Mexican Cinema Golden Age

Cultural Studies as a field of study in Latin America is a recent concept, which according to Santiago Castro-Gómez, dates from the 1980’s. The growing interest in this field has to do in part with a change in the Social Sciences language during the 1960’s and 1970’s in Latin America that introduced a different type of analysis to the region. In part, the change is due to the reconfiguration of the analysis of identities in Latin America. They stopped being analyzed as a “fixed repertoire of cohesive symbols as previously set out in the substantialist discourse of a Latin American ‘us’” (Richard 2012, 167).

In order to institutionalize Cultural Studies in Latin America it became necessary to adapt to new transdisciplinary ways of communication. This resulted in the entry of “the ‘popular’ into the field of academic investigation”. In an attempt to understand the institutionalization of Cultural Studies in Latin America I will work with the Mexican film industry of the 1940’s and the use of popular culture as a key factor in the creation of the Mexican identity during that time.

The film industry in Mexico had its golden age in the 1940’s, when Latin America was seen as a strategic area during the Second World War. The quick growth of the industry was the result of domestic and international political decisions, which included the creation of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter American Affairs in the United States. The organization, led by Nelson Rockefeller, had the objective of modifying the approach of the US to Latin America in order to avoid the influence by the Nazis during the war.

In 1943 the OCIAA gave Mexico’s cinema industry support in three specific areas: providing spare parts for the equipment of the film studios, economic incentives for producers, and advice by instructors from Hollywood to employees of the studios. However, this help did not come free. In case needed, the US could make use of propaganda and mobilization in Spanish speaking countries to favor the Ally cause. To boost the public diplomacy project through the cinema, the OCIAA created the Motion Picture Society for the Americas. It would be responsible of organizing multiple activities to engage members of the Mexican industry with US efforts.

The combination of external and internal factors helped Mexico develop the most important Spanish speaking cinema industry of the time. Although the US gave financial aid to develop and strengthen the already existing film industry in Mexico, the cultural identity remained a vital resource in the films. The entire structure of movie production and distribution was saturated with the rhetoric and the representation of nationalism. Mexican films nationalized Hollywood’s participation through the creation of new genres: melodramas and rancheras, to mention some. It was not an imitation of American films, not only because the economic resources for that were scarce, but also because Mexican producers adapted them to Mexican identity through local faces, landscapes, and ways of speaking (colloquialisms).

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Nelly Richard (2012) HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN CRITICAL DIALOGUES WITH CULTURAL STUDIES, Cultural Studies, 26:1, 166-177