For the research project I am interested in studying either;

1. The Latin American film industry or;
2. How the Latin American fashion culture differs from the trends we see here in the United States.

If I choose to study the Latin American film industry, I would like to examine and compare the stages of production, from pre-production to post, to the corresponding stages in the film industry in the U.S. As someone who once considered being a film major with a Spanish/Latin American studies minor,  I am incredibly interested in how the two subjects interact within each other. Throughout my high school, Spanish classes would always use Latin American films to help promote Spanish skills, however, I would love to investigate the common themes in these films and what the commentary of those films have to say about Latin American culture. As I previously mentioned, I am used to seeing these films in intermediate Spanish classes, however, these films, as well as their actors and actresses, are becoming very popular in the United States’ culture and the world of entertainment. I am interested in exploring how these Latin American actors/actresses are becoming so popular in our society, as well as answer the question “why?”. Wikipedia had quite a bit of information on a select list of films. Included in this list was a brief explanation of the general theme of the films. Credo had much more information and even touched on details such as film festivals and how the films display Latin America culture and identity.

The second topic that I am interested in is Latin American fashion and couture. I am mostly interested in this topic because it is a topic I have never studied before. Throughout my years studying Spanish culture I’ve never studied the fashion trends and/or compared them with the trends that are exhibited here in the United States. I think this interest stems from experiences I had in Ecuador. It is very obvious that the fabrics, colors, and styles are very different but beyond that, I think it’s interesting to examine what “provocative” in one society means versus in another when it comes to clothing. When looking at the Wikipedia pages for Latin American culture, I couldn’t help but realize there wasn’t much information on the topic. There was one page that provided links to specific articles of clothing by country. Credo, however, did have a lot more information as well as a book listed as a source that looked particularly helpful on the topic.