Women & Saints in Arms.

The Representation of War in Mexico

The Colorado Review of Hispanic Studies | Vol. 8, Fall 2010 | pages 167182

Valentinas, Coronelas, Soldaderas: Explosive Women in Mexican Film

Niamh Thornton, University of Ulster
Despite their profusion, lms of the Mexican Revolution (19101920) have been largely ignored by scholars.1 This relative neglect is because many are seen to be jingoistic in their representation of a PRI sanctioned nationalism.2 The few Revolutionary lms that have been redeemed are those early lms that are often read as going against the grain or others which were made by a generation of, largely university educated, independent lmmakers in the 1960s and 1970s who took the Revolution and its stories as a way of challenging nationalist discourse. The lms that I am considering here are those who have been long reviled or overlooked by scholars as they are either deemed too populist or too tainted by association with the political ruling classes to be worthy of consideration. Yet, many of these lms are worthy of a second look because of their sometimes nuanced and often playful approach to gender identities. This article comes out of a larger project on the representation of conict in Mexican lm, whose aim is to reconsider some of these overlooked lms and consider how other Mexican conicts have been represented on lm. Heretofore, space has been given to those Revolutionary lms of high artistic merit seen by few, over the star vehicles seen by many, whose continued popularity is evident in that fact that they are often re-shown on Mexican television. At the outbreak of the Revolution the events themselves became the subject of many of the early lms. Newsreels were shot by lmmakers attached to particular troops. This early documentary period was later replaced with the rst major output of feature lms of the Revolution, which were released in the 1930s. The most famous of this early cycle of Revolutionary lms is the trilogy by Fernando de Fuentes: Prisionero trece (1933), El compadre Mendoza (1933), and Vmonos con con Pancho Villa! (1935). All of which have been subject to much analysis elsewhere. 3 From the 1930s to the 1950s the Revolution continued to be an important setting and theme during what is called the Golden Age of Mexican cinema. At this time, the studios were powerful and had a near monopoly on the production and distribu167

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tion of lm. Film production in Mexico reached its apotheosis in 1950 with the release of 123 lms that year. According to Emilio Garca Riera, [E]l ao fue pues excepcional en calidad y en cantidad4 (Historia 169).5 Despite reaching this high point, with the coming of television, cinema was to go into decline in terms of volume and, for many, quality. At the same time there was an ongoing interest in Mexicanness and its macho manifestations in the publication of Octavio Pazs inuential El laberinto de la soledad (1950).6 Simultaneously, the lms which were released in the 1950s had a developing concern with gender roles and machismo. Irene V. OMalley highlights the link between machismo and the state in Mexico. For her, [w]hat gives Mexican machismo its peculiar quality is its self-consciousness, its ofcalness, its openly proclaimed status as part of the national identity (7). The lms set during the Revolution repeatedly engage with this complex, tense and increasingly blurred relationship. For this reason I shall take a representative sampling of those lms which sets up a dialogic relationship between Revolution, hyper-masculinised macho man, and woman as an ambivalent other, between 19501970 and consider them here. The 1950s was a signicant moment in the re-emergence of a new pattern of representation of the Revolution. In 1950, drawing from the early documentary lms of the Revolution as source material, Carmen Toscanos Memorias de un mexicano (Memories of a Mexican) was released. It is a lm which presents a personal and somewhat ctionalized history of her father, who accompanied several of the strongmen of the Revolution and shot many of the major events on camera. Alongside this historical document, the 1950s also saw considerable growth in studio lms set during the Revolution with titles such as, for example, El tesoro de Pancho Villa (The Treasure of Pancho Villa) and El secreto de Pancho Villa (The Secret of Pancho Villa) by Rafael Baledn (both 1954); La cabeza de Pancho Villa (The Head of Pancho Villa) (Chano Urueta, 1956); and four made between 1957 and 1958 by Ismael Rodrguez As era Pancho Villa (This Was Pancho Villa), Pancho Villa y la Valentina (Pancho Villa and the Valentina), Cuando Viva Villa! es la muerte (When Viva Villa Means Death), and La Cucuracha. This pattern of big budget studio lms set during the Revolution continued up to 1970 with the disastrous La Generala (The General) (Juan Ibez) starring Mara Flix, which was a box ofce and creative failure, and, as a result, signalled an end to the dominance of the studios and a change in direction for lmmaking in Mexico. What is evident on watching many of these popular studio lms, are the very specic gender games that are played out. Masculinity, and, in particular, a very exaggerated, macho version, had become co-terminous with the Revolution. As Carlos Monsivis explains:

Valentinas, Coronelas, Soldaderas: Explosive Women in Mexican Film En Mxico, y despus de las luchas revolucionarias, el trmino [macho] se prodiga para sealar no a todos los combatientes, sino a los hombres entre los hombres, a los que hacen de su autodestruccin un espectculo, se irritan ante la posposicin de la muerte, retan a mentadas y carcajadas a la artillera enemiga. . . . Si el concepto hombre contena y exhiba la entrega corajuda, el vocablo antagnico y complementario, macho, exaltar una actitud y la convertir en criterio selectivo: que nadie dude del valor supremo de ser macho.7 (Mexicaneras 109)

