ABSTRACT
This chapter is devoted to a critical exploration of the public and screen personae of Mexican action star and community activist Rosa Gloria Chagoyán, and the politics of gendered and national representation in the larger body of cine fronterizo or Mexican border cinema of which she was a vital part, as exemplifi ed in her Lola la trailera/Lola the Truck Driver action series (1983-1991). In this series, which follows an epic road movie format spiced up with action sequences and musical comedy, the daughter (Chagoyán) of a semitruck driver seeks to avenge her father’s death at the hands of narcotraffi ckers, after he refuses to hide their cocaine shipments in his fresh Mexican produce cargo destined for the border. To do this, she herself must get behind the wheel and infi ltrate the operation up to its
highest levels of command; she is assisted in this task by an undercover cop, played by her husband in actual life, Rolando Fernández (also the series producer of this and her next fi lm, Juana la cubana/Juana the Cuban, 1994, in which she doubles as a disillusioned revolutionary Comandante Zeta and a sensuous nightclub performer a la Tropicana). Signifi cantly, Lola remains steadfastly in the driver’s seat, and it is she who delivers the most in the manner of pyrotechnics and gunshots, saving her boyfriend cop’s life on more than one occasion.
