The Contemporary Body of Mexican Masculinities A
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THE CONTEMPORARY BODY OF MEXICAN MASCULINITIES A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Samanta Ordóñez Robles August 2015 © 2015 Samanta Ordóñez Robles THE CONTEMPORARY BODY OF MEXICAN MASCULINITIES Samanta Ordóñez Robles, Ph.D. Cornell University 2015 Abstract: This dissertation thematizes masculinity in Mexico’s post-NAFTA configurations of subjectivities and bodies, and in the geocultural politics of race and gender in order to analyze how male identities are produced and reified within these intersecting structures of oppression. It encompasses questions of resistance, gender categories established by nationalism and late capitalism, and modern/colonial power relations. I explore cinematic and literary engagements with maleness in order to demonstrate how collusion between neoliberal economic interests and the state’s established political and cultural framework of power conceals the deployment of gendered concepts of citizenship and subjectivity as a mechanism to exercise control over Mexican bodies. I conceptualize this process in terms of a violent colonial strategy of subjection which coerces men to internalize normative codes of masculinity based on essentialist categories of race, sexuality, biological sex, and space. I address relevant scholarly debates in postcolonial studies and discussions of neoliberalism’s impact on culture, politics and identity. In my first chapter, I examine patriotic male performances in northern Mexico as portrayed in the novels Duelo por Miguel Pruneda (2002) and El ejército iluminado (2006) by David Toscana. I posit that through their efforts to overcome U.S. imperialism northern males in these texts are revealed as dominated subjects for whom national masculinity is a failing model for resistance. My second chapter analyzes how Carlos Reygadas’s film Batalla en el cielo (2005) illustrates the disciplinary function of nationalist gender clichés through allusions to Mexican Golden Age cinema. I argue that the film’s concern with revealing contradictions between idealized gender performances and actual conditions of Mexican males questions masculinity as a source of agency for brown bodies. Next, my chapter on Mario Bellatin’s Salón de belleza (1994) explores the effects of globalized male ethics as manifested in the mortification of masculine bodies. I show how the failure of the narrator’s strategies of subverting gender politics reflects the ineffectiveness of feminist conceptions of the ethics of care as the foundation for challenging the conditions of oppression and suffering in non-Western spaces. My final chapter demonstrates how Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (2001) and Carlos Cuarón’s Rudo y Cursi (2008) produce an intertextual farce directed at the gender codes of mexicanidad by depicting the disposability of impoverished bodies and by highlighting how the models of masculinity linked to narco culture have become the only viable form of identity for Mexican males under globalization. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Samanta Ordónez Robles is originally from Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, México. She completed her B.A. with Honors at the Universidad de Veracruz with a concentration in Lenguas y Literaturas Hispánicas in 2004. She also graduated from an M.A. program in Comparative Literature at the University of Western Ontario in 2008. At Cornell University, she finished her Ph.D. in the Department of Romance Studies with a minor in Film and Video Studies. She is currently Assistant Professor of Romance Studies at Wake Forest University iii Para mi mamá, hermano y Patrick. Y en especial en memoria de mi papá, Pascual Ordóñez Cruz. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank the members of my dissertation committee—Debra Castillo, Amy Villarejo, Edmundo Paz Soldán and Gerard Aching—for their support, comments and suggestions throughout this project. My advisor, Debra Castillo, has been an invaluable mentor and role model to me. From the first stages of graduate school she was receptive to my initial interests in visual arts and literature and helped me to strengthen them in ways that became fundamental to my intellectual development. Once I began writing my dissertation, Debra’s comments were always insightful, intelligent, assertive, and delivered with kindness, care, and respect. She also enriched my experience by inviting me to participate in Latino Civic Association events and to work with ¡CULTURA! Ithaca for the 2014 Latin American Film Series. Moreover, Debra taught me the value of informal learning beyond the university setting through her generous hosting of parties and get-togethers at her home with colleagues, faculty members, and community members. I cannot thank her enough for her friendship throughout the years I’ve known her. To Tomás Beviá, Silvia Amigo Silvestre, and Mary K. Redmond who mentored and inspired me to become a better language instructor, and showed a lot of confidence in me throughout my time at Cornell, I extend my warmest thanks. My appreciation also goes to Rebecca Davison, whose kindness and efficiency make life easier in countless ways for everyone in the department. At the Department of Performing and Media Arts, I found a welcoming “second home” thanks to Amy Villarejo. She has been an outstanding mentor who gave me extensive feedback on my writing and helped me find my own approach to research, teaching, and surviving graduate school. As a role model, Amy will surely continue to inspire me throughout my career. v PMA also granted me the invaluable opportunity of working with Sabine Haenni, who generously shared with me her expertise in cinema and her excellent teaching strategies. Thanks go to Carolyn Palladino, also from PMA, who was invariably kind and supportive whenever I had something to ask of her. I am also grateful to my brother and my mom, who have given their love and support all the way through. I would also like to thank my in-laws, especially Clare Zangari and Ann Lewis, who have given me love and precious family time. To my dad–que en paz descanse—I have no words to express how grateful I am for encouraging me to pursue my dreams, and for teaching me that hard work and honesty were as essential as love. And love feeds every part of my life thanks to my friend, partner, and critic, Patrick Crowley. I thank you Patrick for all your patience and support. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT: THE CONTEMPORARY BODY OF MEXICAN MASCULINITIES ............. iii BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ..................................................................................................... iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .......................................................................................................... v INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 1. MASCULINITY UNDER THE PARADIGM OF THE BORDER IN DUELO POR MIGUEL PRUNEDA AND EL EJÉRCITO ILUMINADO BY DAVID TOSCANA .............. 17 1.1 Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 17 1.2 The Gendered Paradigm of the Border ........................................................................... 22 1.3 The Masculine Politics of Resistance: “Mexicanos al Grito de Guerra” [“Mexicans at the Battle Cry”] ..................................................................................................................... 27 1.4 The Failure of Masculinity.............................................................................................. 35 1.5 The Enlightened Resistance ............................................................................................ 41 1.6 Conclusion: Fat Comodoro as the History of Mexico .................................................... 46 2. THE MELODRAMATIC CONTRADICTIONS OF BROWN MALE BODIES IN CARLOS REYGADAS’S BATTLE IN HEAVEN .................................................................... 51 2.1 Introduction: The Meanings of Melodrama .................................................................... 51 2.2 Mexico through Reygadas’s Lens ................................................................................... 58 2.3 The Quotidian Language of Melodrama ......................................................................... 63 2.4 The Corporal Contradiction of the Mexican Male .......................................................... 70 vii 2.5 Disciplining the Brown Male Body ................................................................................ 80 2.6 The Battle for the Brown Male ....................................................................................... 88 2.7 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................... 94 3. THE ETHICAL DIMENSIONS OF TRANSGENDER POLITICS IN MARIO BELLATIN’S SALÓN DE BELLEZA .................................................................................... 101 3.1 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 101 3.2 Strategies of Power ....................................................................................................... 109 3.3 Beyond Masculine Morality ......................................................................................... 118 3.4 The Subversion of the Hyper-Masculine Order ...........................................................