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This macho character, who Monsivis describes, has a deathwish which he displays as a performative act to prove his manliness. In order for him to be believable the narrative requires a female other. This is often made problematic in the context of both of their roles in relation to the violence performed on screen. The female characters function is as a counterbalance. If man is macho, woman must be its opposite, or, at the very least, act in contradistinction. Lawrence Kramer, in his analysis of masculinity/ femininity, explains, [t]he two genders may be constructed, performed, and lived in any number of ways, as long as femininity constitutes the radically ambivalent polar opposite of a radically unambivalent masculinity (2). He continues, biological women are made to bear the burden of occupying the ofcial, visible feminine position, and in so doing of maintaining the ction that the position held by men is genuinely polarized, absolutely masculine in both content and structure (7). What is interesting in his statement is the lack of a xed denition of either genders exact position. They exist in a state of tension, an either/or that varies according to each situation. Each lm that takes gender as a site of contestation must create its own denitions, which are constantly shifting, sometimes even within the narrative. For Kramer, there is a misogyny in the tension between the genders that often reveals itself through sexual violence or the threat of the same. In a disturbing way, some of the lms even build up tension so that such violence is seen as, not only necessary to conquer the woman, it is also desirable. There is a geometric connectivity, if we put together what Monsivis and Kramer are saying. The Revolution is macho, and such forms of masculinity are dependent on the woman to dene them, and she, in turn, must conform to specic expectations. Then, how does this get disrupted when the woman is no longer contained within the expected performative role which facilitates this masculinity? What happens to the man and the Revolution within the narrative? I shall consider these questions in relation to ve distinct lms: Ismael Rodrguezs Pancho Villa y La Valentina (1958), Rogelio A. Gonzlezs La Valentina (1965), Rafael Baledns Las Coronelas (The Colonels) (1959), Benito Alazrakis Caf Coln (Caf Colombus) (1958), and Ismael Rodrguezs Las mujeres de mi General (My Generals Women) (1950).

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Ismael Rodrguezs Pancho Villa y La Valentina (1958)

Released in 1958, Pancho Villa y La Valentina (Ismael Rodrguez) opens and closes with a voiceover by Pancho Villa (Pedro Armendriz) whose decapitated head is hidden away in a foreign, rat-infested warehouse. The lm takes vignettes from the life of Villa to esh out his life story. Or, as the director tells us in a contingent and qualied intertitle at the beginning of the lm, Esta pelcula es apenas un puado de cuentos es los que el pueblo ha puesto su gratitud y su justicia para Pancho Villa. Yo he querido creerlos como si fueron la verdad. . . . Y los voy a contar a mi manera. 8 What follows are 6 episodes, some are very brief. For example, the rst lasts just a few minutes and shows Villas decision not to shoot a man who called his dog Pancho Villa, because, he concludes, it proved his admiration for the General. The nal two episodes take up most of the screen time. El Generalito (The Little General) is about Villas tragic attempt to save both a small troop and a baby they nd from starvation and death at enemy hands, and La Valentina is a re-telling of the life of a character who has attained mythical quality as a result of a popular Revolutionary corrido.9 I shall focus my attention on this nal episode. The version of La Valentinas story given in this segment of the lm is of a beautiful, brave, feisty, woman and her love story with Villa. One of the townsfolk describes her as the orgullo de nuestro pueblo, jinete de primera, pistola nica, buenas coleadas, no hay quien pueda con ella.10 In turn, Villa is noble, interested in ghting for the people against the rich, and, in the gure of Armendriz, desirable. Of course, he is also sufciently macho to dominate her. He is the man who can. Their eventual marriage is preceded by many slanging matches and violence. Before she is identied or even seen on screen La Valentina (Elsa Aguirre) shoots at Villa and his troop. She is a lone sniper defending a fort who confuses them with the enemy. A good shot, she succeeds in killing two of Villas men. The soldiers speculate that she must be a man, until she reveals herself on realising who they are, invites them in and offers them hospitality. The men are suitably astounded when it is revealed that she is a woman. Therefore, it is made clear to us that her prowess is unusual in a woman. Villa distrusts her and, as a result, she throws food and drink at his soldiers. This pattern of violence continues: she shoots at a band he brings to serenade her; shoots Villas hat, twice; and repeatedly threatens him. There is a further incident when she insists that the window is left open and a knife is thrown through, in an assassination attempt in which she may be complicit. Villa is less violent by comparison, hitting her and grabbing her only when he wants to seduce her (por las malas) having failed to do so gently (por las buenas, as convention would have it). Interestingly, she never fully submits, nor do we ever completely trust her. This may be because she never fully becomes tamed. When she states,

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ta bien Pancho, se har como t quieras,11 she seems to be mollifying him. She is still in control, she has the power to agree to this brief stay in the bickering and ghting. His reply is full of macho posturing, yet holds as an empty promise, Pos s, se har lo que yo quiera, y eso ser pa siempre.12 Moments later she is taunting him with comparisons with her former boyfriend, the military leader of the opposing army, Pascual Orozco:
La Valentina: Pa que veas en eso no te parece a Pascual [Orozco] Pancho Villa: No? La Valentina: No, l si sabe darle gusto a las mujeres.13

