Looking Good at the Movies: Film Audiences and Women’s Self-Presentation in Mexico, 1935–70

Across the Golden Age of Mexican cinema, filmmakers and others involved in movie production, distribution and promotion assumed that women went to the movies in order to see new fashions in clothing, makeup and hairstyles, as well as beautifully presented domestic interiors; these assumptions shaped how Mexican movies were made, how the careers of Mexican movie stars developed, and which movies from abroad were shown in Mexico. At the same time, Catholic women’s organizations and other socially conservative Mexican voices assumed that the movies shaped women’s behavior, and particularly their self-presentation; these assumptions shaped the conservative critique of mass media in Mexico. There is little evidence to prove or disprove these shared assumptions. But the discursive relationship between movie-going and women’s self-presentation can be seen in published and unpublished sources including sermons, fan magazines, newspaper advertisements, visual art, and literary fiction. This discourse both informed and was informed by underlying tensions around race and class which were increasingly obvious as the era of the Mexican Miracle drew to a close.