Where Cabaret Meets Revolution: The Prostitute at War in Mexican Film

Abstract

Star and Fashion Studies inform this analysis of the Mexican film star María Félix. This chapter considers how movement, performance and wardrobe complicate the traditional role of women in war, with a particular focus on two Revolutionary Melodramas, La mujer de todos (Julio Bracho 1946) and La Bandida (Roberto Rodríguez 1963), films set in 1912 during a brief truce in the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920). Where the prostitute is normally punished for what is presented as immoral behaviour in Mexican cinema, Félix brings a star quality with the aid of key wardrobe choices that upend this archetypal trajectory. Wardrobe becomes a signifier of her power as a star and character that provide the character with considerable agency.