She is directly attacking his manliness as they have just got out of bed together. This exchange demonstrates Villas failings as a man and of a culture which accepts that a woman must be controlled without caring about her pleasure or needs, only his own. In turn, the dialogue and the jealously evident from close ups of Armendrizs face, challenges the assumption that the woman should be satised with this. Her statements also underline her sexual experience. Visually, she dominates this scene. She is standing, moving about and showing that she is controlling the space, while Villa is seated, shaving, reacting to her, glancing back, as if unsure of her next move. The camera is set at his level, so that it has to tilt upwards to look at her, as he does. La Valentina is obviously desirable within the narrative, and part of her attraction for Villa is the very stroppiness and ght that he tries and fails to quash. She is clearly saying that Orozco, in satisfying her (sexually), is more of a man in her eyes than Villa. She is suggesting that she is with Villa by default, as second best, sexually, although Villa wins ideologically. There is a blurring of the lines between the personal and the political here. For Villa, Orozco becomes an opponent to be reckoned with, in the bedroom as well as the battleeld. Both mens masculinity is tied to their sexual prowess and their ability to ght. La Valentina further underscores Orozcos macho-ness within a brief speech in which she gives the reasons to break off their relationship, desde que se hizo traidor y asesino. Yo lo admiraba por macho y porque lo crea patriota pero se lo volte al Sr. Madero y fue de los responsables de su muerte.14 This change in sexual desire for Orozco allies her with a shift in the political desires of the people. The implicit message is that her attraction mirrors that of the population, Orozco was attractive as a macho man, but is no longer desirable having gone against the people. However, Villa is not the perfect substitute. Within this game of degrees of macho-ness is a very political statement, that gets tangled in its own mess of measurements. La Valentina is identied as having masculine prowess (horse(wo)manship, a good shot, indominatable); Villa and Orozco, on opposing sides, have different degrees of manliness. Yet, at its core is the love triangle, one that is always only one remove from homosexuality. It appears that care is taken to keep the

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men physically distant on screen. Their lives are paralleled and compared, but they are never closer than a phone call in physical proximity. This exchange occurs in a scene when La Valentinas freedom is on the line at the denouement of the narrative. In this scene, again, she is the one who controls the outcome, not either men. La Valentinas desirability is consistently underscored, yet she is never reigned in as is the convention in such lms. In the end, she sacrices herself for the cause, and Villas continuance in the Revolution is muddied. No longer is he purely a Revolutionary, he is also ghting to avenge her death. Although, she and the Revolution, or at least the people, have by the end of the lm become one. In Pancho Villa y La Valentina Villas masculinity is measured, not only against Orozco, but also against La Valentinas performative masculinity. How are we then to read his inability to control her? If she is the Revolution, which is linked to masculinity, it is represented as an uncontainable yet desirable force. Added to this reading is the difculty in settling on one representation of Villa. Both prior and subsequent to Pancho Villa y La Valentina there has been a considerable range in the representations of Villa on lm. Monsivis quite rightly claims that Villa has become co-terminous with an exaggerated machismo on lm and in other media:
Post mortem, Pancho Villa es el emblema del machismo. Agigantados, algunos rasgos de su personalidad consisten tal empleo social de la gura, que borra o distorsiona su talento de estratega, sus razones de clase, la energa de su rencor social, e iluminan slo la exaltacin de la cultura de la violencia. El periodismo, la narrativa y el cine delimitan una y otra vez la esencia del personaje: familiaridad con la muerte, instinto sin contencin, avidez feudal por las mujeres.15 (Monsivis, Mexicaneras 111)

However, when examined closely this machismo is frequently challenged, undermined and self-reexive in many of the lms such as Pancho Villa y la Valentina. Masculinity is only ever relative to a femininity that is equally difcult to dene, and is further confused with a complex relationship with the Revolution. The Revolution is often critiqued through the gure of the woman, yet often celebrated through the rhetoric of the lm.

Rogelio A. Gonzlezs La Valentina (1965)

Further gender power games are played out in another version of the La Valentina myth in La Valentina, this time starring Mara Flix as the eponymous heroine. By the mid-sixties, the subject of the Revolution has become tired. Instead of being the great heroine of the battleeld, La Valentina becomes a typical raptada (stolen woman). She is taken from her home by Genovevo Cruz Garca (Eulalio Gonzlez Piporro) on behalf of an Orozquista General. The story takes a typical trajectory of a rapto (kidnap).16 Garca and La Valentina come into conict, physically and verbally

