Shift in Social Character: Charro Cultural Representations in Mexican Popular Culture

Abstract:David Riesman's The Lonely Crowd can be applied to the transformation of Mexican popular culture in regard to the representation of the traditional charro community. Despite the fact that Western countries consider Mexico a developing country, Mexico's social character is undergoing a cultural change. A once primarily rural and agricultural community, rapid urbanization and industrialization have affected rural traditions such as that of the charro. Mexican mass media have demonstrated the charro as an inner-directed man, oriented by a metaphorical gyroscope and unscathed by criticism. The modern charro as portrayed in mass media is demonstrated to have more other-directed characteristics than ever before. These changes in the cultural representations of the charro community indicate that the cultural changes in Mexico's social character are departing from rural cultural productions to a more Western and urban cultural production. Ultimately, the charro image in Mexico's popular culture will be cautiously marginalized and replaced by a more modern image of the Mexican corporate man.