Madres extraordinarias en los cines clásicos de Argentina y España

Abstract

This article is part of a long-term line of work that traces a genealogy of the maternal imaginary in Argentine cinema from 1933 to the present, mapping its most representative figures and evolution over time. Focusing on the classic industrial period and establishing a comparative perspective with Spanish cinema, we will problematize some aspects of the mother-child bond in films where, although the protagonism corresponds to the daughters, a mother figure appears that is absolutely central in Western culture. Milagro de amor (Francisco Mugica, 1946, Argentina) and La Señora de Fátima (Rafael Gil, 1951, Spain), stage the (impossible) power of a model and transcendent, spiritual, omnipresent and perfect motherhood: that which embodies the Virgin Mary. After the characterization of both products, we will advance in the analysis of the construction of the stories and the staging, to detect the sex-gender models and counter-models implicit in each film, noting both the moral-ideological guidelines that are stated there, as well as the –perhaps less obvious–paradoxes, leaks and semantic-political ambiguities that constitute the convention of the maternal “duty” to women in the mid-twentieth century.