Notes on Modernity and Golden Age Mexican Cinema

post identity
Blind Men and Fallen Women: Notes on Modernity and
Golden Age Mexican Cinema
Andrew G. Wood
A blind man is sacred, you don’t steal from a blind
man.
—José Saramago, Blindness
When a girl goes bad, men go right after her.
—Mae West
WITH A REMARKABLE CAPACITY to document events and
capture the imagination of viewers, film and television have
engaged audiences all over the world. However falsely at
times, these media channel images and information that
tell us much about our society and ourselves. Presently
surpassing newspapers as the most popular means by which
the arbitration of social and political meaning takes place,
film and television have come to play a leading role in
determining how people imagine themselves as individuals,
as family members, and as part of a larger modern, national
“community.”1
Recent discussion regarding the influence of film and
television in Mexico has been particularly dynamic as
scholars consider the ways producers and directors have
attempted to forge a sense of mexicanidad. Here, cinematic
constructions of national—as well as other related forms of
identity—proved to be especially critical between 1930 and
1960, when postrevolutionary Mexico underwent a period
of rapid social change. Wanting to create films that would
“tell their own stories,” a handful of directors during the
1940s launched what would later be called the “Golden
Age” (El Cine del Oro) of Mexican cinema. In many of
these films, audiences were presented with a series of
allegorical tales that offered commentary on family, religion,
politics, and other social issues.
Recent literature on Mexican film has contributed to a
new appreciation of representations of gender in Golden
Age Mexican film. Julia Tuñón’s Mujeres de luz y sombra:
1
For an excellent collection of essays on turn of
the century society and
film, see Charney and
Schwartz.
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2
Other contributions
include Maciel and
Hershfield; Paranaguá;
King; and King, López
and Alvarado, as well as
the better known Mora
and Berg. See also
Pilcher.
La construcción de una imagen, 1932–1952, for example,
examines the various ways men—and especially women—
have been portrayed in Golden Age film. Works published
in the United States, including Joanne Hershf ield’s
Mexican Cinema, Mexican Woman, 1940 – 1950, also
provide new analysis on gendered images, archetypes, and
stereotypes. Together with a wide range of other
publications, the growing literature on film suggests that
cinema provides important source material for the study of
Mexican society.2 This short essay builds on the work of
contemporar y f ilm historians to focus primarily on
constructions of both male and female identity in two
monumental Mexican films: Antonio Moreno’s Santa
(1932) and Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados (1950). Here I hope
to add new insight by discussing relations between two
specific character types—blind men and fallen women—by
considering the various ways these figures responded to
larger cultural changes in Mexican society.
In selecting these cinematic figures, I suggest that blind
men and fallen women (a.k.a. dance hall girls, prostitutes,
las ficheras) embodied a growing modernity in Mexico as
well as a corresponding anxiety, uncertainty, and cultural
crisis. I argue these archetypical figures provide important
material and commentary on macro-social processes
usually left vague and socially unspecified when considered
under the rubric of such terms as “urbanization,”
“modernization,” and “industrialization” among others.
Cabareteras and The City
The Mexican Revolution ( 1910 – 17 ), combined with
several decades of economic growth, contributed to the
establishment of new social practices, forms of association,
and identities in Mexico after 1920. Contrasting sharply
with the elite-dominated civic culture of the preceding
Porfirian Era (1876–1911), a new, more open civil society
emerged as middling and popular groups gained control of
government, organized labor unions, and worked to
rebuild the nation. Helping to realize this change was the
fact that between 1895 and 1940 those occupying a middle
position in the Mexican class structure increased by nearly
one hundred percent (Hanson 39 –40 ). Subsequently,
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economic growth during the 1940s attracted a significant
migration from rural to urban areas and created a sharp
increase in the number of women active in the workforce
(Hershfield 25, 31).
Closely connected with this period of rapid change,
Mexican electronic media reflected the dynamic character
of a society becoming increasingly urban and modern.
