Exploring Masculinity in Popular Mexican Film

• In Event: Masculinity & Femininity in Colonial Contexts: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Abstract

The turn of the twenty-first century has witnessed Latin American cinema’s growing exposure to the global economy. Mexican film production, specifically, proliferated between 1933 and 1964, contributing to a Mexican tradition of filmmaking that normalized misogynistic representations of Mexican life. The current mainstreaming of Mexican directors, consequently, demands critical attention toward the (re)construction of such tropes.

Mexico’s national imaginary relies on normative gender norms that reaffirm nationalist and colonialist narratives. As popular media increasingly constructs brown men as violent, primitive, and insatiably sexually aggressive, special attention must be paid to the ways in which Mexico’s most widely watched directors perpetuate, or subvert, gender archetypes. This paper examines how popular films, such as Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también, construct masculinity through gender and race, and considers possible implications.

Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también mobilizes cinematic techniques to examine how gender identities function within Mexico’s national project. The popular film asks viewers to consider how masculinity is intimately intertwined within heterosexuality. As such, the film engages in a discussion that implicates the limitations of traditional masculinity in Mexico which exists alongside the ongoing project of colonialism, racialized subject making, and the national project of mestizaje. Consequently, a close examination of the movie can illuminate our understanding of Mexican masculinity and how specific social categories intersect and subjugate people.

Author

• Zachary R Hernandez, Texas Tech University