Feminism and criticism to the consumption in the Argentine documentary El Mundo de La Mujer (1972), directed by Maria Luisa Bemberg

Abstract

The object of this research is the short documentary El Mundo de La Mujer (15') directed by the filmmaker María Luisa Bemberg and released in Argentina in the year of 1972. The movie was entirely shot in the La Mujer y Su Mundo fair's grounds, in Buenos Aires, and it presents, via a ironic narrative, several aspects of the event, such as an intense propaganda that attends female's preferences and features, and the public's response - women, men and children - to the stands, to the models and their performances, as well as to the products there exposed. The objective here, therefore, is the realization a historical analysis of this film and, by means of this, the establishment of an interpretation of the characteristics aesthetics and political, considering the possible connexions with the contemporanean documentarism on the national movie making movement - known by the production of the Cine Liberación Group - and with the Nuevo Cine Latino americano. In a broader aspect, her movie and its connections with the context in which it was produced will be analyzed: the dictatorship period known as 'Argentine Revolution' (1966-1973), more specifically, the General Augustin Lanusse's goverment, initiated in 1971, characterized by the pressure of the opposition on the peronist movement's part. In addition, it is still intended the execution of a reading of the relationship between gender and consumption on the time of the movie, frame in which there were a certain rejection of North American's imperialism icons, instituting itself, so, a dialogue with the bibliography about the subject.