Cutting Cárdenas: Revising the Revolutionary Family in 1980s Mexico

Abstract:In 1987 the historical telenovela Senda de gloria (Path of Glory) debuted to the delight of audiences and illustrated a fundamental link between telenovelas and national identity. The series, a coproduction between Televisa, Mexico’s largest media conglomerate, and the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social (IMSS), weaves the melodramatic tale of the Álvarez family into the backdrop of the 1910 Mexican Revolution, specifically from the 1917 constitution to Lázaro Cárdenas’s nationalization of oil in 1938. This article employs the discourse of the “revolutionary family” to understand both the plot and the production of Senda de gloria, as well as the political context of 1980s Mexico. Furthermore, the article explores IMSS as part of the revolutionary family and its involvement in the production of relatively costly telenovelas. Senda demonstrates how Mexican heroes and villains were recast in the neoliberal turn after 1988, and in this political and economic transition, the very history that the PRI employed to legitimize its power instead discredited the party and underscored its illegitimacy.