Gazes and Cinematic Readings of Gender: Danzón and its Relationship to its Audience

Though Mexican cinema has been the object of numerous studies, few of these refer to the process of audience reception: to that intimate moment of cinematic communication in which the gazing subject discovers part of its identity while simultaneously appropriating the film. In this article I would like to share the findings of a research project that advances the study of audience reception from the perspective of gender. A project, in other words, that seeks to recognize the relationship established by diverse gendered subjects/audiences with a film made by a woman. In such an undertaking, the gendered subjectivity of the director, of the researcher, as well as of the audience that interprets both the film and its own reactions to it are all put into play. My point of departure is the recognition that women directors disclose their gendered subjectivity through film and that this feminine subjectivity motivates, stimulates, and questions the gender of the subject that interprets the film. Studies on the characteristics of women’s film have shown that female creators commonly present a feminine—and in some cases feminist—gaze and perspective of the reality they choose to narrate. Thanks to the presence of female directors, the feminine subject narrates and the narrated subject has gone from object to subject, thus occupying