Maria TV
Rodrigo Valenzuela
2014
HD Video
17:15
“Maria TV, interweaves documentation of the everyday activities of Latinas that work as domestic workers with reenactments of their jobs as portrayed in soap operas and movies. I direct reenactments of their roles as they are portrayed on TV interwoven with clips of various telenovelas to create an hybridized narrative. The all-women cast perform for the camera both as the ‘seen on TV’ characters, and as themselves – representing their own stories, their own lives. Playing out like a dress rehearsal of sorts, in combining these materials a slippery space is opened up – one that sits ambiguously between action and enactment, or ‘real life’ and fiction. In doing so, my aim is to evidence and critique the blind-spots in media representation, and at the same time address an under-represented group’s socioeconomic struggles in an engaging and intimate yet playful way.” -RV