Beginning in the 1930 s, cinema came to ref lect the
growing flux, ephemerality, and fragmentation commonly
associated with the advent of modernity and the related
development of mass culture. In Antonio Moreno’s 1932
film version of Federico Gamboa’s turn of the century novel,
Santa, social change in Mexico was characterized in movie
houses through a narrative that followed one young
woman’s decline into prostitution and the shadowy
underworld of Mexico City. In the years to come, Santa
would serve as an important prototype for what would
become in the 1940s a specific genre of Mexican Golden
Age film: the dance hall or cabaretera film (Monsiváis, qtd.
in de los Reyes 123).3
In these films, stories of a nice young women and men
who turn “bad” after arriving in the “corrupt metropolis”
offered commentary on the emerging social order headed
A n d re w G . Wo o d
Santa. Courtesy
Agrasanchez Film
Archive, Harlingen,
Texas.
3
Santa also represented
one of the first Mexican
films to feature sound.
For a discussion of
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production history see
García Riera.
4
In some ways, Aleman’s
reputation as a playboy
known for his liaisons with
Hollywood actresses was
fitting for an era when
middle class and elite
groups patronized various
entertainment venues in
unprecedented numbers.
5
On women in film noir
see, for example, Kaplan.
6
On Santa as the
archetypical suffering
woman in Mexican film,
see Monsivaís 1966.
by Mexico City bureaucrats and middle class businessmen.
According to film scholar Carl Mora, these new elites
fomented a clash between “old” and “new” values
[because they] lacked the ingrained conservatism of their
forbears” (84).4 Golden Age cabareteras often presented
characters that—as in film noir—found themselves in
ambiguous situations brought on by social-historical forces
largely outside their control.5 Like the fallen women who
would follow her in films from the 1940s, Santa can be
seen as the quintessential “suffering Mexican woman” who
falls from grace after migrating to the city.6 Representing
ways in which many found themselves embroiled in a
troublesome tangle of lost opportunity, cabareteras offered
an important commentary on the plight of Mexico’s urban
middle and working class.
At first glance, the melodramatic portrayals of fallen
women in cabareteras essentially served as cautionary tales
for those coming to the city as these films made visible the
anxiety associated with a rapidly changing society from both
male and female perspectives. With women entering the
workforce in unprecedented numbers, for example,
cabareteras created a space for discussing important issues
such as family, sexuality and gender identity (Hershfield
11 ). Dance hall f ilms also engendered the social
repercussions of developing Mexico as they presented
melodramas touching on issues related to religion,
nationalism, and modernization. In their melodramatic
portrayals they often used women in roles that historian
Joanne Hershfield describes as “readymade symbols of
[social] instability” (3). Yet at the same time, cabareteras
also represented ways in which Mexicans were not only
challenged by (usually anonymous and off-screen) forces
of historical change but also consciously acted as agents of
social change to forge new relationships and modern
identities. Thus, while historians have rightly argued that
these films disseminated new codes of conduct and ways
of being for Mexicans recently arrived in the city, a second
look at the discourse of the cabaretera reveals a complex
reality when considering the representation (and possible
reception) of male and female roles.
As recent discussions of Golden Age film suggest,
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cinematic discourse implicitly included not only a desire to
preserve traditional gender roles but, at the same time,
endeavored to construct a “revised position” for women
in modern society.7 To this I would add that because these
identities only make sense when seen in relationship to
others, the consideration of how cinema mediated between
the traditional and modern in representations of women
must include an appreciation of this dynamic in the
construction of male identities as well. One way to
appreciate how film represented these social tensions is by
looking at the characterization of Santa and her friend,
blind man musician Hipólito.
Santa and Hipólito
Initially, Santa is an innocent country girl who happily lives
with her family in a small village. Soon, however, she is
seduced and subsequently abandoned by a soldier.
Learning of their sister’s relationship, Santa’s brothers
insist she leave town. Soon, her excommunication pushes
her to Mexico City where she quickly find herself in the
parlor of a high class brothel surrounded by attractive young
women and watched carefully by a cigar smoking madam.
Santa joins the other “ladies” at a large dinner table and is
pleasantly surprised by her surroundings. The madam shows
her how to eat soup properly while the other women giggle
and ask if she has a boyfriend. They suggest that Santa will
soon have “lots of boyfriends” and drink a toast in her
name. One of the women then takes her to the brothel
entrance where a number of men arrive. The men and
women then pair up, laughing and joking, while Santa looks
on in shock. Realizing her predicament, Santa then goes
into the parlor where people are dancing and a blind
musician named Hipólito is playing a tune on the piano.
