Must the Subaltern Speak? On Roma and the Cinema of Domestic Service

If the democratic ideal embraces "giving voice," the institution of domestic service—in these films—renders that ideal unstable. Thus, to "give voice" in representation would be to falsify the nature of the institution of domestic service. So, far from being a symptom of Cuarón's blind spot, Cleo's inscrutability, her silence, might be read as a calculated choice in the service of a different kind of intervention in politically fought terrain.