About this item
La India Mara - a humble and stubborn indigenous Mexican woman - is one of the most popular characters of the Mexican stage, television, and film. Created and portrayed by Mara Elena Velasco, La India Mara has delighted audiences since the late 1960s with slapstick humor that slyly critiques discrimination and the powerful. At the same time, however, many critics have derided the iconic figure as a racist depiction of a negative stereotype and dismissed the India Mara films as exploitation cinema unworthy of serious attention. By contrast, La India Mara builds a convincing case for Mara Elena Velasco as an artist whose work as a director and producer - rare for women in Mexican cinema - has been widely and unjustly overlooked.Drawing on extensive interviews with Velasco, her family, and film industry professionals, as well as on archival research, Seraina Rohrer offers the first full account of Velasco's life; her portrayal of La India Mara in vaudeville, television, and sixteen feature film comedies, including Ni de aqu, ni de all [Neither here, nor there]; and her controversial reception in Mexico and the United States.
About the Author
Seraina Rohrer heads the Solothurn Film Festival, one of Switzerland's leading cultural events. She holds a PhD in film studies from the University of Zurich and has been a visiting scholar at the Chicano Studies Research Center of UCLA, where she conducted her research for this book. She is a board member of various cultural foundations.