While it is apparent that Santa does not know how to dance
very well, the madam looks at her and seems pleased with
her “catch.” Shortly thereafter, Hipólito affectionately says
her name to himself as the scene ends. With this, it is clear
to the audience that the once innocent country girl has
begun her descent into the dangerous underworld of
Mexico City.
As the story unfolds, Santa’s fall from grace is a pre-
A n d re w G . Wo o d
7
See Hershfield chapter
2, and Tuñon, chapter 3.
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8
The idea of different
Mexican male archetypes
draws on Macias
González.
9
Lara wrote the music for
the film, while Miguel
Lerdo de Tejada acted as
musical director. Lara’s
songs include: “Santa,”
(played by Carlos
Orellana), a fox trot, a
danzón (danced in the
film by actress Lupita
dictable one as her situation goes from bad to worse. Along
the way we realize her only friend is Hipólito. Blind in a
society whose traditional ways are seemingly under attack,
Hipólito’s ability to appreciate Santa’s hard-luck situation
guides the audience. Despite the fact that she has been
forced to sell her body to the night, Santa—as the name of
the film suggests—has not lost her inner purity.
Although the story of Santa is fairly well known, less
has been made of Hipólito and his relationship to the young
female protagonist. Interestingly, Hipólito articulates a
persona that is neither macho, mandilón (one who is tied
to his mother’s apron strings and thus is dominated by
women), or maricón (homosexual). Instead, he is more
akin to figures such as the gentleman scholar, the writer,
and the artist-musician—all of whom take a more
contemplative view of social relationships and society.8 Yet
Hipólito’s blindness gives him a special quality, one that
suggests to the audience that he is a man who profoundly
“sees” despite the fact that he is physically blind.
Resonating with popular notions attributing righteousness
and wisdom to blind men, Hipólito’s disability gives him
moral authority whereas almost everyone around him is
thought to be corrupt.
As the film progresses, idle hours at the bordello allow
time for Hipólito and Santa to develop their friendship.
When other people are present, Hipólito plays his piano
and smokes cigarettes while contemplating Santa at a distance. At one point, he stops and asks his young
companion (Genaro) what Santa looks like. Listening, he
plays on the piano gently while the boy describes her hair,
face and figure while telling Hipólito “she seems like the
virgin in the church.”
After a while, Santa asks Hipólito to play her a song.
He agrees and sings the Agustín Lara composition, “Santa.”9
From the lyrics it is clear that Hipólito idolizes Santa,
saying that she is a beautiful “star who has shed her light
on him.” As Hipólito sings his passion contrasts with the
cynicism of the women working at the bordello who laugh
and make fun of him. The moral bankruptcy of modern
society becomes even more apparent the next day when
drunks sing his song in the street and a newsboy shouts
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“Santa” [sheet music] for sale! Marginalized and alone in a
cruel world, Hipólito is shown to the audience as Santa’s
male counterpart.
As her misfortune continues, Santa learns that her
mother has died. Mourning her loss, she goes to a nearby
church where a funeral is in progress. Dressed in white,
Santa prays inside while the parishioners—all in black—look
at her with suspicion. Once outside, a woman assails Santa
by saying, “Oh, you’ve been at the church to resolve your
sins—you are a hypocrite!” Deeply insulted, Santa attacks
her and a fight breaks out. Minutes later, police arrive and
arrest Santa. Soon, Santa is back at the bordello looking
quite sick. At one point she glances at the piano and touches
it. She hears Hipólito’s song in her head as well as the
women’s mocking laughter. Later, while working in a lowclass bar, she and another woman are seen drinking with a
couple of men. Exhausted and sick, she passes out. Left
with virtually nowhere to turn, Santa encounters Hipólito.
“I am far from God,” Santa tells him. Still caring for her,
Hipólito invites her to live with him. She accepts.
