Susana Vargas Cervantes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479876488
- eISBN:
- 9781479843428
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479876488.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
The Little Old Lady Killer focuses on the female serial killer Juana Barraza Samperio, a Mexican lucha libre wrestler who, disguised as a government nurse, strangled sixteen elderly women in Mexico ...
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The Little Old Lady Killer focuses on the female serial killer Juana Barraza Samperio, a Mexican lucha libre wrestler who, disguised as a government nurse, strangled sixteen elderly women in Mexico City. The search for the Mataviejitas (the killer of old women) was the first ever undertaken for a serial killer in Mexico. Following international profiling norms for serial killers, the police were initially looking for an ordinary-looking man, but after witness accounts described the Mataviejitas as wearing a wig and makeup, police changed their focus and began to search for a “travesti.” The book undertakes an analysis of the classed, gendered, and sexed transitions described in police reports and media accounts in relation to international criminological discourses and Mexican popular culture. On January 26, 2006, Juana Barraza was arrested as she fled the home of an elderly woman who had just been strangled with a stethoscope. Two years later, Barraza was convicted and sentenced to 759 years and 17 days; she remains in Santa Martha Acatitla to this day. I argue that La Dama del Silencio, Barraza’s masked wrestling identity, more than the woman herself became figured in official and popular discourse as the serial killer, La Mataviejitas. This displacement of personas reinforces national imaginaries of masculinity, femininity, and criminality. The national imaginaries of what constitutes a criminal female or male, in turn, determine crucial notions of mexicanidad within the country’s pigmentocratic culture, who counts as a victim, and how a criminal is constructed.Less
The Little Old Lady Killer focuses on the female serial killer Juana Barraza Samperio, a Mexican lucha libre wrestler who, disguised as a government nurse, strangled sixteen elderly women in Mexico City. The search for the Mataviejitas (the killer of old women) was the first ever undertaken for a serial killer in Mexico. Following international profiling norms for serial killers, the police were initially looking for an ordinary-looking man, but after witness accounts described the Mataviejitas as wearing a wig and makeup, police changed their focus and began to search for a “travesti.” The book undertakes an analysis of the classed, gendered, and sexed transitions described in police reports and media accounts in relation to international criminological discourses and Mexican popular culture. On January 26, 2006, Juana Barraza was arrested as she fled the home of an elderly woman who had just been strangled with a stethoscope. Two years later, Barraza was convicted and sentenced to 759 years and 17 days; she remains in Santa Martha Acatitla to this day. I argue that La Dama del Silencio, Barraza’s masked wrestling identity, more than the woman herself became figured in official and popular discourse as the serial killer, La Mataviejitas. This displacement of personas reinforces national imaginaries of masculinity, femininity, and criminality. The national imaginaries of what constitutes a criminal female or male, in turn, determine crucial notions of mexicanidad within the country’s pigmentocratic culture, who counts as a victim, and how a criminal is constructed.
Jacqueline Avila
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- October 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190671303
- eISBN:
- 9780190671341
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190671303.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, Ethnomusicology, World Music
Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity During Mexico’s Época de Oro is the first book-length study concerning the function of music in the prominent genres structured by the Mexican film ...
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Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity During Mexico’s Época de Oro is the first book-length study concerning the function of music in the prominent genres structured by the Mexican film industry. Integrating primary source material with film music studies, sound studies, and Mexican film and cultural history, this project closely examines examples from five significant film genres that developed during the 1930s through 1950s. These genres include the prostitute melodrama, the fictional indigenista film (films on indigenous themes or topics), the cine de añoranza porfiriana (films of Porfirian nostalgia), the revolutionary melodrama, and the comedia ranchera (ranch comedy). The musics in these films helped create and accentuate the tropes and archetypes considered central to Mexican cultural nationalism. Distinct in narrative and structure, each genre exploits specific, at times contradictory, aspects of Mexicanidad—the cultural identity of the Mexican people—and, as such, employs different musics to concretize those constructions. Throughout this turbulent period, these tropes and archetypes mirrored changing perceptions of Mexicanidad manufactured by the state and popular and transnational culture. Several social and political agencies were heavily invested in creating a unified national identity to merge the previously fragmented populace owing to the Mexican Revolution (1910–ca.1920). The commercial medium of film became an important tool in acquainting a diverse urban audience with the nuances of national identity, and music played an essential and persuasive role in the process. In this heterogeneous environment, cinema and its music continuously reshaped the contested, fluctuating space of Mexican identity.Less
Cinesonidos: Film Music and National Identity During Mexico’s Época de Oro is the first book-length study concerning the function of music in the prominent genres structured by the Mexican film industry. Integrating primary source material with film music studies, sound studies, and Mexican film and cultural history, this project closely examines examples from five significant film genres that developed during the 1930s through 1950s. These genres include the prostitute melodrama, the fictional indigenista film (films on indigenous themes or topics), the cine de añoranza porfiriana (films of Porfirian nostalgia), the revolutionary melodrama, and the comedia ranchera (ranch comedy). The musics in these films helped create and accentuate the tropes and archetypes considered central to Mexican cultural nationalism. Distinct in narrative and structure, each genre exploits specific, at times contradictory, aspects of Mexicanidad—the cultural identity of the Mexican people—and, as such, employs different musics to concretize those constructions. Throughout this turbulent period, these tropes and archetypes mirrored changing perceptions of Mexicanidad manufactured by the state and popular and transnational culture. Several social and political agencies were heavily invested in creating a unified national identity to merge the previously fragmented populace owing to the Mexican Revolution (1910–ca.1920). The commercial medium of film became an important tool in acquainting a diverse urban audience with the nuances of national identity, and music played an essential and persuasive role in the process. In this heterogeneous environment, cinema and its music continuously reshaped the contested, fluctuating space of Mexican identity.
