La negra Angustias

The young Angustias was born around 1903 in the south of Morelos State as the daughter of a generous bandit and was discriminated because she was a woman, an orphan, black and illiterate. After stabbing a man who tried to rape her, she fled into the mountains and joined the Zapatistas. As a colonel, the young woman adhered to her father’s ideals, delivering justice for women and farmers.

Angustias is a historical figure and became legendary thanks to the book and the film made about her exploits. Her life story offered left-wing, anti-racist and feminist director Matilde Landeta plenty of material for tackling the dominant marriage and motherhood ideology in an airy, amusing manner. Landeta thought the novel’s ending, during which Angustias gets married, was unrealistic and changed it.

Boycott

Matilde Landeta (1913 – 1999) was a Mexican scriptwriter and director, and one of the pioneers of Latin-American female-directed cinema. Despite multiple boycotts of her work, she managed to get ahead in the complex Mexican film industry. In 1948 she pawned her home to found Tacma, the company that produced Lola Casanova (1948), her debut as a filmmaker. This was followed by films such as La negra Angustias (1949), Trotacalles (1951) and Nocturno a Rosario (1992).

This film’s original distributor Feministisch Filmkollektief Cinemien was ground-breaking when it came to raising the visibility of female filmmakers including those from the Global South.

Blackface

Unfortunately, stereotypical Images of Black people have been used as a source of humour and entertainment since the colonial period in the theatre, on television, in film and in other forms of entertainment.

For the lead role in La negra Angustias, Landeta asked Maria Elena Marqués, a white actress in blackface – a problematic decision that earned her much criticism. The decision to cast Maria Elena Marques as Angustias is problematic, and should be seen in the context of its time, 1949.