Zombies have become ubiquitous globally in film and television. This undead ghoul keeps returning and finding new ways to infect our screens. Here, I look at Cholo (John Leguizamo) from George A Romero’s Land of the Dead (2005), one of the few Latinx zombies in film, delving into what this ghoul represents.
In 1968 the zombie film forever changed with the release of George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. This black-and-white low-budget horror flick now marks the before and after of zombie films. Before Night of the Living Dead, zombie films saw a transition from the fear-inducing film White Zombie (1932) to more comedic zombie films like 1945’s Zombies on Broadway. After Night of the Living Dead, zombies not only morphed from a voodoo creation into undead ghouls of unknown origins but also moved from exotic lands, outside of the U.S., to Pittsburgh. Thus, zombies were no longer ghouls that inhabited “uncivilized” spaces where tourists, the military, and corporations were at risk but were now an integral part of the American landscape.
Check out the trailer for Land of the Dead:
Current zombie films, Kyle Bishop writes, are partly a result of trauma caused by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. These films are now more nihilistic, with fears of the ‘Other,’ of an enemy outside of the control of perceived military and governmental authorities, at the forefront. Through a reading of representations of Latino masculinities in zombie narratives, I argue that the post- 9/11 aesthetic of Latinos in horror, particularly in the zombie subgenre, morphed to better fit the growing fear of terrorists coming from “south of the border.” Latino masculinities are defined in relation to a black-white racial binary prevalent in the U.S. We see this play out in Land of the Dead, the fourth installment in Romero’s zombie series and his first film after 9/11. Cholo emerges as a tragic figure, a stand-in for these “new” fears and the “terrorists” holding the city hostage. These fears, however, coded in the language of terrorism, are anything but new. Cholo, as his name implies, is part of long lineage of dangerous Latino men on screen beginning with the bandido and including current images of border crossers.
Land of the Dead is set in a post-apocalyptic Pittsburgh where humans have walled their city in to keep the zombies out. In the center of the city stands Fiddler’s Green, a large apartment and shopping complex where Kaufman (Dennis Hopper), the wealthy “ruler” of the city along with his rich and powerful friends live. Fiddler’s Green is surrounded by makeshift houses and buildings for those who cannot afford to or are not allowed to live in Kaufman’s complex. A small team, led by Riley Denbo (Simon Baker), works for Kaufman—going out of the gated city to scavenge for food and other supplies. The film is fraught with class and race conflict. The survivors outside of Fiddler’s Green, all working class and poor people, are starving, while Kaufman and his friends live far removed from this reality, ignoring the poverty and real danger outside of their doors.
The zombies, however, make this conflict more complex. At the beginning of the film, a voice-over proclaims that the zombies (based on their sheer numbers) would be a real danger “if they ever learned how to think.” The remaining human survivors are outnumbered by these “savages.” That the zombies would ever learn how to think seems like an impossibility for many. However, Riley notices the zombies are organizing, communicating, and maybe even thinking. The threat this zombie sentience poses hangs over both the rich and poor, death being the great equalizer. One of the most interesting characters in Land of the Dead is Cholo de Mora whose actions help expedite the downfall of Fiddler’s Green.
Cholo played by John Leguizamo
Cholo de Mora, played by John Leguizamo, is a fast-talking, low-level employee of the wealthy survivors, who don’t leave the safety of the tower. The second in command on Riley’s team, Cholo is working for Kaufman and other wealthy clients scavenging for hard-to-find luxuries like cigars and alcohol. Cholo is, then, a scavenger, supplying the rich with the objects necessary for them to maintain the lifestyle they enjoyed before the apocalypse. He not only supplies them with material goods but is also Kaufman’s goon, killing people on his command, especially those revolutionaries living outside of Fiddler’s Green who threaten Kaufman’s power. Cholo’s ambition and need for acceptance are coded as selfish and dangerous. His need to live in Fiddler’s Green, to belong and assimilate, are mocked by both Riley and Kaufman, both of whom state that someone like Cholo can never assimilate regardless of how much money he makes.
Through Cholo’s comments we learn that he comes from a working-class background where, if it had not been for the zombie apocalypse and his skills as scavenger, he wouldn’t “be anything more than that Mexican zombie” who now pushes a lawnmower around. In the wake of the zombie apocalypse, Cholo believes he can find equality, that he can move away from his culture and become “American.” After all, now that society has broken down, his Latino-ness shouldn’t keep him outside of the structures of power. He is wrong, though. Even now his race marks him as “other.”
