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.
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/9781479876488.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
This chapter concentrates on the visual material police and criminologists used in their search to identify El/La Mataviejitas, most especially: (1) the sketches police used to identify the male El ...
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This chapter concentrates on the visual material police and criminologists used in their search to identify El/La Mataviejitas, most especially: (1) the sketches police used to identify the male El Mataviejitas before the killer's gender became more complicated, 2) a three-dimensional bust, molded based on witnesses’ accounts of the Mataviejitas, and (3) the photographs of Juana Barraza taken by a police criminologist after her arrest. The analysis of these visuals is juxtaposed to the text that accompanies them. The sexed, gendered, classed, and skin-tone-based tensions between the sketches used by the police, the media's narrations of the Mataviejitas case, and the official discourses of what a criminal stereotypically “looks” like are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to CaraMex, the criminal identification software used in Mexico and, finally, the set of photographs of Juana Barraza’s “gaze” taken as confirmation that she is (and has always been) La Mataviejitas.Less
This chapter concentrates on the visual material police and criminologists used in their search to identify El/La Mataviejitas, most especially: (1) the sketches police used to identify the male El Mataviejitas before the killer's gender became more complicated, 2) a three-dimensional bust, molded based on witnesses’ accounts of the Mataviejitas, and (3) the photographs of Juana Barraza taken by a police criminologist after her arrest. The analysis of these visuals is juxtaposed to the text that accompanies them. The sexed, gendered, classed, and skin-tone-based tensions between the sketches used by the police, the media's narrations of the Mataviejitas case, and the official discourses of what a criminal stereotypically “looks” like are highlighted. Particular attention is paid to CaraMex, the criminal identification software used in Mexico and, finally, the set of photographs of Juana Barraza’s “gaze” taken as confirmation that she is (and has always been) La Mataviejitas.
Louise Hardwick
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781786940735
- eISBN:
- 9781786945044
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781786940735.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
Chapter Four, ‘Re-reading La Rue Cases-Nègres’, demonstrates that, read against the broader development of his career, this novel is representative not of continuity, but of dissonance and rupture. ...
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Chapter Four, ‘Re-reading La Rue Cases-Nègres’, demonstrates that, read against the broader development of his career, this novel is representative not of continuity, but of dissonance and rupture. Going beyond the existing analyses of the novel, this chapter argues that La Rue Cases-Nègres represents a discernible shift in Zobel’s use of social realism, and by extension, of his use of Négritude.Less
Chapter Four, ‘Re-reading La Rue Cases-Nègres’, demonstrates that, read against the broader development of his career, this novel is representative not of continuity, but of dissonance and rupture. Going beyond the existing analyses of the novel, this chapter argues that La Rue Cases-Nègres represents a discernible shift in Zobel’s use of social realism, and by extension, of his use of Négritude.