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ght, she tries to escape, there are several slapstick episodes and the two fall in love, or more precisely, have sex in a cave, within earshot of her father (Jos Elas Moreno) who is relieved that she is not salada (fruity). It is a lm which becomes about a fathers concern that his daughter will lose her virginity, with the Revolution as a picturesque backdrop and a convenient plot device. Her only real engagement with the Revolutionary struggle is as an arms dealer, therefore, any resemblance to the historical La Valentina is in name alone. La Valentinas fathers fears are based on the unfortunate events surrounding her marriage. This is told in the opening sequence in the lm. It shows her wedding and the subsequent death of her husband who is shot before consummating the marriage. Then, when La Valentina is raptada and retains her virginity her father becomes suspicious. The implication is that rather than lose face at having his daughters innocence despoiled, he feels that the familys honour might be lost at her possibly being a lesbian. Delighted that this does not arise the issue is resolved. Her fathers suspicions at her sexual orientation are also seen to be based on her feisty character, which could be read as masculine behaviour, and because she repeatedly ignores his requests to give the suitors, who she repeatedly dismisses, a better chance to woo her. The message in the lm is that here is another woman who needs to be controlled by a powerful man. Flix is an actress who has ably inhabited gender-bending roles before, but this one does not bear comparisons with her earlier lms.17 There are several reasons for this: by the time the lm was made, the sixties were in full swing and sexual mores were not as they are portrayed in the lm. Filmic style had become cruder, less inclined towards nuance and double meanings, as evidenced in the noisy cave scene. As an aging actress, eight years her co-stars senior, Flix is no longer convincing as an innocent young maiden.18 La Valentina could be read as a parody of a role she had performed eleven years earlier in El rapto (Emilio El Indio Fernndez, 1954). Finally, we are to believe from the narrative that La Valentina/Flix, who is given most of the visual power in the scenes through lighting, choice of camera angles, and extreme close ups is unable to escape this man who is never afforded the same visual attention. Flixs star quality takes from the narrative, especially when set beside an actor given less screen time and less attering lighting. Although, Garca is ostensibly shown to win, his masculinity is never shown to be more powerful than her domineering presence on screen. Therefore, the fathers anxiety is presented as a mirror of our own. We are expected to be concerned that this woman is really not interested in Garca, because his machismo is never clearly proven. This is a troubling conclusion, but one that rests within the logic of the narrative. In addition, much of the lm is played for laughs with a sinister threat of violence and rape underpinning much of the humour.

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Rafael Baledons Las Coronelas (1959)

There were many other comedies set during the Revolution. Just as humour has been employed in Hollywood cross-dressing lms such as Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953), it is a source of absurd fun in Las Coronelas. The lm tells the story of twin daughters whose fathers life is saved through being promised as soldiers to the ridiculous General Nicolas Rosas (Andrs Soler) for the great cause of the Revolution.19 When the promise is made the father, Silberio, does not know that the children are female nor that his wife is expecting twins. When they are born, aware of the capricious cruelty of the General, Silberio decides to keep up the lie. The only other people in the village who know the truth are the midwife and the priest. The General leaves for many years and returns when the girls are in their late teens and expressing their desire to be normal girls, get married and have children. With Rosass return they must assume their male identities to match the male names they were given, Saturnino (Emma Roldn) and Nicolas (Martha Roth Pizzo). Rosas takes them off to the army because la causa necesita hombres como ustedes20 and that si no los matan se los devuelven convertidos en dos machos.21 Obviously the joke is on him. Although, implicit in this is a critique that neither he nor the others in the army can tell the difference between the real machos and the two who are merely cross-dressing. On entry, both women are given the rank of colonel over others who have served their time and earned the position, an obvious critique of nepotism. The two new coronelas are shown to have few skills as leaders. Saturnino abhors violence and shooting, and Nicolas spends her time mooning over Lieutenant Rodolfo Suarez, who she has replaced and who she requests as her assistant. Saturnino, who could pass and is quite butch in her mannerisms, has her femininity underscored through a naked bathing scene overlooked by an enemy colonel, who she later falls in love with. In contrast, Nicolas is never convincing as a man. The camera lingers over her body, yet others in the lm are convinced. She soon attempts to seduce Rodolfo, much to his confusion, which impels him to go to the priest, to confess what he takes as his homosexual desire, which is never named. This is played as a comic situation. Rodolfo tells the priest that he loves Nicolas. At rst, the priest congratulates him, thinking that Rodolfo must know that Nicolas is a woman. Rodolfo is confused by the priests response and claries, amo a mi coronel, soy un ser anormal . . . amo a un hombre.22 Signicantly, Rodolfo claims that his feelings are about love not desire, this is visually confused as the camera follows Rodolfos gaze over Nicolas body.23 At rst glance his declaration is an obvious statement of homophobia. However, the scene plays out as a critique of the attitude of the church to homosexuality, as

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Rodolfo demands to be reviled, yet the priest cannot denounce him, as he knows he is obliged to keep Nicolas gender a secret. In addition, we are to nd Rodolfos homophobia absurd as Nicolas does not pass: her waist is cinched, she wears make-up, and the cut and style of her shirt emphasizes her curves. Therefore, Rodolfos blindness to her gender is presented as ridiculous and a source of comedy. Although key to the humour is our knowledge that Nicolas is a woman, the fact that homophobia, alongside the church and the Revolution, are mocked is manifestly a cultural critique. Macho culture and its attendant wrongs are ridiculed and satirized in what is essentially a light romantic comedy set during the Revolutionary period.24 The fact that the lm mocks the early establishment gures and its foundational myths (such as macho culture) makes it a very cutting satire in what is ostensibly a very lightweight content. Las coronelas is what Marjorie Garber described as a progress narrative, citing examples such as Victor/Victoria (Blake Edwards, 1982), Some Like it Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959), and Tootsie (Sidney Pollack, 1982), she states that:
[e]ach is compelled by social and economic forces to disguise himself or herself in order to get a job, escape repression or gain artistic or political freedom. Each, that is, is said to embrace transvestism unwillingly, as an instrumental strategy rather than an erotic pleasure and play space. In each of the instances . . . heterosexual desire is for a time apparently thwarted by the cross-dressers assumed identity, so that it becomes necessary for him or her to unmask. (70)