Once in the house of the blind man, Santa comes out
one morning and happily greets Hipólito. “It is like a dream
here,” she says. They go to church together and pray. She
thanks Hipólito for his kindness while the blind man asks
God to protect her. Soon, however, we learn that Santa’s
decline is nearly complete as the next scene finds her in the
hospital with Hipólito and Genaro waiting outside. Telling
her doctor, “I am in your hands,” Santa is operated on but
soon dies. As the hospital staff wheel her body out for
Hipólito and Genaro the “Santa” music plays. Seeing her
dead, Hipólito places his ring on her hand and caresses her
before walking off. Realizing that he will forever be denied
the opportunity to live with the woman he truly loved, the
film’s melodramatic ending encourages audiences to
identify not only with the tragic decline of the female
protagonist but with her leading man Hipólito. In him was
embodied a love and respect for women that other
“modern” men seemingly no longer possess.
In Santa and subsequent films like it, the story of the
fallen woman illustrates some of the worst possibilities for
newcomers to the city. Encountering adversity, the
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Tovar and a partner), as
well as another piece to
which Santa dances in her
room. Lara also provided
some Andalusian
sounding music for the
background of a party
scene (Riera 51).
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10
In some ways, Aleman’s
reputation as a young
attractive playboy known
for his liaisons with
Hollywood actresses was
fitting for an era when
middle class and elite
groups patronized various
entertainment venues in
unprecedented numbers.
For photos of various
cabaretera/rumbera
female stars, see Castill.
heroine is faced with difficult choices in a complex urban
environment. Unable to make it as a “good woman,” she
subsequently turns “bad.” Thus, through the course of
these films, a cinematic parable unfolds which encourages
the audience to reaffirm traditional family values.
As cabareteras f lourished during the 1940 s, the
administration of Mexican President Miguel Alemán (1946–
52) presided over a period of rapid social and economic
change.10 A dramatic formula for the time, dance hall films
offered a criticism of the emerging postwar social order
headed by Alemán, Mexico City bureaucrats and middle
class businessmen. According to Carl Mora, “the new elites
…lacked the ingrained conservatism of their forbears and
their lack of total commitment to the old ethical and sexual
code is interestingly reflected in the wave of cabaretera films
of this period” (84). Yet, if dance hall films criticized the
new modern order in Mexico for an apparent lack of
traditional values, how exactly did they do this? In looking
at the 1943 version of Santa, one obvious way is through
the audience identifying not only with the tragic decline of
the female protagonist but also with her leading man—the
blind musician Hipólito. In him is embodied the morality
and respect for women that other “modern” men
seemingly no longer possess.
Variations on a Theme
Interestingly, variations on the Santa/Hipólito formula were
used to exemplify tension between so-called traditional and
modern values in other cabaretera films of the 1940s. In
the 1948 film Revancha, Cuban actress Ninón Sevilla costars with Agustín Lara who plays a sensitive musician. In
this melodrama, Sevilla works as a nightclub dancer tangled
up with the Veracruz maf ia, while Lara’s character
eventually dies in a cabaret shoot out. In Coqueta (1949),
Lara plays Rubén who is a blind musician. Here, the action
centers on an innocent young orphan girl named Marta
(Sevilla again) who, while separated from her brother Mario,
soon finds herself embroiled in a number of conflicts.
After going to Veracruz and meeting a smooth character
named Luciano, she is taken to a cabaret where she gets
drunk. The next thing we know she is on stage filling in
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for one of the club dancers. Once the woman catches wind
of Marta’s success, the two get in an awful catfight.
Fortunately for Marta, the blind piano player (Rubén) comes
to her rescue and welcomes her into his home. After she
has had a chance to heal her wounds, she then takes a job
as a dancer and moves in with another man named Rivera
who is the owner of the club. Shortly thereafter, Marta
and Rivera disagree and she becomes very sick after an attempted poisoning by her now ex-boyfriend. With this,
she again relies on the charity of the blind man who idolizes her. Soon feeling better, Marta then meets a young
man, Rodolfo, and falls in love with him. Tragically, however, we learn that Rodolfo is the son of Rubén and so it
becomes clear that Marta’s love for the young man will be
the downfall of his father. As Marta and Rodolfo get ready
to leave Veracruz, we see Rubén for the last time as he
approaches the couple and shoots Marta in a jealous rage
before collapsing in the street. Tragically, she dies in the
arms of Rodolfo and the film ends.
While different in several ways, Lara’s role as the blind
A n d re w G . Wo o d
Coqueta. Courtesy
Agrasanchez Film
Archive, Harlingen,
Texas.
