Big build, bespectacled skin, bad hair, awkward dress sense but with wit and good common sense (when it comes to everyone else’s life), and still feeling a little odd in the street-smart world…
That’s Ugly Betty - and me (well, minus the braces). The smash hit comedy has me glued to my seat, as does the work of it’s producer Salma Hayek, who has also come a long way in her own career despite the odds stacked against her, just like me…I mean Betty.
Beautiful and driven; the A-list actress was hardly knocking down doors in Hollywood, when she received one line in Spanish soap opera Mi Vida Loca and got her first break with Mexican TV’s Theresa in 1989. But it wasn’t until director Robert Rodriguez saw her on a talkshow proclaiming ambitions of becoming a leading Latin lady in Hollywood, that she first achieved international recognition with a performance in his cult classic Desperado [1995].
Hayek is honest about the awkwardness of Desperado’s love scene and feeling exploited in Wild Wild West [1999] for her assets, but she described a nude scene in Frida [2002] with another woman as “organic to the story, as it is fully embracing the character for everything she was.” So involved was Hayek with her representation of the persona, she shaved her upper lip to highlight this physical aspect which Kahlo herself exaggerated in her self portraits. Unaffected by stigma, she says the most challenging role for her involved facing her personal phobia in From Dusk Till Dawn [1996], in which she danced with a snake. Her approach to the infamous dance scene is interesting – she investigated snakes to discover their meanings for some cultures, so as to build a relationship with the snake. For her, the scene was a dance with her inner fears and strength.
The actress/director/producer, who recently turned 40, is also continuously involved in bringing less high profile material to our big and small screens. For eight years Hayek worked on bringing surrealist artist, Frida Kahlo’s story, to the cinema. She describes her as her hero, “for turning all the difficulties life threw at her into art”.
The Sundance Festival gave The Maldonado Miracle [2003], Hayek’s first attempt at directing, a standing ovation. She publicly refuted that Hollywood had got “Latin fever”, declaring “it’s just that some of us have sneaked into the system.” And she recently created Ventanarosa Productions [meaning ‘pink window’ in Spanish] to propel growth with more personal projects.
Under this company she helps fund non-mainstream films such as low budget indie drama The Velocity of Gary [1998], in which she starred, whilst giving up her salary to fund distribution. She then produced a movie about four sisters in the Dominican Republic, called In the Time of the Butterflies [2001], providing non-professional Latin film makers the opportunity to work with a major star.
In 2006 she played a bold Mexican waitress in biopic Ask the Dust with Colin Farrell, but again refuted to conform to stereotype just because she was portraying a man’s inspiration; you will see her character as an empowered figure, representing women who were muses to great men. This solidarity Hayek has with her fellow women is further demonstrated in her work with abused women. She keeps this work separate from her career so as not to take away from “the seriousness of the issue” she says, “by making it a fantasy on film.”
So, to me, she is not only a Latin icon, much like Frida Kahlo who she says “was never conventional about anything she did…and was never apologetic about who she was.” But she is an icon for women. Hayek may be a woman in a man’s industry, but as driven as she is to achieve her own artistry she remains, as described by Julie Taymor, “a woman’s woman.” Hayek has said she feels a sisterhood with all women; speaking at the Avon Foundation in 2004 whilst addressing the issue of abuse, she said, “I admire women… [They] really move me… I think we’ve been mistreated throughout history in different countries.”
It is not only her determination, business acumen, the approach and reasoning behind all of her actions, her aid organisation work and her being a ‘woman’s woman’ that makes her admirable. There are lessons I have realised through her, and that have inspired me to take a progressive step in life. My own work is not easy but that is why I look up to Salma Hayek; she doesn’t complain about what she cannot do – instead, she makes a difference.
By Selina Ditta