Saturnino and Nicolas are passively compliant in the compulsion to cross-dress. The decision is their fathers and the midwifes. However, it is presented as a life or death situation, albeit one clouded in humour. Heterosexual desire is never really thwarted, as Nicolas attempts to seduce Rodolfo from their rst encounter, something that is the subject of much hilarity. The relationship can only be properly recognized and normalized when both women assume their female attire. The return to wearing dresses by the two women may redress the balance and reinstate convention, but what has gone before has upset and challenged normative gender roles and relations. As Ben Sifuentes-Juregui puts it, [t]ransvestism is about the raw touching, gentle tampering, and, literally, fucking up of any xed notion of genders. Transvestism is the gure that describes in its own embodiment and realization the difculty of gender (2). Cross-dressing or transvestism, then, upsets perceived normative gender performance and presentation, in some ways reinscribes it as xed and dened, but also challenges prescriptive gender roles and appearance. A woman and a man may be understood to have a distinctive set of behaviours, clothing and physical attributes, but the play with these on lm allows for the norms to be open to new denitions for a time.

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Saturnino may abhor violence, which is supposedly a natural female attitude, but, what of those other lms in which women embrace violence as a necessary means to an end? Las coronelas is not a lm that existed in isolation, it is one which xed its own rules to what it means to be a woman (and a man) and normalized these within the narrative. Meanwhile, there are many other lms in which women engage in armed conict as part of an important letting go of false bourgeois ideology and a decision to join the Revolutionary cause, in some instances, or, at others, as a stark comparison to the untrustworthy, upper class other woman who would not muck in and get her hands dirty in direct combat. An example of the former is Caf Colon and of the latter is Las mujeres de mi general, which I shall discuss here. In both lms class is a common source of tension and it is made seductive through the gure of a woman.

Benito Alzarakis Caf Coln (1958)

Flix became, according to Garca Riera, by the mid-1950s ya convertida en una suerte de monumento vivo de la revolucin25 (Breve historia 210). She starred in Caf Coln alongside Pedro Armendriz. By this time the Revolution was vista sobre todo como un pretexto para desahogos folcloristas y torneos de desplantes machistas a cargo de los hroes y tambin de algunas heronas26 (Garca Riera, Breve historia 217). Released in 1958, Caf Coln tells the story of Monica, a nightclub singer working in the eponymous caf in Mxico City under siege. Again, she is a woman who [n]unca jams nadie puede dominarte, when General Sebastin Robles (Pedro Armendriz), a Zapatista, comes into her bar and disrupts her middle class aspirations. She has been taught how to dress, talk and act by the pianist and conductor in the bar in order to improve her opportunities and climb the social ladder. However, her attraction to this macho man is making her re-consider her aspirations. Briey, Robles is seduced by the high society in which Monica mixes and asks another for advice on how to behave and speak in order to impress her. Gradually, Monica realizes that the Revolution is more important than her aspirations and learns to shoot alongside the other soldaderas in battle. There are other twists to the story which involve stolen jewellery. In the end all is resolved, Robles and Monica marry and they remain faithful to the ideals of the Revolution. This lm allies macho culture with the people and specically the gure of the Zapatista Robles. In contrast, a more rened and effete masculinity is associated with the middle and ruling classes. What is unusual in this is the presence of a Zapatista general. Representations of Villa are manifold, while there are few of Zapata. OMalley ascribes this, among other factors, to Zapatas armys proximity to Mexico city, with Villa ghting on the Northern, border region distant

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from inhabitants at the centre of power (and the moviemaking industry), which makes him more easily mythologized. While both were alive, Zapata was a proximate threat; Villa could be a distant rogue (OMalley 89). After his death, Zapata was co-opted by different governments, in order to use the gure of Zapata to imbue the campesinos with a nonrevolutionary sentiment that Zapata himself did not have: dependence on and loyalty to the government (OMalley 6). In Caf Coln, Robles is comparable to the Villista characters or the characterizations of Villa at this time. He is noble, strong, and conforms to the ofcial ideology of the Revolution, which is an amorphous struggle of the poor against the rich, where his macho character is an integral part of his identity and struggle. The message of the lm is that when both he and Monica reject the gentler, domesticated and rened trappings of the caf they can be free to pursue the Revolutionary ideals. Monica represents the recent migrants to Mexico City trying to re-invent herself as a middle class woman and thereby reject her humble country origins. Robles, at rst, is seduced by the middle class trappings and mannerisms, soon realises that what is important is the Revolution and not social ascension. Monicas taking up of arms and rejection of a rened femininity is shown as a positive development. Robles is initially unsure, but then encourages her to join the cause as together they forge a new Revolutionary future together.

