El Santo versus the establishment—How film institutions overlook Mexico's favorite luchador.
El Santo, pro wrestler turned actor, starred in over 50 films, amassing a cult following that turned him into a cultural icon. Despite the films’ immense and enduring popularity, film historians and members of Cineteca Nacional de México and Filmoteca de la UNAM (government organizations that work to preserve and honor films), refuse to acknowledge them when showcasing Mexican films at festivals. Why do film institutions overlook films that the Mexican masses love? Professor Brian Price (Contemporary Mexican Cultural Production) explored this question in his February 8, 2024, Humanities Center Colloquium lecture, “In Search of the Lost Cinema of Mexico.”
The distinction between the commercial genre (generally considered “popular”) and high-brow films (generally considered “serious art”) comes straight from national film institutions. Films in the Mexican canon are typically influenced by foreign aesthetic trends or tied to an explicit national identity. If a film does not fit these criteria, it can be discarded as “unworthy of serious study.”
While Price agrees that studying high-brow films is a worthwhile endeavor, he argues that “[i]f we’re going to understand artistic history, that means we have to engage . . . with the popular, the cultural, the commercial to generate a more complete understanding of the history we’re talking about.” Price, along with Olivia Cosentino, edited a volume called The Lost Cinema of Mexico: From Lucha Libre to Cine Familiar and Other Churros, that explores how commercial genre films of the 20th century were “widely embraced by the public as a way to make sense of the rapidly changing realities and values connected to Mexico’s modernization.” Although Mexican film institutions have deemed these commercial films low-brow, they provided a way for Mexican citizens to connect to each other and to their country, which is why Price argues for their preservation and study.
As Price has researched how films remain in the zeitgeist, he found three main ways films get preserved: in state-funded institutional archives, personal archives (film companies no longer in production that hold on to old film reels), and informal archives (illegal street vendors, bazaars, online streaming, and social media). While personal and informal archives help preserve films, their local nature means that copies of films in these archives are limited in their scope and quantity. As a result, international audiences cannot access the films, and local people need to put in more effort to find, preserve, and distribute movies that the masses love.
The limitations of informal and personal archives means that state-funded archives play a crucial role in preserving films. Institutions have the resources to store and digitize old film reels and honor them in film festivals and theaters, continually reminding audiences of the film’s importance and excellence.
Part of Price’s research involves finding and preserving commercial genre films himself. He has found that most of the commercial films he has found have come from informal archives. For instance, about 90% of the Mexican rock films in his collection came from informal archives. Price believes that if film institutions continue to disregard commercial films, chances are that these films will slowly become ignored or forgotten.
Price concluded his lecture by saying, “The way we think about film history, the way we categorize, the way we value film says a lot about the industries and about the values of our culture. I hope we can be as inclusive as we can possibly be when we’re going through and trying to tell these stories from different perspectives.”
Check out who is presenting at the Humanities Center Colloquiums here.