I am continuing my occasional posts about films starring María Félix with a short post on La estrella vacía [the empty star] (Emilio Gómez Muriel, 1958). The film is adapated from the eponymous 1950 novel by Luis Spota, a well-known chronicler of twentieth century Mexican urban life and, in the words of Sara Sefchovich a…
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A Controversy in Tweets and Links
This post is about the American Dirt Controversy. It is as much archive and tracking an online news piece in my corner of the Twitterverse as it is about giving an account. In a previous post I wrote about the opening salvo that has grown into a fascinating conversation about who the publishing industry supports,…
We Need (More and Better) Reviewers
Normally on these pages, I write about what I’ve been researching. Today, I want to write about why I would love others to write more and better reviews. There are two prompts to this post. This past weekend I watched First They Killed My Father (Angelina Jolie, 2017) a Netflix film about a child soldier…
A chapter in screenshots
I recently tidied up the desktop of my computer. Whilst sifting through the numerous folders I gathered related to my project on curation and tastemaking in Mexico, I found a number of images that I had compiled in 2010 when carrying out early research. This is a mini-archive that creates digital material traces of the…
Jennifer Lopez and Bordertown
I get regular updates on Jennifer Lopez in my email because I’ve been writing about her as an actor and star/celebrity. What is very clear from the daily coverage is the level of scrutiny and speculation she, her partner, and family lives with which she navigates through carefully curated media appearances and regular updates on…
Film Festivals and Film Cycles
Whilst writing my chapter on institutions and tastemakers I carried out research into Film Festivals. This has been invaluable in helping me describe and analyse film cycles and commemorations in Mexico, which I explore in-depth in my forthcoming book. I want to share some material that touches on what I have been researching, but will…
What Elena Poniatowska and Ayotzinapa can tell us about subjectivity and violence
I have been writing about violence and subjectivity for my forthcoming monograph. This led me to reflect on the value placed on a life and how significant a fully realised representation is. It may seem obvious to say, but individual lives can become invisible when the numbers of victims grow. Therefore, acknowledging the subjectivity of…
Diego Luna and Yalitza Aparicio: (Non-)Professional Acting and Authenticity in Mexico
I have been thinking a lot about performance – of the self, gender, on screen, online – in recent years. Most recently, this led me write about performance and authenticity in Amat Escalante’s films, Los bastardos (2008) and Heli (2013), as a way into thinking about his work as prestige productions. To situate this discussion…
Review: Los cárteles no existen – Oswaldo Zavala
Los cárteles no existen: narcotráfico y cultura en México [Cartels don’t exist: drug trafficking and culture in Mexico]* (Barcelona: Malpaso, 2018) by Oswaldo Zavala is a deliberately provocative book with a clear central thesis: cartels exist discursively and have been rhetorically constructed thanks to powerful interests, but do not exist as they are popularly understood…
Presentation Memorial del 68 by Nicolás Echevarria
This is the presentation I gave at UNAM, UK Centre for Mexican Studies in advance of the screening of Memorial del 68 by Nicolás Echevarria, 16 October 2018. I’m sure that many of you here are familiar with the events leading up to the massacre on the 2nd of October 1968. So, you will not…