Ismael Rodrguezs Las mujeres de mi General (1950)

Las mujeres de mi General continues this theme of class struggle, but contrasts two female characters rather than containing it in one. Garca Riera identies the character Juan Zepeda (Pedro Infante) in Las mujeres de mi General as a substitute for Villa, his ctional double (Historia 343). Zepeda returns to his hometown with a soldadera Lupe (Lilia Prado), variously described as a prieta ranchera (dark ranch girl) and an india cerrera (mountain Indian), who is in love with Zepeda. On his return to the town Zepeda reunites with Carlota (Chula Prieto), a social climber married to the wealthiest man in town, who is conveniently absent for most of the narrative. The lm shifts between the love triangle and Villas struggle to wrestle with governing a town. As he allies himself with the upper classes he becomes sullied by association, and there is trouble among his ranks. The two women represent opposite scales of the class divide and Zepedas relationship with both are a playing out of his loyalty towards the true Revolutionary struggle. For Garca Riera, Lupe representa al pueblo por el que el hroe revolucionario de este melodrama lucha 27 (Historia 343). She is generally submissive, acquiescent, willing to ght when necessary and makes a fool of herself when trying to dress up and t in with the upper classes. She conforms to Zepedas wish for una mujer muy macha (a very

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macho woman). She is nurse, warrior, and mother all rolled into one. In contrast, Carlota is corrupt, a seductress, unfaithful, a liar, schemer, lacks maternal instinct, and is a murderess. Garca Riera describes her as a coqueta, interesada, intrigante, pero a n de cuentas muy macha (valga la expresin), representa en cambio las tentaciones que pueden corromper al general y hacerlo un traidor a su causa28 (Historia 343) It is curious in this description that Garca Riera (self-consciously) decides to use the term macha to describe Carlota. Especially since it is a term that is used to refer to a desirable characteristic in a woman in the narrative. In addition it is Carlotas feminine traits, access to wealth and the mask of upper class manners and education which make her suspect, not any masculine performativity. Lupe is unrened and a ghter, an image that is reinforced by the closing scene in which she, with her baby strapped to her back feeds the bullets into the machine gun operated by Zepeda, as they laugh hysterically. This nal scene is an oneric image of the ideal Revolutionary Mexican family, which disrupts the notion of an idealised Revolution rather than supports it. Not because of her behaviour, but because the cause at that point seems hopeless. The troop is low on ammunition, the other side outnumber them, and the bodies of dead soldiers surround them. In Las mujeres de mi General the two women embody the tensions of the Revolution. On the one hand is the decent Lupe. Her lack of renement marks her as one of the common people prepared to give her life for the cause. On the other is Carlota, in many respects an archetypal femme fatale, a woman who is eager for self-advancement, and is prepared to sacrice others to get what she wants. In many respects she ts Joanne Hershelds denition of la devoradora, a specically Mexican version of the femme fatale. la devoradora was pitted against the mother as a threat to the stability of the family, with the family as a solid unit held together by the mother (Hersheld 126). Carlota is that threat, yet Lupe is in an unstable position within her family unit as she never manages to marry Zepeda. The other important difference is that she is in wartime, not in the troubled home of the melodrama. She is a sexualised woman, mother and heroine. Therefore, she is outside of the conventional mores of melodrama as a good woman. In addition, she has many masculine characteristics, which pits her against the hyper-feminised, yet unsympathetic Carlota. In this lm, like the others previously discussed, lies the true dilemma for the scriptwriter. If the Revolution is masculine, but the male character is the one who represents an idealised common man struggling with the realisation of his desires and the betterment of the Revolutionary cause, he cannot represent the Revolution and be torn between being seduced by it and another. Although, it also presents a problem when the gure of the Revolution is a woman. She must both be an acceptable, idealised woman and have masculine traits. Therefore, again, the narrative makes

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recourse to the use of a hyper-masculinised macho man. Another way Zepedas masculinity is underscored is the inclusion of a camp man servant and butler, whose function in the narrative Garca Riera describes as follows: [p]ara reforzar con el contraste el machismo29 (Historia 343). This is a show of how, in Dolores Tierneys words, the Porrian effeminate, rened, bourgeois, model of masculinity was symbolically defeated by asupposedly more Mexicanvirile, savage, proletarian hypermasculinity, resulting from the Revolutions identication with working-class peons (Tierney 105).30 Tierney nds this in Emilio El Indio Fernndez lms, but it is evidenced in many of the lms discussed here. Often women, as is the case with Carlota, represent the temptations of the pre-Revolutionary past, which must be resisted. In Las mujeres de mi General the camp man and the two women function as contrasts to the male character and assure the audience of his masculinity, which only draws attention to what a delicate and elusive thing the macho facade is.

