{"id":1075,"date":"2015-05-21T20:10:52","date_gmt":"2015-05-21T20:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/?p=1075"},"modified":"2015-05-27T20:36:46","modified_gmt":"2015-05-27T20:36:46","slug":"maria-elena-velasco-december-17-1940-may-1-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/2015\/05\/21\/maria-elena-velasco-december-17-1940-may-1-2015\/","title":{"rendered":"Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco, December 17, 1940\u2013May 1, 2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>This week, Medi\u00e1tico presents an obituary to Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco, one of the Mexican film industry&#8217;s leading figures, written by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.solothurnerfilmtage.ch\/home\/page.aspx?page_virtual_url=kontakt\">Seraina\u00a0Rohrer<\/a>\u00a0director of\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.solothurnerfilmtage.ch\/home\/page.aspx?page_id=4019\">Solothurn Film Festival<\/a>\u00a0in Switzerland whose PhD\u00a0focused on the\u00a0legendary actress, director and creator\u00a0of the iconic &#8216;La India Mar\u00eda&#8217;. Seraina has been\u00a0\u00a0a Visiting Scholar at the Chicano Studies Research Center of the University of California Los Angeles (July 2009 to August 2010). She has also\u00a0headed\u00a0the Press Office of the Locarno International Film Festival (2003\u20132008). She writes a column in the newspaper NZZ am Sonntag and has taught\u00a0film at the University of Zurich and ECAL. She has previously published on Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco in\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/jollas.org\/doi\/abs\/10.5555\/llas.3.3.u013g71801116802?journalCode=llas\">The Journal of Latino\/Latin American Studies<\/a>\u00a0<em>and \u00a0is currently preparing a manuscript about formula filmmaking in Mexico.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/jw-WwFPQ2_E?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>On May 1, Mexico\u2019s film industry lost one of its leading figures: Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco, best known as <em>La India Mar\u00eda.<\/em> For five decades, Velasco played a humble and stubborn indigenous Mexican woman \u2014 a performance notable for its marked ethnicity and slapstick humor. Her iconic character remains controversial. Some critics view <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> as a racist depiction of a negative stereotype, while others see the widely beloved character as a sly, transgressive critique against discrimination and those in power.<\/p>\n<p>Born and raised in Puebla, Velasco created the character <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> shortly after she launched her acting career in Mexico City\u2019s vaudeville theaters. In an interview she told me that the character <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> was inspired by indigenous <em>Mazahua<\/em> women from rural Mexico commonly called <em>Las<\/em> <em>Mar\u00edas<\/em>, who began to migrate to Mexico City in the 1960s to sell fruit, candy, and trinkets on the streets of the capital. The character was a runaway hit with stage audiences, and Velasco frequently reprised <em>Mar\u00eda<\/em> for theater fans throughout her career. In 1971, <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> made her first television appearance on the variety show <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=cvXW1WAAxOc\">Siempre en Domingo<\/a><\/em>. She won the hearts of TV audiences with her comic performance and naive admiration for the host of the show.<\/p>\n<p>The next year, Velasco played the leading role in the first <em>India Mar\u00eda<\/em> feature film, <em>Tonta tonta, pero no tanto \/ Stupid Stupid, but not That Much<\/em> (1972). Fifteen other films followed, including <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=tj2_bo5Ghgs\">Ni de aqu\u00ed, ni de all\u00e1 <\/a>\/ Neither From Here, Nor From There<\/em> (MX, 1988) and her most recent comedy <em>La Hija De Moctezuma \/ The Daughter of Moctezuma<\/em> (2014). By the mid-1970s, her films were among the top box office grossers in Mexico, across Latin America, and in Latino neighborhoods in the United States.<\/p>\n<p>Most <em>India Mar\u00eda<\/em> comedies follow a similar formula: <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> is exploited, but in the end, she defeats her adversaries and unmasks their corruption. For many Mexican and U.S. Latino families, seeing Velasco\u2019s films, singing along with the popular tunes, and applauding when <em>La India Mar\u00eda<\/em> mocked the rich and powerful became a familiar and satisfying weekend ritual. In contrast, film critics have largely dismissed Velasco\u2019s movies as lowbrow entertainment for the masses that reinforces negative stereotypes. The administration of President Vicente Fox even made an unsuccessful attempt to ban all <em>India Mar\u00eda<\/em> films because of their depiction of indigenous ethnicity.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>In addition to her work as an actress, Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco directed five her own films in order to exercise more control over the character. In the late 1985 she founded her own production company, together with her children Iv\u00e1n and Ivette Goretti Lipkies. Velasco collaborated with other big-name comedians and recruited experienced film industry workers to bring to the screen audience-pleasing productions that guaranteed Velasco the artistic freedom she wanted.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/Maria-as-la-india2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1083\" src=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/Maria-as-la-india2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Maria as la india2\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/Maria-as-la-india2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/Maria-as-la-india2-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/Maria-as-la-india2.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Velasco on set during filming of\u00a0<em>La hija de Moctezuma\u00a0(photograph by author, 2011)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Velasco\u2019s accomplishments as a director and producer have been widely overlooked\u2014or deliberately ignored. During the 1970s and 1980s, only a handful of women worked behind the camera: Marcela Fern\u00e1ndez Violante, Busi Cort\u00e9s, Mar\u00eda Novaro, and Isela Vega. With the exception of Vega, all went to film school and made auteur films that targeted international festival and art house audiences. Isela Vega, like Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco, worked in commercial filmmaking. They learned on the job, as did many other industry professionals working in commercial film production. On the set of her films, Velasco worked with enthusiasm, constantly motivating her crew to create great family entertainment, making the most of the at times low budgets.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/filmking-a-scene.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1080\" src=\"http:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/filmking-a-scene-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"filmking a scene\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/filmking-a-scene-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/filmking-a-scene-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/filmking-a-scene.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Filming a scene from\u00a0<em>La hija de Moctezuma\u00a0<\/em>(photograph by author, 2011)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>For what she lacked in critical acclaim, Velasco became one of Mexico\u2019s most prolific female director-producer and created a spirited and unforgettable character that Mexican audiences loved for half a century \u2014 and will sorely miss. As for the critics, it is time they reconsider Velasco work and her character.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This week, Medi\u00e1tico presents an obituary to Mar\u00eda Elena Velasco, one of the Mexican film industry&#8217;s leading figures, written by\u00a0Seraina\u00a0Rohrer\u00a0director&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":1086,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,1],"tags":[139,39,138],"class_list":["post-1075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-film","category-uncategorized","tag-la-india-maria","tag-mexico","tag-popular-cinema"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/files\/2015\/05\/la_india_mariaheaderimage.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p49QSj-hl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1075"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1075\/revisions\/1088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reframe.sussex.ac.uk\/mediatico\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}