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11
A minor film from the
same year titled Hipólito
de la Santa (dir. Fernando
de Fuentes) was intended
as a sequel to Santa and
contains many of the same
“blind man” stock
character elements.
musician Rubén in Coqueta is similar to Hipólito in Santa.11
In each portrayal, the blind man plays an essential part in
the urban underworld. Whether brothel or cabaret, he,
like the fallen woman, is a man condemned because of his
blindness (either literally or figuratively) to live on the
margins of society. Consequently, there is a tragic equation
between the sympathetic figures of the blind men and the
fallen woman characters. In each, the relationship between
the two is ambiguously divided in various ways between
caring and corruption and, by extension, the traditional
and the modern. While both characters demonstrate their
capacity to love, modern social circumstances constantly
challenge their good intentions. Here, the fact that
temptation and corruption threaten the integrity of these
characters is the essential ingredient in all of these stories.
And it is not only the fallen woman who acts as a lens
through which the audience can appreciate the confusions,
deceptions, and moral dilemmas of modern life, but also
the blind man. In idealized terms, the fallen woman and
blind man thus form an allegorical couple that, from the
margins of modern society, struggles to survive in the city
environment. When occasionally a young boy like Genaro
joins their interaction, he only adds to the important
“family” dimension of the formula. Because each of these
characters is thought to be pure of heart, the audience
identifies with them. In effect, the fallen woman and the
blind man stand in for nearly all Mexicans who, in the 1930s
and 1940s, find themselves part of a society in the throes of
rapid change. Obser ving the action of these two
characters on-screen, viewers are made to reflect on their
own situation and are encouraged to act in a morally
responsible way.
While highly melodramatic, Santa and Hipólito
provide a cinematic critique of modernizing Mexico. In
certain ways their stories offer an appreciation of complex
social and cultural negotiations. Vulnerable and alone in
the city, each struggles to “do good” and maintain certain
traditional values while at the same time having to adapt to
modern life. Because of their situation, neither can simply
resort to ready-made ideas about the way women and men
should be. Instead, both the fallen woman and the blind
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man are confronted with difficult circumstances that
require constant adaptation on their part. While in the end
they often fail to make a happy life for themselves they
nevertheless engage audiences in meaningful moral
discourse. Moving from the cabaretera genre, another
important film that took up many of the same social
concerns but rejected the melodramatic formula of the
dance hall film in favor of a new social realist approach was
Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados.
The Blind Man and Los Olvidados
In the transition from the cabareteras of the late 1940s to
the hard-edged realism of Los Olvidados (1950), Mexican
film began to take on an even more ambivalent relationship
to social and cultural change.12 At the same time, there is
less of a repositioning of gender identities at work as
characters face the challenges of modernizing Mexico. The
drama follows a group of poor young boys as they struggle
to survive in the shantytowns of Mexico City. Early on we
are introduced to an old blind man named don Carmelo
(Miguel Inclán) who plays music in the street to earn a
meager living. Soon, he employs and exploits a young naïve
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12
While Buñuel was
Spanish, Los Olvidados is
considered an important
work of Mexican film
because of the director’s
residence in
Mexico, as well as
his significant
incorporation of
Mexican actors,
scenery, and
behind-the-scenes
production staff.
Los Olvidados. Courtesy
Agrasanchez Film
Archive, Harlingen,
Texas.
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13
He says “Ahora les voy
a cantar el corrido de mi
general don Porfirio Díaz
Ríanse, pero en tiempos
de mi general había más
respeto y las mujeres se
esteban en la casa, no
como ahora, que andan
por ahí engañando a los
maridos.” (Riera 157).
boy from the countryside whom he calls “little eyes”
(Ojitos). Carmelo often sings songs and makes statements
which are nostalgic for the “old days” of the late
nineteenth century when he says, just before launching
into a little ditty, “were not like today” but “when women
knew their place and didn’t run around in the street
deceiving their husbands” and so on.13
In an early scene, we watch the blind man walking
across a vacant lot where new modern building are going
up in the background. Soon, three boys led by neighborhood bully Jaibo approach him. Carmelo hears them and
asks them to have pity on a poor blind man. Eager to
humiliate the vulnerable old man to prove their own
physical prowess, the three attack Carmelo with dirt balls,
beat him, kick in his drum, and then run.