Conclusion
The tension between Revolution as both man and woman is never fully resolved in these lms and, what makes this more intriguing is that the lms can be read on multiple levels. This makes them quite complex texts, unlike what is normally assumed. Many of the lms contain many elements of the melodrama or the so-called womans lm, yet, unlike these genres the central woman character does not get punished for transgressing social norms.31 The epic melodrama, taken away from peacetime and into war, results in certain freedoms for the female characters.32 Freed from the possibility of being punishedwithin the logic of the time and the narrative, you cannot punish or disavow the Revolution she problematically representsmeans that she can be transgressive and still get her man. In fact, she must nd happiness in order for the success of the male character and the Revolution. The upcoming commemoration of the centenary of the Revolution has meant that there is a renewed interest in lms set during this historic moment. There is a need within that not to ignore the populist, studio made lms of which there are hundreds. They are of varying standard, employ multiple sub-genres, and tackle many themes. Here, I have examined a cross-section of the later studio lms which deal with the new role of women in the Revolution told from the perspective of a Mexico eager to (re) dene itself. What is fascinating in many of these lms is that they explored and challenged the role of women in society on lm, which has been a very popular medium, using very populist forms, such as comedy and melodrama. That they did so more variously than has been done in other forms, such as historical or literary narrative, make them texts with considerable importance for the examination of gender relations in Mexico at this time.

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Notes
1 One of the few exceptions to this is Andrs de Luna La batalla y su sombra (La Revolucin en el cine mexicano). He gives the dates for the first fictional film of the Revolution as 1919, and the first sound film as La sombra de Pancho Villa o Revolucin (Miguel Contreras Torres, 1932). This book is an introduction to Mexican film with a brief overview of some of the films with a production history of some. As a consequence of the anniversary celebrations, there has been renewed interest in Revolutionary films as is attested by two recent publications: La luz y la guerra: el cine de la Revolucin Mexicana, Fernando Fabio Snchez and Gerardo Garca Muoz eds., and Constructing the Image of the Mexican Revolution: Cinema and the Archive, Zuzana M. Pick. 2 The Partido Revolucionario Institucional [Institutional Revolutionary Party] under different names held power from shortly after the Revolution up to the 2000 elections, which saw a change from single party rule for the first time in post-revolutionary Mexico. 3 See, for example, Snchez and Garca, Pick, Mora and Dvalos Orozco. 4 The year was exceptional in both quality and quantity. 5 All translations are mine. 6 See Joanne Hershfields chapter Cinema, Woman, and National Identity in Mexican Cinema/ Mexican Woman, 19401950, for an exploration of Paz and earlier writers on the link between masculinity and national identity in Mexico. She usefully links this narrative to Golden Age film. 7 In Mexico, after the conflict phase of the Revolution, the term [macho] was not used to highlight all of the combatants, but those men amongst men, who made a spectacle of their self-destruction, were irritated by the postponement of death, laughed and swore at enemy fire. If the concept man was already a celebrated and outstanding category: have no doubt about the supreme value of being macho. 8 This is but a handful of stories told by the people in which they show their gratitude and belief in the justice of Pancho Villa. I want to believe them as if they were true. . . . And I will tell them in my own way. 9 This is a popular ballad that was sung telling tales of prowess in battle. They are accounts of extraordinary individuals and their bravery in battle. Monsivis in the foreward, When Gender Cant Be Seen Amid the Symbols: Women and the Mexican Revolution to Sex in Revolution: Gender Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico edited by Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriel Cano discusses these corridos and their celebration of female protagonists of the Revolution. 10 The pride of our town, a first-class rider, fine shot, good at surprising the enemy, nobody can get the better of her. 11 OK Pancho, as you wish. 12 Yeah, itll be my way, always. 13 La Valentina: Just so you know, youre not like Pascual. / Pancho Villa: No? / La Valentina: No, he at least knows how to pleasure women. 14 Since he became a traitor and an assassin. I admired him because he was macho and because I thought that he was patriotic, but he turned against Madero and was one of those responsible for his death. 15 Post mortem, Pancho Villa is the emblem of machismo. Exaggerated, some of his personality traits consist of such social use of him as a figure that it erases or distorts his strategic talents, his class solidarity, the energy of his social anger, and only draws attention to a celebration of the culture of violence. Journalism, narrative and cinema time and again limit the essence of his character: familiarity with death, instinct without thought, feudal attraction to women. 16 A rapto refers to practice of the, often voluntary, taking of a young woman from her parents home by a suitor who is not accepted by the family. Often followed by sexual relations between the pair, then the parents accept that the couple must marry as the womans honour has been despoiled. 17 Here I am referring to her roles in La Cucaracha (Ismael Rodrguez, 1958) and Juana Gallo (Juan Zacaras, 1960).

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18 Her date of birth is contested, however, it is most commonly given as 1914. Therefore, at 51 she can no longer be considered to be a young maiden. 19 There are examples of transgendered individuals becoming soldiers and higher ranking officers, such as colonels, in the Revolution. See, for example, Cano. 20 The cause needs men like you. 21 If it doesnt kill them they will become machos. 22 I love my colonel, Im strange . . . I love a man. 23 According to theorists male sexuality in Mexico allows for homosexual encounters without that resulting in a labeling of the so-called insertor as gay or even bisexual. Therefore emotional attachment, as well as following the conventions of the Romantic comedy, is important to justify Rodolfos confusion. For more on this see Prieur and Carrier. 24 I will not get into the multiple arguments on dating the beginning and end of the Revolution here, the film appears to be set during the late stages of the bellicose period (19101920) and the earlier part of the establishment of peacetime government in the early 1920s. For more on the idea and dating of the Revolution see Benjamn. 25 Had become a type of living monument to the Revolution. 26 See above all as a pretext for folkloric outpourings and defiant turns of machismo by the heroes and sometimes by the heroines as well. 27 Represents the people for whom the Revolutionary hero of this melodrama is fighting. 28 A flirtatious, self-interested, plotter, who is, when all is said and done, very macho (the term fits here). She represents the temptations which could corrupt a general and make him a traitor to the cause. 29 To underline the contrast with machismo. 30 Sergio de la Mora also draws attention to this contrast (5). 31 For more on the womans film see Basinger. 32 According to Anne T. Doremus [t]he epic melodrama dealt almost exclusively with the Revolution. It glorified revolutionary ideals and the masses participation in the combat and tried to give meaning to and make sense of the Revolution (5).

