“Valentinas, Coronelas, Soldaderas: Explosive Women in Mexican Film”

Despite their profusion, films of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) have largely been ignored by scholars. This relative neglect is because many are seen to be jingoistic in their representation of a PRI sanctioned nationalism. The few Revolutionary films that have been redeemed are those early films that are often read as going against the grain or others which were made by a generation of, largely university educated, independent filmmakers in the 1960s and 70s who took the Revolution and its stories as a way of challenging nationalist discourse. The films 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 films are worthy of a second look because of their sometimes nuanced and often playful approach to gender identities.