52 Films By Women: At the Ready (2021)

At the Ready

By Andrea Thompson

It’s been an interesting set of weeks collaborating with Milwaukee Film for Hispanic Heritage Month...no less because of the two films I chose to write about in honor of it.

Case in point: in my previous 52 Films By Women column I discussed “Luchadoras,” a documentary that followed female Mexican wrestlers who were fighting for a better life in and out of the ring in Ciudad Juárez. But this week is all about (well, mostly) Maisie Crow’s “At the Ready,” which sees many of its subjects grappling with similar forces in El Paso, Texas. 

When I wrote about “Luchadoras,” I mentioned that Juárez and El Paso were separated by a mere fence, but the latter enjoyed safety and prosperity, while the former has come to be known as Murder City. And judging by El Paso’s depiction in “At the Ready,” it truly does seem like a world away. 

If anyone in “At the Ready” is in the line of fire, it’s because they’re choosing to be, since the film’s subjects are high school seniors who are training to be police officers and Border Patrol agents. Most of them are Hispanic, and the profession they’re already actively planning to join has them training for active shooter situations, drug busts, and raids in their high school itself. So prepare to be disturbed, since the doc kicks off with kids suiting up in paramilitary garb and going through drills.

As intense as it often is to see teenagers holding fake guns and intending to use the real thing, it’s often just as disturbing to see other people’s reactions as they go through their exercises. Other kids smile and laugh, but to others it’s clearly been normalized, which includes many of the teachers, one of whom is so unfazed they merely mumble a greeting and continue on with their day.

At first glance, their lives seem to have little in common with those in “Luchadoras.” They can leave the house and go where they wish with relative freedom, since being watched and followed by cartels - or possibly getting shot in general - certainly doesn’t figure into their daily lives. And while none of them could be remotely called wealthy, their families have been able to build a measure of success and a general safety net that ensures a measure of stability.

It may be the bare minimum, but I can’t help but make the comparison. The longer “At the Ready” goes on however, the clearer it becomes that many are indeed being harmed by the increasingly vicious immigration system. It’s simply less apparent, and reflective of the insidious ways even the seemingly privileged are often used to maintain the status quo and invest in a way of life that harms us all.

Crow may keep herself out of the story she’s telling, but it’s clear enough where she stands - where any sane person would. But she mostly takes the classic route of allowing her subjects speak for themselves as she waits for them to open up and be vulnerable while attempting to portray them as truthfully as she can. The main focus are three young trainees: Cesar, Cristina, and Kassy, who quickly emerges as the most compelling, and has since come out as trans and changed their name to Mason.

Before that though, he will break your heart as he comes across as both spectacularly competent in his work and clearly unsuited to it. As Mason slowly opens up, it’s also quite clear that he’s a part of this group out of a desperate need for a sense of family, even if he must hide who he is. He’s not out to many of these so-called friends, and his father is absent much of the time. Work is a convenient explanation, but when Mason’s father does have free time, he chooses to spend it with his girlfriend and her children, leaving Mason to his own devices and to essentially raise himself.

The motives of Cristina and Cesar are less emotional, but no less complicated. They both clearly want to make good on the sacrifices their parents made for a better life, even if Cesar’s father is unable to return to the U.S. after he was arrested for drugs, and Cristina’s own father is an immigrant. 

Crow more or less spells out why they or anyone else would get involved in this type of work in the first place though. As jobs get scarcer, one that is willing to hire young and pay $50,000 the first year, $100,000 after five, no college degree required, is bound to attract a fair amount of people, ethics be damned, especially in families where money is a constant consideration.

Politics also can’t help but play a role, as Trump’s outright racism and the increasingly cruel border policies quickly make Cristina, Cesar and Mason doubt whether they even want to remain involved in law enforcement. Even one of the instructors eventually acknowledges how hypocritical he feels in training these children to join his former profession, revealing that he suffers from PTSD and his belief that his job played a large role in his divorce.