As the film progresses, Jaibo and his more well
intentioned friend Pedro engage in a number of activities,
all the while getting themselves into deeper trouble with
family, neighborhood residents, and society at large.
Eventually, Jaibo kills Pedro and then is shot by the police
while Carmelo—hearing the gun shots off in the distance
that kill Jaibo—praises the death of the young delinquent
and his lot. Longing for a return to the “good old days,”
the blind man gleefully says, “one less, one less, they should
all end that way.” For him, the new urban society of high
rise buildings, telephones, radios, fast cars, and degenerate
youth represented a chaotic and dangerous turn for the
worse in Mexico.
Because of his blindness, Carmelo desires an orderly
life with everything and everyone in their place—hence his
nostalgic lamentations for the days of don Porfirio. At the
same time, the blind man not only fears change because it
may bring inconvenience and new challenges for him
physically but also because it represents a corrosion of
traditional values. Seemingly limited in what he can do to
adapt to social change, Buñuel’s blind man nevertheless
serves as an important character in dramatizing the clash
between new and old Mexico.
As confrontations between Carmelo, the various
younger characters, and other picaresque elements in Los
Olvidados make clear, Mexico is a city in transition. Under
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the directorship of Buñuel, the social realism of the film
advances a more complicated portrait of urbanizing Mexico
than what is presented in the cabaratera films. With Los
Olvidados, Buñuel takes the ambiguity of social relationships and identities present in Golden Age film to a new,
more disturbing level. In this transition, various fallen
women and blind men lead the way.
Conclusion
Blind musicians Carmelo and Hipólito together with Santa
and the many other fallen women of f ilm offer an
interesting number of possible ways to view modernizing
Mexican society during the 1930 s and 1940 s. While
certainly melodramatic, a second look at these characters
gives us more than two-dimensional figures and formulaic
plots. In certain cases, they provide an initial glimpse into
the complex negotiations of gender identity, morality, and
social relations.
Vulnerable and alone, each struggles to “do good”
and maintain certain traditional values while at the same
time having to adapt to life in the city. Because of their
situation, neither can simply resort to ready-made ideas
about the way women and men should be. Instead, both
the fallen woman and the blind man are confronted with
difficult circumstances that require constant negotiation
on their part. In the end, they often fail. Nevertheless, what
is interesting for the observer is not the way these stories
end but the way in which they are played out. It is here
that valuable discussion regarding the social and cultural
processes involved in what we refer to as “urbanization”
and “modernization” can more precisely be located and
studied. While there remains much to be done in thinking
about how cinematic representations of society actually
square historically, an examination of the production and
reception of film images, characters, and storylines do serve
as important sources to ponder.
Works Cited
Berg, Charles Ramírez. Cinema of Solitude: A Critical Study
of Mexican Film, 1967–1983. (Austin: U of Texas P,
1992).
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Charney, Leo and Vanessa R. Schwartz, ed. Cinema and
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de los Reyes, Aurelio. Medio Siglo de Cine Mexicano, 1896–
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Hanson Roger D. The Politics of Mexican Development.
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Hershfield Joanne. Mexican Cinema, Mexican Woman,
1940–1950. Tucson, AZ: U of Arizona P, 1996.
Kaplan, E. Ann, ed. Women in Film Noir. London: British
Film Institute, 1978.
King, John. Magic Reels: A History of Cinema in Latin
America. London: Verso, 1990.
—, Ana M. López, and Manuel Alvarado, ed. Mediating
Two Worlds: Cinematic Encounters in the Americas.
London: British Film Institute, 1993.
Macias González, Victor. “Defining the Masculine in
Porfirian Mexico: From the Dandy to the Drag
Queen.” Paper presented at the University of Arizona
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Maciel, David and Joanne Hershfield, ed. Mexico’s Cinema:
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Books, 1999.
Monsiváis, Carlos. “Santa: el cine naturalista.” Anuario 1965.
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Mora, Carl. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society, 1896–
1988. Berkeley: U of California P, 1989.
Paranaguá, Paulo Antonio, ed. Mexican Cinema. London:
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Pilcher, Jeffrey M. Cantinflas and the Chaos of Mexican
Modernity. Wilmington: SR Books, 2000.
Tuñón Julia. Mujeres de luz y sombra: La construcción de
una imagen, 1932–1952. Mexico City: Colegio de
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