The domestication of the Ensign Nun: "La monja alférez(1944) and Mexican identity"

• Autores: Richard A. Gordon
• Localización: Hispania, ISSN 0018-2133, Vol. 87, Nº 4, 2004, págs. 675-681
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This essay explores how and why, during the gulden age of mexican cinema, a studio nationalizes and reforms a potentially problematic spanish colonial figure, transforming her into a symbol of national identity. La monja alférez (1944) stars Maria Felix and is directed by Emilio Gomez Muriel, both of whom place the film at the heart of Mexican cinemas época de oro. The film rewrites vida i sucesos de La monja alférez (1625), the alleged autobiography of Catalina de Erauso, a Spanish woman who achieved military renown in America dressed as a man and eventually retired to new Spain. In a move that actively brings the colonial past to bear on the Mexican present, Gomez Muriel's film recasts the historical character not as Basque, but as Mexican. This paper examines the process through which La monja alférez revamps Erauso as a Mexican icon, and considers the intersecting commercial and governmental influences that gave rise to this adaptation.