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  • Looking For Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity
  • Pippa Oldfield
John Mraz , Looking For Mexico: Modern Visual Culture and National Identity. Durham NC: Duke University Press. 2009. xiv + 343pp. IBSN 978-0-8223-443-8.

2010 marks both the bicentenary of Mexico's independence from Spain and the centenary of the Mexican Revolution, fuelling a surge of interest in the history and identity of the nation. Perhaps prompted by this, as well as by recent developments in visual culture studies and closer scholarly attention to photographic images, Looking for Mexico is one of several new studies exploring the relationship between visual culture and Mexican national identity (see also Andrea Noble's Mexican National Cinema (2005) and Roberto Tejada's National Camera: Photography and Mexico's Image Environment (2009)).

Synthesizing his previous work on specific aspects of Mexican photography and cinema into a broader account, Mraz asserts that 'technical images' have been crucial in constructing and constituting Mexican national identity, or mexicanidad (Mexicanness). His argument is underpinned both by Stuart Hall's contention that identity is not fixed and essential, but shifting and constructed; and his own assertion that specific historical and cultural factors (such as racial co-mingling following the Spanish conquest) have resulted in an ongoing Mexican 'obsession' with identity (7).

Covering an enormous range of material from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, Mraz demonstrates his encyclopaedic knowledge of the terrain. A work of this scope can never be exhaustive, and Mraz wisely offers his study as a subjective 'opening up' of the field, resulting in a rich account that will undoubtedly inspire scholars to delve more deeply into the fascinating material presented. Inevitably, there are omissions: analysis of photographs of Mayan monuments by Desiré Charnay and others, for example, might have revealed the key struggle for ownership of Mexico's indigenous past and its eventual incorporation into the canon of mexicanidad, a transition which is alluded to in this study but not made explicit.

Mraz's approach to analysing the two media varies considerably, with the photographic chapters encompassing large chronological periods and a dizzying range of material. This wide sweep enables valuable criticism of the (often overlooked) power of visual systems, such as the Casasola archive and historia gráfica, in controlling and mobilizing photographs, rather than merely focusing on individual authors. Similarly, Mraz's lucid summary of the political persuasions of (and state influence on) the Mexican press illuminates their bias in publishing certain images, and will greatly assist future analysis of images in these contexts.

The ambitious range of photographic material encompassed means that the images themselves are often tantalizingly glossed, leaving the viewer and, indeed, Mraz himself 'with the haunting sensation that [topics] could easily lead off into book-length projects' (1). He achieves greater insights, however, through close readings of a selective number of films, serving as exemplars of wider tendencies. His analyses of the creation of national characters such the pachuco (the hybrid North American/Mexican urban dandy, personified by actor Germán 'Tin Tan' Valdés), and the biopic Frida (dir. Julie Taymor, 2002) as representative of mexicanidad as a transnational and shifting collection of tendencies, are particularly compelling.

These cinematic analyses, however, often centre on nuances of narrative and dialogue rather than the visual - ostensibly the focus of his study. Indeed, other material, such as José Guadalupe Posada's satirical prints, or Diego Rivera's murals representing key moments in Mexican history, might be considered equally valid in revealing the relationship between visual culture and national identity. Perhaps a more developed account of the intrinsic qualities of photographic technologies, particularly indexicality and the claim to 'truth', might have elucidated why Mraz believes that photography and cinema 'may be even more formative' than these other genres (6).

While the notion of national identity is implicit throughout, the nature of its relationship to the visual might have been interrogated more rigorously. We read, for example, that 'the stars [of Mexican cinema] were somehow able to create public personas of such power that they came to express central features of Mexicanness', but are left wondering how and why this came about, and whether these personas reflected an...

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