La imagen de la revolución y de la mujer en la novela y el cine de la revolucion mexicana

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2005

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The focus of this study is on the colonial discourse of the political society and state embedded within the Mexican novel and cinema depicting the Mexican Revolution. A critical analysis is set forth focusing on the image that is constructed of the social movement and of women within this context and these two mediums of communication. The intent of this study is to show how myths, an integral part of colonial discourse in any society, play a central role in the construction of a post-revolutionary cultural identity, which was the desired outcome of those in power or the status quo. Similarly, the intent is to deconstruct these myths to examine omissions, exaggerations, or the deformation of the reality of this social movement and the role of women in the Mexican Revolution. What this analysis reveals is that the image of the Mexican Revolution in Mexican novels primarily represents the perspective of the revolutionary bourgeoisie, the social class to which most of the novelists and consumers of novels belonged. Somewhat in contrast, and in general, Mexican cinema projected a more favorable though idealized image of the common revolutionary and of the revolution. The image of women portrayed through the novel was sparse and they rarely appeared as revolutionaries or intellectuals. The only two instances where they are represented as such is in one novel authored by a woman and another written by a Marxist. Within cinema, where women were portrayed as revolutionaries, their image can be characterized as extreme or caricature-like. The study is significant in that very few studies jointly examine the role of these two mediums as tools for colonial discourse. To my knowledge there is no study that examines the patriarchal image of this social movement or the image of the Mexican women revolutionaries in either the Mexican novel or cinema. In fact, it has only been about two decades since researchers began to examine the role of women in the Mexican Revolution from an official historical perspective.

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