1 the Indigenismos of Mexican Cinema Before and Through The

1 the Indigenismos of Mexican Cinema Before and Through The

The Indigenismos of Mexican Cinema before and through the Golden Age: Ethnographic Spectacle, “Whiteness,” and Spiritual Otherness Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Mónica del Carmen García Blizzard Graduate Program in Spanish and Portuguese The Ohio State University 2016 Dissertation Committee: Laura Podalsky, Advisor Ignacio Corona Guisela LaTorre Paloma Martínez-Cruz 1 Copyrighted by Mónica del Carmen García Blizzard 2016 2 Abstract While indigenista films have been overwhelmingly understood as those that have an explicitly political message (tied to the Mexican revolution) about the plight of indigenous peoples, this dissertation contributes to the discussion of the representation of natives in Mexican cinema by adopting a broader definition of term indigenismo. Through an understanding of the term as the way in which the native has been imagined as Other for the purpose of reifying the nonnative national subject, this study analyzes a broader corpus of native-themed films from the 1910’s through the 1960’s, and considers the multiple discourses through which they have been presented on screen. Through social, historical and cultural contextualization, as well as detailed film analysis informed by film theory, the study proposes the saliency of the ethnographic discourse, the ubiquity of “whiteness,” and the centrality of spiritual Otherness in the representation of natives in Mexican cinema throughout the first half of the 20th century. By pointing to the variety of portrayals of indigeneity in the span of time that is associated with the postrevolutionary cultural and political climate, the study disrupts the idea that the representation of natives in cinema is clearly derivative of postrevolutionary indigensimo. Instead, the study points to the presence of contention and residual elements such as the veneration of “whiteness” and the championing of Catholicism, which suggest a presence of contradictory portrayals, ii and a lack of cultural consensus about the place of the native in the nation and the parameters of nonnative national identity. The study therefore has implications for histories of Mexican cinema, but in particular for Anglo-American film studies, which has tended to discuss race and cinema according to U.S. racial constructs and understandings. iii I dedicate this dissertation to my parents, who showed me many Mexicos, and to Alessandro, Lucia, and Tomás, with all my love. iv Acknowledgments The completion of this dissertation would not have been possible without the support and encouragement of many individuals. It is thanks to the efforts of a long line of educators throughout my life that I arrived at the possibility of pursuing graduate study. I am grateful to Professors Maria Rosa Olivera Williams, Encarnación Juarez Alemendros, Theodore Cachey, and John Welle who as an undergraduate were instrumental in my intellectual development and trajectory. I wish to thank my adviser, Laura Podalsky, who throughout my graduate career has offered me valuable guidance, unwavering support, and inspiration to persist in my endeavors. I will forever be grateful for the dedication and generosity she has shown me. I also wish to express my gratitude to Guisela LaTorre and Paloma Martínez- Cruz for their continued interest and support of my work, as well as to Ignacio Corona, who has been a valuable interlocutor throughout the writing process. The archival research for this dissertation would not have been possible without the financial support from the Tinker Foundation, the Center for Latin American Studies, the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The College of Arts and Sciences, and the Office of Diversity and Inclusion at The Ohio State University. I would also like to thank those who helped facilitate my research in Mexico City in v May of 2013 including Angel Martínez from the Filmoteca at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Gabriela Ramírez. Lastly, I would have been unable to complete this project without the love and encouragement of my family. I would like to thank my mother, Cecilia Blizzard, for the support and wisdom she has offered me throughout the trying moments of this process. Lastly, I am deeply grateful to my husband, Alessandro Menegon, for his dedication, joy and patience. vi Vita 2009.....................B.A. Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Notre Dame 2010.....................M.A. Italian Studies, University of Notre Dame 2012.....................M.A. Latin American Literatures and Cultures, The Ohio State University 2010 to 2015........Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, The Ohio State University Publications García Blizzard, Mónica. “Whiteness and the Ideal of Modern Mexican Citizenship in Tepeyac (1917),” Vivomatografías. Revista de estudios sobre precine y cine silente en Latinoamérica. Dec. 2015. 72-95. Fields of Study Major Field: Spanish and Portuguese vii Table of Contents Abstract....................................................................................................................... ii Dedication................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments....................................................................................................... v Vita............................................................................................................................. vii Table of Contents..................................................................................................... viii List of Figures.............................................................................................................. x Introduction..................................................................................................................1 The Native and the Nation............................................................................................ 1 The Native On Screen................................................................................................... 7 Chapter 1: The Ethnographic Spectacle in Mexican Cinema.............................. 18 Introduction................................................................................................................. 18 Anthropology and Nation building in Mexico............................................................ 20 The Anthropological Discourse in Ethnography and Film......................................... 25 Peregrinación a Chalma (1922): A Mexican Ethnographic Research Film.............. 34 Maclovia (1948) as lyrical ethnography..................................................................... 55 Ethnographic Seeping................................................................................................. 80 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 101 Chapter 2: “White” Indians................................................................................... 104 Introduction............................................................................................................... 104 The Persistent Privilege of “Whiteness” in Post Independence Mexico............. Indigenista Visual Production....................................................................... 104 Feminist and Race Film Theory.................................................................... 120 Colonizing Desire......................................................................................... 123 Colonizing Subjectivity................................................................................ 128 “Whiteness” and Hegemony......................................................................... 131 “Whiteness” and Indigenous Womanhood in Mexican Cinema............................... 135 Reimagining (and “Whitening”) the Past: The Pristine pre-Columbian....... 135 Taming the Tehuana..................................................................................... 147 viii Revolutionary Politics, Reactionary Aesthetics ........................................... 156 A “White” Indita for a Modern Mexico: María Isabel (1968) .................... 169 The exceptions: Janitzio (1934) and “La potranca” (Raíces 1954).............. 173 What about men? Indios, “whiteness,” and Desire in Mexican Cinema.................. 178 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 186 Chapter 3: Spiritual Otherness.............................................................................. 188 Introduction............................................................................................................... 188 Catholicism and National Hegemony....................................................................... 203 Distanced Idealization............................................................................................... 222 Approximation and Spiritual Mestizaje.................................................................... 235 “Progress” and the Secular Critique of Native Beliefs............................................. 254 Shock and Horror: Reimagining Native Spiritual Beliefs in Genre Films............... 262 Conclusion................................................................................................................ 271

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