Looking for Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity

Turning to film, Mraz compares portrayals of the Mexican Revolution by Fernando de Fuentes to the later movies of Emilio Fernandez and Gabriel Figueroa. He considers major stars of Golden Age cinema as gender archetypes for mexicanidad, juxtaposing the charros (hacienda cowboys) embodied by Pedro Infante, Pedro Armendariz, and Jorge Negrete with the effacing women: the mother, Indian, and shrew as played by Sara Garcia, Dolores del Rio, and Maria Felix. Mraz also analyzes the leading comedians of the Mexican screen, representations of the 1968 student revolt, and depictions of Frida Kahlo in films made by Paul Leduc and Julie Taymor. Filled with more than fifty illustrations, Looking for Mexico is an exuberant plunge into Mexico’s national identity, its visual culture, and the connections between the two.

John Mraz is a Research Professor with the Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades at Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico. He is the author of Nacho Lopez, Mexican Photographer and La Mirada Inquieta: Nuevo fotoperiodismo mexicano, 1976–1996 and a co-author of Uprooted: Braceros in the Hermanos Mayo Lens.