Proquest Dissertations

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UMI' "I Am a Mother First": Mexican Women Filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s and the Representation of Motherhood Isabel Arredondo A thesis in The Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (Film Studies) at Concordia University Montreal, Quebec, Canada April 2009 © Isabel Arredondo, 2009 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et 1*1 Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 OttawaONK1A0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63267-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-63267-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distribute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in this et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. Ni thesis. Neither the thesis nor la these ni des extra its substantiels de celle-ci substantial extracts from it may be ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement printed or otherwise reproduced reproduits sans son autorisation. without the author's permission. In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne sur la Privacy Act some supporting forms protection de la vie privee, quelques may have been removed from this formulaires secondaires ont ete enleves de thesis. cette these. While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires aient inclus dans in the document page count, their la pagination, il n'y aura aucun contenu removal does not represent any loss manquant. of content from the thesis. 1*1 Canada Ill ABSTRACT "I Am a Mother First": Mexican Women Filmmakers of the 1980s and 1990s and the Representation of Motherhood Isabel Arredondo This thesis examines images of mothers in classical and contemporary Mexican cinema. The purpose is to contrast the portrayals of mothers in melodramas produced during the 'Golden Age' of Mexican cinema (1940s to 1950s), a model continued until the 1970s, and in films made by the so-called 'third-wave' generation of Mexican women filmmakers (directors who made their first feature films after 1985). The main argument is that the films directed by third-wave directors propound a non-narcissistic type of feminine idealization and propose women characters who see themselves as individuals. This thesis uses psychoanalytic theory and particularly the psychoanalytic discussions of motherhood developed within feminist theory and feminist approaches to film to examine the representation of motherhood. Kaja Silverman's notion of narcissistic idealization and Kelly Oliver's analysis of mothers' depression are fundamental to differentiate classical and third-wave representations of mothers in Mexican cinema, especially from the point of view of Mexican women filmmakers who value their own identity as mothers. The Introduction lays out the thesis' form and focus. Chapter One contextualizes the professional and ideological position of Mexican women filmmakers of the new iv generation. Chapter Two examines representations of mothers in classical Mexican melodramas. Chapter Three concentrates on discussing representations of mothers in films directed by third-wave filmmakers. The main argument is that third-wave Mexican women filmmakers, while moving away from the maternal ideals predominant in classical Mexican films, do not discard feminine idealization altogether. Instead, they view idealization as a strategy of identity formation set outside of the dichotomy Virgin/Whore which informs traditional representations of motherhood in Mexican cinema. iv Table of Contents Chapter 1: Mexican Women Filmmakers' Views of Motherhood: "A Woman Is First a Creator and then the Rest"........ 16 Chapter 2: Recovering Sara Garcia's Excessive Love: Contemporary Views of ^—13.SSlC3-i iV-iSIOQ.r3IIl3.S g •« •••«»«•> m »«»i»o « ••>•< / o Chapter 3: Representations of Mothers in the 1980s and 1990s by Third-Wave Women Filmmakers.................................................................. 176 Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 245 V To my mother, who has given me the strength to face many challenges. 1 Introduction Motherhood has been a thorny issue for scholars of Mexican film and Mexican women filmmakers alike. It would not be an exaggeration to say that images of motherhood have always been present in Mexican films and yet have not been critically studied from a feminist perspective. Examining Mexican films directed by women from the 1920s until the 1970s clearly shows that Mexican women filmmakers during this period are not interested in the topic of motherhood. Motherhood, however, becomes central to the narrative of women directors during the 1980s. Among the most important films that highlight motherhood are Maria Novaro's Lola (1989), Marisa Sistach's Los pasos de Ana (1989), Busi Cortes' El secreto de Romelia (1989), and Dana Rotberg's Elvira Luz Cruz (1984) and Angel defuego (Angel of fire 1991). The goal of this thesis is to examine the representation of motherhood in films made by third-wave Mexican women directors and to explain why these films contribute to an understanding of motherhood from a feminist perspective. The idea for this thesis came from contrasting comments made by two filmmakers at a conference in Tijuana in 1990, the "Encuentro de Mujeres Cineastas y Videoastas Latinas" (Gathering of Latina Women Filmmakers and Videomakers). At one of the question-and-answer sessions, a question surfaced about the identities of the filmmakers in regard to motherhood. One of the filmmakers present, Marcela Fernandez Violante, declared that she was first and foremost an artist and that her identity as a mother came second.1 In contrast, a third-wave filmmaker, Maria Novaro, thought that motherhood was fundamental to her identity and thus that it came first. The discussion between 2 Fernandez Violante and Novaro led me to look for historical and social reasons that could explain why these filmmakers' identities contrasted so sharply. In particular, I searched for reasons within the filmmakers' education and their position within the Mexican film industry. During my research, I also considered the representations of mothers in all the films made by Mexican women filmmakers. In the films of Fernandez Violante or Matilde Landeta—another Mexican filmmaker who attended the conference and who shared Fernandez Violante's views on motherhood—motherhood is a marginal identity for female characters. In contrast, in third-wave films such as Elvira Luz Cruz, pena maxima, Lola, Los pasos de Ana, El secreto de Romelia and Angel defuego motherhood is a key issue. I selected these and other films of the 'Third-generation' of Mexican female filmmakers because of the centrality that motherhood plays in them. Discussion of these films constitute the main corpus of this thesis, together with the analysis of other films that question traditional definitions of women's identities, such as Cortes' Las Buenromero (1979), Unfrdgil retorno (1980), Hotel Villa Goerne (1981), and El lugar del corazon (1984) and Novaro's Una isla rodeada de agua (1985). In evaluating these films, I became aware of an important element: the representation of motherhood in third- wave films makes implicit or explicit references to the representations of mothers in Mexican melodramas of the classical period, those made during the 1940s to 1950s. Third-wave films use classical melodramas as a jumping off point against which to propose an alternative way to understand motherhood. Given the contemporary films' reference to classical melodramas, I included widely known classical melodramas such as 3 El Indio Fernandez's Maria Candelaria (1943), Fernando de Fuentes' Dona Barbara (1943) and Cuando los hijos se van (1941) as part of my corpus. Methodology Three areas of study influenced this thesis. To approach the different positions Mexican women filmmakers take with regards to motherhood, I draw from the historiography of women filmmakers in Mexico. To tackle the representation of mothers in classical and contemporary Mexican films I use psychoanalytic theory and particularly the psychoanalytic discussions of motherhood developed within feminist theory and feminist approaches to film. Gender became a category for analysis in the scholarship on Mexican film in the 1980s. One of the earliest articles that considers gender when studying Mexican women directors is Julianne Burton's "Inside the Mexican Film Industry: A Woman's Perspective" (1986). Burton's article features only one director: Marcela Fernandez Violante. Examinations of Mexican women filmmakers' works appear in Paulo Antonio Paranagua's "Pioneers: Women Filmmakers of Latin

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