The Mexican cinema has undergone changes over its history in keeping with altered attitudes in Mexican society at large, and one of the areas of change has been in terms of the portrayal of women and gender relations. The so-called "Golden Age" of Mexican cinema was in the 1940s and 1950s, and the attitudes that prevailed during that era shifted as the Mexican cinema moved into what has been called the New Mexican Cinema, which is only part of a larger movement called the New Latin American Cinema. Changed attitudes within the filmmaking community of Mexico, and with Mexican audiences, is only one aspect of the larger social changes taking place throughout Latin America over the past three decades or so, with the greatest movement coming after 1965 and accelerating along with social changes throughout the world in the seventies and eighties. An examination of the changes within Mexico will show the relationship between Mexican cinema and the larger cinematic world of all Latin America.
By 1940, the Mexican film industry was well-established and had weathered the shift from silents to sound, and the event that would have the greatest influence on the film industry after 1939 was the coming of war in Europe. Indeed, that event would have a profound effect on all of Latin America. The war was a windfall for Latin American countries because raw materials were in great demand by the Allies to pursue the war effort. When imported manufactured goods from the United States and Europe were curtailed because of the war, industrialization was increased throughout Latin America to make up for the lack. This was especially true in the major countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico, and the Mexican and Argentine film industries also reflected this industrialization as they tried to supply national and foreign Spanish-speaking markets with films formerly supplied by Hollywood and, to a lesser extent, by European producers. Brazil, wh...