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Zorro. Just say the name and images flood your mind: the devilishly simple mask, the dashing black cape, the fiercely rearing steed . . . moonlit assignations with smitten senoritas and a righteous demand for justice from a sneering Gobernador . . . narrow escapes, swash buckling battles and always, finally, the triumph of Good over Evil. Whether you were introduced to the story via the spooky manliness of Tyrone Power or the easy superficiality of Guy Williams or the more recent gyrations of Antonio Banderas, whether you got hooked by the comic book or the Halloween costume, the ability of the story to win us over is nothing short of astonishing.
Take, for example, the experience of the three fearless comedians that comprise Culture Clash. Blessed with lasersharp wit and acerbic tongues, Richard Montoya, Ric Salinas, and Herbert Siguenza relished the opportunity to turn their formidable satiric talents to the task of tearing apart the myth of the legendary Masked Man as an insult to Chicano culture. How hard could it be? After all, Zorro was no more than a silly icon of pulp fiction, a Spanish dandy living behind a mask that any ten-year-old could see through, armed with a simplistic ideology and a bad costume, responsible for more kitsch merchandise and cheap dialogue than virtually any other superhero ... the opportunity to expose the banality of the myth in light of real racial suffering, real class struggle, real political analysis... it was not going to be hard.
And so it was nothing short of shocking that when in the course of creating Zorro in Hell, the story began to exert its almost inexorable power. The process began as you might expect: research took us through the original fiction of Johnston McCully, the era of fascinating and strange silent films, the sanitized, squeaky-clean, Disneyfied version of the 1950s television show, and the various ensuing incarnations that are presently on display at your local video store. We all laughed ... a lot. Everywhere you looked there were innumerable comic possibilities: Jewish guys dressed up to look like Indians, ingénues who would swoon upon hearing the sounds of Zorro's approaching horse, fat friars, fat gentry, skinny peasants (more Jewish guys mixed with some Italian guys)...