Güeros: Social Fragmentation, Political Agency, and the Mexican Film Industry under Neoliberalism

Abstract

This article discusses the impact of nafta on the Mexican film industry with special emphasis on the effects of neoliberal ideology, both on film audiences and its contents. It describes an industry that caters exclusively to the economic elites, blindly following the logic of economic optimization and foregoing any attempt at a cinematic project rooted in national culture. The author then analyzes Alonso Ruizpalacios’ Güeros (2014) as an interesting case study illustrating the difficulties of trying to resist neoliberalism after decades of living in a society and working inside a film industry strongly shaped by its ideology.