Challenging Patriarchy in the Gothic Horror Mexican Cinema
This chapter discusses how female sexuality and female gender relations are depicted and manifested in a number of gothic horror movies in Mexico up to the late 1960s. Although rather traditional in the way they address issues of female gender politics and sexuality in the country and, by extension, in many parts of the continent, these movies also show a radical shift in attitude towards women, as well as some female queer subjects, in terms of their gendered relations and the expressions of their sexuality. The main purpose of this chapter is to offer an analysis of the anti normative female gothic the villainess and the female monster and to establish whether the Mexican female gothic figure continues the tradition of other classic female gothics elsewhere, or whether it departs from this and provides new readings on issues of Mexican femininity and femaleness.