The White Indians of Mexican Cinema
Autor: Mónica García Blizzard
Número de Páginas: 209Examines the filmic representation of Whiteness as Indigeneity and its role in mediating racial politics in Mexico. Honorable Mention, 2024 International Latino Book Award in the Best Academic Themed Book, College Level – English category The White Indians of Mexican Cinema theorizes the development of a unique form of racial masquerade-the representation of Whiteness as Indigeneity-during the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, from the 1930s to the 1950s. Adopting a broad decolonial perspective while remaining grounded in the history of local racial categories, Mónica García Blizzard argues that this trope works to reconcile two divergent discourses about race in postrevolutionary Mexico: the government-sponsored celebration of Indigeneity and mestizaje (or the process of interracial and intercultural mixing), on the one hand, and the idealization of Whiteness, on the other. Close readings of twenty films and primary source material illustrate how Mexican cinema has mediated race, especially in relation to gender, in ways that project national specificity, but also reproduce racist tendencies with respect to beauty, desire, and protagonism that survive to this day. This sweeping...