Martha I. Chew Sánchez
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- September 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781496832368
- eISBN:
- 9781496832405
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496832368.003.0010
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter analyses the continuous negotiations and dialogues that are happening on both sides of the Atlantic regarding the construction of Mexicanidad and Hispanismo through música ranchera. The ...
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This chapter analyses the continuous negotiations and dialogues that are happening on both sides of the Atlantic regarding the construction of Mexicanidad and Hispanismo through música ranchera. The author emphasizes the role of Hispanismo during La época de oro del cine mexicano (The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema) from 1936 to 1959: for example, in the construction of Mexicanidad through Chavela Vargas, and through the appropriation of the estilo bravío performed originally by Lucha Reyes. This chapter explores especially the legacy of Cuco Sanchez and Chavela Vargas and concludes with a consideration of the new cultural dialogues that are currently taking place regarding música ranchera.Less
This chapter analyses the continuous negotiations and dialogues that are happening on both sides of the Atlantic regarding the construction of Mexicanidad and Hispanismo through música ranchera. The author emphasizes the role of Hispanismo during La época de oro del cine mexicano (The Golden Age of Mexican Cinema) from 1936 to 1959: for example, in the construction of Mexicanidad through Chavela Vargas, and through the appropriation of the estilo bravío performed originally by Lucha Reyes. This chapter explores especially the legacy of Cuco Sanchez and Chavela Vargas and concludes with a consideration of the new cultural dialogues that are currently taking place regarding música ranchera.
Susana Vargas Cervantes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479876488
- eISBN:
- 9781479843428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479876488.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
The introduction provides an overview of the case and an outline of the methodological frameworks that will serve as the analytic anchor points of the text. After describing my visit to see Juana ...
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The introduction provides an overview of the case and an outline of the methodological frameworks that will serve as the analytic anchor points of the text. After describing my visit to see Juana Barraza in prison, the introduction (1) contextualizes the story of the Mataviejitas by providing a brief history of criminality and serial killing in Mexico, (2) introduces the political concerns and long-standing rift between the government of Mexico City and the governing party of Mexico, and (3) lays out the main methodological tools I will use, mexicanidad and pigmentocracy.Less
The introduction provides an overview of the case and an outline of the methodological frameworks that will serve as the analytic anchor points of the text. After describing my visit to see Juana Barraza in prison, the introduction (1) contextualizes the story of the Mataviejitas by providing a brief history of criminality and serial killing in Mexico, (2) introduces the political concerns and long-standing rift between the government of Mexico City and the governing party of Mexico, and (3) lays out the main methodological tools I will use, mexicanidad and pigmentocracy.
Susana Vargas Cervantes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479876488
- eISBN:
- 9781479843428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479876488.003.0004
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter takes as its focus the intersection of the discourses of Mexican criminology (based on international narratives) and those of lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) spectacle. The analysis ...