But it’s funny the way things do and don’t work out. After the central trio graduates, it is Mason, who once felt bereft of so much, who seems the most well-adjusted and accepting of who he is. An amount of uncertainty is generally a given during young adulthood, but Cesar and Cristina seem a bit more lost than most. They spent much of their last year of high school preparing for a career they now feel incapable of doing well or at all, and they’re clearly still floundering in the wake of their disillusionment. Where they’ll end up is anyone's guess, and it’s something of a relief that Crow withheld judgements about them as she exquisitely allowed their lives to reveal just what might be in store for us all if our immigration policies continue unchanged.

52 Films By Women: Luchadoras (2021)

By Andrea Thompson

There’s no doubt that co-directors Paola Calvo and Patrick Jasim wanted to make a powerful statement with their documentary “Luchadoras,” currently streaming as a part of Milwaukee Film’s Hispanic Heritage Month, which follows three female wrestlers struggling to make a better life in Ciudad Juárez, which has seen so many of its residents disappear it’s come to be known as Murder City.

The roots of such a brutally infamous moniker can be blamed on a familiar culprit - the vicious force we quaintly refer to as global capitalism. It makes the most twisted kind of sense, then, that many of the disappeared are women who worked at assembly factories, which are themselves the result of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). All three of the documentary’s subjects, who mostly go by their wrestling alter egos of Lady Candy, Baby Star, and Mini Sirenita, see wrestling both as a source of income and empowerment, a way to fight for a better life in and out of the ring.

They all have many things in common, most of which involve how they cope with the gender limitations in their work and daily lives. The stories, the jokes, the memories they all share, with each other and those around them, are no less horrifying for being normalized. They speak of their memories of women screaming for help who they were too afraid to assist, of others who were abducted and raped by bus drivers, the discovery of mutilated bodies in the desert, and the police corruption and incompetence that enables it all. 

Their personal lives are about as healthy as you can expect, as many recount stories of the toxic men in their lives, from those in the ring to their families and their partners, many of whom forbade them from working, and who were generally a source of emotional and physical violence. 

The truly remarkable thing is how determined each of them are to have the last word. They may be under siege, but the women in “Luchadoras” have reached the stage where they’ve become very aware that they’re under siege together. Such solidarity, born of their brutal circumstances, has led them to become activists fighting for change in their communities and personal lives, from teaching self defense classes in the ring to using it as a platform to organize and protest against femicide. 

No, there are no mere victims here, and no one is helpless by any means. Lady Candy, Baby Star, and Mini Sirenita are pushing back as best as they can, living their lives, and trying to make them better. All of them pin their hopes on their wrestling careers despite the very real dangers, and attempt to provide more stability, for themselves and their families.

Given all that, it’s sometimes frustrating how little context Calvo and Jasim provide, even if their reasoning is obvious. They have a great deal of trust in their audience, and centering their subjects above all, even at the expense of that audience at times, is how they avoid reducing this remarkable trio to victims or invulnerable superwomen. 

Candy, the youngest, may have the most painful story of all, one whose twists and turns beg for a little outside guidance. She is the one who works in a funeral home and is grappling most directly with the consequences of not just economics but how the system is stacked against potential immigrants. Candy left her husband due to domestic violence, but he’s still able to keep her children from her in the safety and prosperity of El Paso, Texas, despite the fact that the two cities are separated by a mere fence. To see them, Candy must attempt to get a visa, in spite of the bureaucratic hurdles, and the fact that fewer of them are being granted.

If only Calvo and Jasim were willing to assert themselves into the film, or just more information outside of what people are willing to say aloud, “Luchadoras” would practically be a textbook example of how the unfettered, unchecked, so-called free market wreaks havoc, especially among populations of color. But then, the filmmakers clearly aren’t interested in arguing, merely showing how those who should be helpless can and do resist, even under constant pressure.