Image of the Cholo in Spanish Casta painting
Land of the Dead doesn’t give a lot of backstory for Cholo’s character. However, the name itself tells us a lot about what he symbolizes. The term “Cholo” has a very long and complicated history. In early casta paintings in colonial Mexico, the Cholo was pictured as a descendant of a relationship between a mestizo and an indigenous woman. It was used as a derogatory term.
In more modern usage, cholo has come to refer to the member of a gang. Charles Ramirez-Berg describes the bandido as one of the earlies stereotypes in film of Mexican and Mexican American men who were seen as dirty, oily, and treacherous criminals. One of the variants of el bandido stereotype is the inner-city gang member. These characters are usually “inarticulate, violent, and pathologically dangerous bandidos” (69). The term “cholo” is used as an identity category by many Mexican Americans in the U.S., but it is also used as a stereotype to imply a person is part of a gang. A cholo in the negative context is a poorly dressed, dangerous, gang member, very much like the bandido stereotype. But cholo means so much more than this for people who participate in the subculture. It is a lifestyle that implies a certain type of dress (khakis, plaid, white socks, and white sneakers), usually a love for oldies, and a pride in cultural/national identity. For many not familiar with the subculture, however, cholo means only a lower-class Mexican American criminal. Thus, the naming of the only legible Latinx character in Land of the Dead as Cholo brings with it a heavy history of prejudice and hate towards Mexican Americans. Also, by naming him Cholo after this stereotype, and not giving him a real name, the film dehumanizes Leguizamo’s character even before he is turned into a zombie! I would argue, then, that it is only as a zombie that Cholo has the ability to move beyond the weight of these stereotypes and to create a new identity.
Throughout Land of the Dead, we see Kaufman abuse and denigrate Cholo, calling him a nobody. Close to the end of the film, Cholo is bitten by a zombie. One of the other scavengers is set to shoot him, put him out of his misery but Cholo stops him stating he “always wanted to know how the other half lived.” As he slowly turns into a zombie Cholo joins the other half, one he never planned to.
Cholo as zombie & Kaufman as he calls Cholo a “Spic” and shoots him
As a zombie, Cholo does not run around looking for victims but, rather, patiently waits in the garage for Kaufman, since now the walls have broken and the zombies are invading the city and are headed to the tower. When Kaufman appears, Cholo knowingly attacks him, not driven by an uncontrollable hunger but rather by a very specific need for revenge against not only Kaufman but against what this character symbolized: oppression, class marginalization, greed and racism. By targeting Kaufman, Cholo is attacking the system of inequalities that had marginalized him and those like him. Cholo isn’t the only one who flocks to Fiddler’s Green. The zombies lead by zombie Big Daddy storm the city and break down the walls of the fortress. They, like Cholo, destroy the boundaries between them and the humans, between the rich and the poor. Kaufman’s denigration of Cholo continues until the very end when, before shooting him, he exclaims “fucking spic bastard.” With this, Cholo is reduced to the one thing he was clawing so hard to escape. Even though he amassed monetary wealth, he could never gain a place in polite society.
Check out the scene from Land of the Dead in which Cholo attacks Kaufman:
After Cholo is bitten by a zombie, he accepts his fate, saying, “Nothing ever works out the way you want it to, something always comes around the corner and gets you.” This is a tragic end for a character who fought so hard to fit in and be part of the American dream. He is punished for his ambition and only gets his revenge after death. In Land of the Dead, the zombies are the lowest class in the new caste system and come back to destroy this system of oppression. Only in death, only as a zombie, can Cholo participate in this class rebellion, forced to abandon his desire for financial and cultural capital in life.
Related: Top 10 Zombie Films (including the Cuban Juan of the Dead.)
Works Cited:
Bishop, Kyle. American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture. Jefferson, NC: McFarland. 2010.
Ramirez-Berg, Charles. Latino Images in Film: Stereotypes, Subversion, and Resistance. Austin, TX: UT Press. 2002.
You can stream Land of the Dead on Amazon #ad:
Dr. Orquidea Morales is an assistant professor of American Studies and Media & Communication Studies at the State University of New York, Old Westbury. Morales received her PhD in American Culture from the University of Michigan. Her work looks at the intersection of Latinx studies and Horror studies. She is currently working on her book manuscript entitled “Border Horrors: Filmic Lives and Deaths on the U.S.-Mexico Border.”
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