Academic literature on the topic 'Marí­a Candelaria'

Chapter 3 discusses the problematic fictional indigenista film genre. Falling under the political ideology of indigenismo—discourses advocating for the social and economic integration of indigenous populations at the beginning of the twentieth century—the intended goal of the film genre was to introduce the “indigenous experience” to urban, mestizo audiences. Cinema held a unique position in this construction, but presented contradictory messages: it neither fully promoted nor totally negated integrationist procedures through the cinematic constructions of indigenous cultures. Within these representations, music played a crucial role in not just providing adequate changes in atmosphere but also in sonically depicting the indigenous experience. The chapter focuses on two films, Janitzio (1935) and María Candelaria (1944). These films both enforce exoticist representations that moved against integrationist discourses. While the cinematic interpretations indicate that modern society attempted to integrate these communities, the exoticist aural and visual representations of these communities amplified their Otherness.

This chapter looks at an especially interesting articulation of the posthuman within the indigenista films of Emilio “El Indio” Fernández. It identifies an attempt to modernize indigenous peasants by exposing their bodies to modern medicine. The chapter views these films in the context of Roberto Esposito’s “immunization paradigm,” a biopolitical theory that compares the medical process of immunization to the state’s role of subject creation. When a people lacks a natural immunity to a vice (improper performativity of race and gender in the case of these films), a new actor, such as the state, must step in and provide an artificial immunity. Using this theoretical framework, the chapter analyzes the films Río Escondido (1947), María Candelaria (1944), Enamorada (1946), and The Torch (1950). The readings suggest that we approach these films as allegories for a postrevolutionary society where immunological discourses prescribe appropriate gender and racial performativity for the nation.