What did concepts from class did this film demonstrate?

What did the film show

well? What was missing?

In the film Real Woman Have Curves, Ana Garcia is first generation Latina
from a struggling Latino family in Los Angeles. She is finishes high school and
after the influence of her English teacher, decides to apply to college. Since
their family is struggling economically, Anas parents are against the idea of
her going to college. Her parents want her to work in her sisters dress
sweatshop to raise money to support the family. Anas mother, Carmen, is
especially conservative in terms of Latino culture, ridiculing Ana of being fat
and disobedient. In the movie, Ana tries to satisfy her parents by working at
the sweatshop because she felt responsible for her family. By working at her
sisters sweatshop, Ana sees the struggles that her family goes through to
meet needs but discovers that theres more potential in herself and finally
decides to go to college once she was accepted.

There are many important concepts demonstrated in this film. One concept
clearly demonstrated by the mother, Carmen is hegemony. Carmen is the
talkative powerhouse in the family. She uses stories from soap operas and
gossip to teach her children to act a certain way and to be obedient to her.
Carmen is very concerned about how her daughters reflect the family image
and does everything in her power to set her daughters right. Real Women
Have Curves had a positive view toward the overweight body image. Carmen
is insistent that Ana lose weight since Anas body image is embarrassing her.
Carmen also tells Ana to look more attractive to get a husband. Ana takes
this very offensively and in one scene Ana and her co-workers take off her
clothes freely displaying their body imaging showing that they are not
concerned about having curves. The film is trying to convey the concept
that beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and to prove that the unrealistic
social images of womens bodies is dangerous and wrong.

I felt that the film should have shown what happened to Ana and her family
after she went to college. The film left the story at a cliffhanger when it
concluded with Ana strolling in downtown New York. It would be critical to
see if the subjectivity of Ana by going to college had any significant influence
to her family back in Los Angeles. Since Carmen was against Ana till the day
she left the house, it would be motivating to see how her view changed after
Ana comes back from college as a successful Latina in America. Or they
could have shown Carmen still unwilling to change her attitude toward Ana
due to her deep traditional ideologies.