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This chapter takes as its focus the intersection of the discourses of Mexican criminology (based on international narratives) and those of lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) spectacle. The analysis focuses on the merging of personas—the serial killer disguised as a nurse and that of La Dama del Silencio, the wrestler persona adopted by Juana Barraza, that various accounts used as evidence that she, Barraza, was indeed the serial killer. These discourses have served to criminalize La Dama del Silencio, the wrestler, more so than Juana Barraza, the woman. This chapter shows how discourses of criminality and the spectacle of lucha libre intersect to regulate and perform the parameters of mexicanidad, reinforcing the limits of Mexican masculinity and femininity, but also revealing these limits as subject to redefinition. The gendered, sexed and classed police and criminological accounts, that interpret Barraza’s wrestling practice, with “masculine” features, and “muscular” body, as proof that Barraza was “evil”, and therefore capable of killing “without remorse” are interrogated. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how this merging of personas, the serial killer and the wrestler, circulates in different popular cultural forms, including a cumbia music video, a novel, and a police video.Less
This chapter takes as its focus the intersection of the discourses of Mexican criminology (based on international narratives) and those of lucha libre (Mexican wrestling) spectacle. The analysis focuses on the merging of personas—the serial killer disguised as a nurse and that of La Dama del Silencio, the wrestler persona adopted by Juana Barraza, that various accounts used as evidence that she, Barraza, was indeed the serial killer. These discourses have served to criminalize La Dama del Silencio, the wrestler, more so than Juana Barraza, the woman. This chapter shows how discourses of criminality and the spectacle of lucha libre intersect to regulate and perform the parameters of mexicanidad, reinforcing the limits of Mexican masculinity and femininity, but also revealing these limits as subject to redefinition. The gendered, sexed and classed police and criminological accounts, that interpret Barraza’s wrestling practice, with “masculine” features, and “muscular” body, as proof that Barraza was “evil”, and therefore capable of killing “without remorse” are interrogated. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how this merging of personas, the serial killer and the wrestler, circulates in different popular cultural forms, including a cumbia music video, a novel, and a police video.
Susana Vargas Cervantes
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781479876488
- eISBN:
- 9781479843428
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479876488.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter analyzes the notion of mexicanidad in terms of its underlying religious associations and their relation to official discourses on criminality. The construction of what constitutes a ...
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This chapter analyzes the notion of mexicanidad in terms of its underlying religious associations and their relation to official discourses on criminality. The construction of what constitutes a “morally good” Mexican versus an “evil” one, based on religious beliefs—such as an adoration of La Santa Muerte (The Holy Death) and —was used in official discourses to pathologize Barraza’s beliefs as those of a lower-class Mexican who was “evil” by nature. Her beliefs, along with her socioeconomic class, were exploited in media coverage to link her to criminality and serve as evidence that she was indeed a serial killer. Popular adoration of La Santa Muerte (and the associated figure of Jesús Malaverde) is contrasted with that of figures with whom she shares many characteristics, but which are deemed much more acceptable within the discourses of mexicanidad: La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Catrina. The chapter also explores the figure of the macho and the notion of machismo in the everyday lives of Mexican men and women.Less
This chapter analyzes the notion of mexicanidad in terms of its underlying religious associations and their relation to official discourses on criminality. The construction of what constitutes a “morally good” Mexican versus an “evil” one, based on religious beliefs—such as an adoration of La Santa Muerte (The Holy Death) and —was used in official discourses to pathologize Barraza’s beliefs as those of a lower-class Mexican who was “evil” by nature. Her beliefs, along with her socioeconomic class, were exploited in media coverage to link her to criminality and serve as evidence that she was indeed a serial killer. Popular adoration of La Santa Muerte (and the associated figure of Jesús Malaverde) is contrasted with that of figures with whom she shares many characteristics, but which are deemed much more acceptable within the discourses of mexicanidad: La Virgen de Guadalupe and La Catrina. The chapter also explores the figure of the macho and the notion of machismo in the everyday lives of Mexican men and women.
Kathryn A. Sloan
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780520290310
- eISBN:
- 9780520964532
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520290310.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
The brief conclusion emphasizes the universality of Mexican attitudes and approaches to death. It refutes the suppositions of post-revolutionary Mexican intellectuals who theorized a unique Mexican ...
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The brief conclusion emphasizes the universality of Mexican attitudes and approaches to death. It refutes the suppositions of post-revolutionary Mexican intellectuals who theorized a unique Mexican character. Thinkers like Samuel Ramos and Octavio Paz—, and more recently, Claudio Lomnitz—have perpetuated a myth that Mexican society can be best defined by death. I wrap up the main arguments of the study of suicide to put to rest the idea that Mexicans possess a singular death cult.Less
The brief conclusion emphasizes the universality of Mexican attitudes and approaches to death. It refutes the suppositions of post-revolutionary Mexican intellectuals who theorized a unique Mexican character. Thinkers like Samuel Ramos and Octavio Paz—, and more recently, Claudio Lomnitz—have perpetuated a myth that Mexican society can be best defined by death. I wrap up the main arguments of the study of suicide to put to rest the idea that Mexicans possess a singular death cult.
