Mario Moreno Characters

In Mexican Cinema, some of the biggest stars provide their popular personas within their characters on the screen, especially in the golden age. Stars outside Mexico also did have a similar approach, such as Charlie Chaplin, but the Mexican stars provide characteristics and performances that distinguished from the rest of the characters to provide a deeper context of the class system. Such Mexican character types include charro, pachuco, pelado, and malinche, and each may contain different type of performances from actors, but still altogether display the state of Mexican society. Mario Moreno plays a pelado character named Cantinflas who is part of the lower class in Mexican society, and uses verbal humor to satirize social norms. Ninon Sevilla

However, for Cantinflas, it was all a huge misunderstanding, since he only killed the rabid dog named “Bobby.” This scene shows a prosecutor trying to cross-examine Cantinflas in order to make him confess that he killed the human “Bobby.” This scene primarily relies on the dialogue between the prosecutor and Cantinflas and occasionally from the judge, and what Cantinflas does is twisting the words of the prosecutor, but the way Cantinflas responds does make sense and is effective when he is doing it seriously. For example, when the prosecutor tells him “I’m sorry, excuse me,” Cantinflas angrily responds “You’re a sorry excuse!” that make the attendees laugh, and even the judge himself. This is expected from Cantinflas to respond this way, but does create a different viewpoint of a typical bum character, as he is able to twist words that logically make sense, stand up to high individuals, and critique how upper-class system act unfairly when it comes to any situations like this. Carlos Monsivais of “Cantinflas and Tin Tan: Mexico’s Greatest Comedians” mentions that the comedy of this movie relies on the “”insolence” of Cantinflas” guided by the chaos from “the one where words have no meaning, clothing is ragged, situations that are simple are not understood, and an

Elena discusses how she will continue to shame Rosaura every day, despite Rosaura’s warning of exposing Elena and even herself. Elena explains that since Mario has been deeply in love with her, Mario would forgive Elena anyway and even defend her in court. Elena tells her that she will dump him if Rosaura promises to pay back everything to her. This is tested later on when Elena starts to dance like a cabaret dancer, which begins to alienate the guests, prompting them to leave except for Rosaura and her sons. Although Mario expresses his problem with Elena’s actions, he forgives her, which Elena predicted Mario would do, when he tells her to start becoming a lady instead of a cabaret dancer. The dancing scene presents how a woman’s role is viewed upon the public consciousness, as Elena is looked down upon. This also distinguishes Rosaura’s double life, even if she is not actively involved in the dance, since she is trying to blend in with the upper crowd as opposed to her cabaret job. Ninon Sevilla subverts gender expectations by bringing up a more authoritative role and even elements of a femme fatale persona as she is at this point only using Mario to taunt Rosaura. When asked about her career, Sevilla said that she “proved to her family that some of the actresses