Satire, Social Criticism, and Political Transitions in Rius’ "La perestroika" (1990)

• In Event: Journalism and the Making of Political Identities in Latin America

Abstract

Satirical writing has a long tradition in Mexico. Political cartooning became a regular practice in Mexican newspapers in the 1840’s (Fausta Gantús), emerging with the development of the modern press (Laura Alicino) and began to exert considerable influence in the public sphere, even during the conservative rule of Porfirio Díaz (Fausta Gantús). The post-revolutionary government’s advocacy and patronage of universal public education prompted a rapid growth in literacy rates (Anne Rubenstein). Thus, the comic book was established as a medium that combined forms of mass entertainment with the dissemination of chiefly hegemonic ideological positions. Eduardo del Río, better-known by the pseudonym Rius, subverted the role of the comic book from a medium of mass entertainment to an instrument for critical analysis of a myriad of social, political, and economic issues. Throughout his prolific career, Rius employed satire as a crucial critical tool. The events of ninety sixty-eight in both Mexico and Czechoslovakia marked a turning point for Rius’ political thought. Although much attention has been paid to Rius’ advocacy of socialism in Mexico, the influence of the Prague Spring and the transitions to democracy in Eastern Europe on his later work have not been studied. In this paper, I analyze the comic book La perestroika (1990) and demonstrate the shift of Rius’ critical thought away from Marxism-Leninism. Furthermore, I claim that Rius’ later work exhibits critical redefinitions of the cartoonist’s political thought, which ultimately leaned toward democratic socialism, within the context of the transition to democracy in Mexico.

Author

• Dorotea Lechkova, Washington University in St. Louis