Bibliography
Basinger, Jeanine. A Womans View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women 19301960. London: Chatto & Windus, 1993. Print. Benjamn, Thomas. La Revolucin: Mexicos Great Revolution as Memory, Myth and History. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000. Print. Cano, Gabriela. Unconcealable Realities of Desire: Amelio Robless (Transgender) Masculinity in the Mexican Revolution. Sex in Revolution: Gender Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriel Cano eds. Durham; London: Duke UP, 2006. Print. Dvalos Orozco, Federico. The Birth of the Film Industry and the Emergence of Sound. Joanne Hershfield and David R. Maciel eds. Mexicos Cinema: A Century of Film and Filmmakers. Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 1999. Print. Doremus, Anne T. Culture Politics and National Identity in Mexican Literature and Film, 19291952. New York; London: Peter Lang, 2001. Print. Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. London; New York: Penguin Books, 1992. Print. Garca Riera, Emilio. Historia del cine mexicano 194950. Vol 5. Guadalajara; Mxico DF: Universidad de Guadalajara; CONACULTA; Secretara de Cultura del Gobierno del Estado de Jalisco; IMCINE, 1993. Print. ---. Breve historia del cine mexicano. Primer siglo 18971997. Mxico DF: MAPA, 1998. Print. Hershfield, Joanne. Mexican Cinema/Mexican Woman, 19401950. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1996. Print.

Kramer, Lawrence. After the Lovedeath: Sexual Violence and the Making of Culture. Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1997. Print. Luna, Andrs de. La batalla y su sombra (La Revolucin en el cine mexicano) . Xochimilco, Mxico DF: Universidad Autnoma Metropolitana, 1984. Print. Monsivis, Carlos. Mexicaneras: Pero hubo alguna vez once mil machos?. Escenas de pudor y liviandad. Mxico DF: Delbolsillo, (1981) 2004. Print. ---. When Gender Cant Be Seen Amid the Symbols: Women and the Mexican Revolution. Sex in Revolution: Gender Politics, and Power in Modern Mexico. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabriel Cano (eds). (Durham; London: Duke UP, 2006). Print. Mora, Carl J. Mexican Cinema: Reflections of a Society. Berkeley; London: University of California Press, 1989. Print. Mora, Sergio de la. Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006. Print. OMalley, Irene V. The Myth of the Revolution: Hero Cults and the Institutionalization of the Mexican State. New York; London: Greenwood Press, 1986. Print. Paz, Octavio. El laberinto de la soledad. 1950. Madrid: Ctedra, 1993. Print. Pick, Zuzana M. Constructing the Image of the Mexican Revolution: Cinema and the Archive. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010. Print. Snchez, Fernando Fabio y Gerardo Garca Muoz eds. La luz y la guerra: el cine de la Revolucin mexicana. Mexico DF: CONACULTA, 2010. Print. Sifuentes-Juregui, Ben. Transvestism, Masculinity, and Latin American Literature: Genders Share Flesh. New York; Hampshire: Palgrave, 2002. Print. Tierney, Dolores. Emilio Fernndez: Pictures in the Margins. Manchester; New York: Manchester University Press, 2007. Print.

Filmography
Alzaraki, Benito. Caf Coln. 1958. Baledn, Rafael. El secreto de Pancho Villa.1954. ---. El tesoro de Pancho Villa. 1954. ---. Las coronelas. 1959? Butler, David. Calamity Jane. 1953. Fuentes, Fernando de. El compadre Mendoza. 1933. ---. Prisionero trece. 1933. ---. Vmonos con con Pancho Villa! 1935. Edwards, Blake. Victor/Victoria. 1982. Fernndez, Emilio El indio. El rapto. 1954. Gonzlez. Rogelio A. La Valentina. 1965. Ibaez, Juan. La Generala. 1970. Pollack, Sidney. Tootsie. 1982. Rodrguez, Ismael. As era Pancho Villa. 1957. ---. La Cucuracha. 1958. ---. Cuando Viva Villa! es la muerte. 1958. ---. Las mujeres de mi General. 1950. ---. Pancho Villa y la Valentina. 1958. Urueta, Chano. La cabeza de Pancho Villa. 1956. Wilder, Billy. Some Like it Hot. 1959. Toscano, Carmen. Memorias de un mexicano. 1950. Zacaras, Miguel Juana Gallo. 1960.