A Novel (HarperCollins, 2005), on the development of the legend. The greatest achievement of the postmodern caballero films lies in their resurrection and radical updating of heroic sagas that point a way forward for Chicano resistance.

Notes

¹ Luis Valdez, Zoot Suit and Other Plays (Houston, TX: Arte Público Press, 1992), 97.

² Eric Hobsbawm, Bandits (London: Abacus, 2000), 162.

³ In Chicano Renaissance: Contemporary Cultural Trends, ed. David R. Maciel, Isidro D. Ortiz, and María Herrera-Sobek (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000), 111.

⁴ Ibid., 117.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Todd Everett, "The Cisco Kid," Variety, January 31-February 6, 1994, 66.

⁷ Ibid.

⁸ See the Society’s Web page at home.earthlink.net/~rggsibiba/html/sib/sib6.html-8k.

⁹ Leah Rozen, Tom Gliatto, et al., "The Mask of Zorro," People Weekly, July 27, 1998, 35.

¹⁰ Richard Schickel, "The Mark of Excitement," Review of The Mask of Zorro, Time, July 20, 1998, 62.

¹¹ David Ansen, Newsweek, July 20, 1998, 66.

¹² Schickel, 62.

¹³ María Herrera-Sobek, in Entre la magia y la historia: tradiciones, mitos y leyendas de la frontera, José Manuel Valenzuela Arce, ed. (Tijuana: El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, 1992), 163-174.

¹⁴ Herrera-Sobek, 172 (my translation).

¹⁵ My thanks to Gary Keller for this insightful observation.