Class, Gender, and Ethnic Identity in Mexican Film and Television Melodrama

Abstract

This study examines narratives of social identity in two media genres of Mexican melodrama: the most popular telenovela of all time, Maria del Barrio (Angelii Nesma Medina, México, 1995-1996), and the arthouse blockbuster Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, México, 2018). Although critics have long disparaged melodrama as uncritical, I argue that María del Barrio and Roma turn this genre’s focus on the family as a critical exposition of class, gender and ethnic disparities in Mexican life.