Alejandro L. Madrid
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780190215781
- eISBN:
- 9780190215804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190215781.003.0003
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music, History, Western
By analyzing the composition and performance processes of Carrillo’s first opera, Matilde, this chapter offers a transhistorical exploration of the production of meaning in a particular musical work. ...
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By analyzing the composition and performance processes of Carrillo’s first opera, Matilde, this chapter offers a transhistorical exploration of the production of meaning in a particular musical work. It studies the opera as a site of contested and changing imaginaries of Mexican citizenship at the moment of composition in 1910 and at the moment of its premiere in 2010.Less
By analyzing the composition and performance processes of Carrillo’s first opera, Matilde, this chapter offers a transhistorical exploration of the production of meaning in a particular musical work. It studies the opera as a site of contested and changing imaginaries of Mexican citizenship at the moment of composition in 1910 and at the moment of its premiere in 2010.
Jacqueline Avila
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- October 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190671303
- eISBN:
- 9780190671341
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190671303.003.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Popular, Ethnomusicology, World Music
This chapter discusses the present state of research on music in Mexican cinema and why a study is so important. Building on frameworks of nationalism and cultural identity in Mexico the author ...
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This chapter discusses the present state of research on music in Mexican cinema and why a study is so important. Building on frameworks of nationalism and cultural identity in Mexico the author utilizes the concept of “cultural synchresis,” which draws upon sound theorist Michel Chion’s model of synchresis—the combination of synchronism and synthesis that arises when an auditory phenomenon and a visual phenomenon occur at the same time. Using this model, the author investigates how repetitions of film—as bodies of music, the moving image, and narrative working in tandem—molded diverse codes of national identity construction aimed and recognized by urban audiences. This juxtaposition of the narrative, moving image (which encompasses the costuming, setting, lighting, etc.), and sound (which includes diegetic and non-diegetic music and sound design) produced encoded messages representing specific interpretations of Mexicanidad (the cultural identity of the Mexican people) that impacted collective memory.Less
This chapter discusses the present state of research on music in Mexican cinema and why a study is so important. Building on frameworks of nationalism and cultural identity in Mexico the author utilizes the concept of “cultural synchresis,” which draws upon sound theorist Michel Chion’s model of synchresis—the combination of synchronism and synthesis that arises when an auditory phenomenon and a visual phenomenon occur at the same time. Using this model, the author investigates how repetitions of film—as bodies of music, the moving image, and narrative working in tandem—molded diverse codes of national identity construction aimed and recognized by urban audiences. This juxtaposition of the narrative, moving image (which encompasses the costuming, setting, lighting, etc.), and sound (which includes diegetic and non-diegetic music and sound design) produced encoded messages representing specific interpretations of Mexicanidad (the cultural identity of the Mexican people) that impacted collective memory.
Hannah Kosstrin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- August 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780199396924
- eISBN:
- 9780199396979
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199396924.003.0004
- Subject:
- Music, Dance, History, American
American critical reactions to Anna Sokolow’s Mexican works Wandering Frog (1940) and Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter (1941) displayed the differences between Mexican and American modernism. US ...
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American critical reactions to Anna Sokolow’s Mexican works Wandering Frog (1940) and Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter (1941) displayed the differences between Mexican and American modernism. US critics read the dances as ethnic instead of revolutionary within an anticommunist American critical discourse of ethnic and ethnologic dance. The resonance of Sokolow’s choreography among the transnational Left in the 1930s fell flat given the United States’ wartime demonization of Communism and shift in American dance coverage from leftist to mainstream newspapers and magazines. This spectatorial mismatch ended in a loss of nuance in the public readings of her dances, but created space for dances like Kaddish (1945) to be transgressive while appearing universal. Kaddish and Mexican Retablo (1946) display Sokolow’s feminist subversion of ritual in reaction to the Holocaust. They account for a human tragedy she railed against and publicly mourned in its aftermath.Less
American critical reactions to Anna Sokolow’s Mexican works Wandering Frog (1940) and Lament for the Death of a Bullfighter (1941) displayed the differences between Mexican and American modernism. US critics read the dances as ethnic instead of revolutionary within an anticommunist American critical discourse of ethnic and ethnologic dance. The resonance of Sokolow’s choreography among the transnational Left in the 1930s fell flat given the United States’ wartime demonization of Communism and shift in American dance coverage from leftist to mainstream newspapers and magazines. This spectatorial mismatch ended in a loss of nuance in the public readings of her dances, but created space for dances like Kaddish (1945) to be transgressive while appearing universal. Kaddish and Mexican Retablo (1946) display Sokolow’s feminist subversion of ritual in reaction to the Holocaust. They account for a human tragedy she railed against and publicly mourned in its aftermath.