Construyendo la modernidad a través del deporte espectáculo: el Gran Premio de México, 1962-1970

Abstract

The modernization process in Mexico had a multidimensional nature, not limited to the productive structure of the country. Leisure time was an important ideological bastion of the modernizing project promoted by the political and economic elites that emerged after the Mexican Revolution. The media, the arts and the sport as ashow became, during the second half of the twentieth century, important ideological scenarios where the narratives and identities that accompanied the formation of the modern Mexican nation were built. The article analyzes the Mexican Grand Prix of Formula 1 (1962-1970), a sporting spectacle that motivated the professionalization of Mexican motorsport. This event exposed the integration of political and economic elites as leaders of a country project that exhausted the Keynesian model. In turn, it was part of a series of sporting events that built a narrative and graphic identity which supported the construction of the Mexican nation. Thus, a socio-historical interpretation of this event is proposed, as part of a series of interrelated political and economic dynamics, in which key characters who embody values and contradictions typical of the historical moment are glimpsed.