Images of Women in Mexican Comic Books*

Comic books are read on a regular basis by young and old, rich and poor, urban and rural Mexicans. Humor, adventure, police, fantastic and political comic books are but a few types of these popular publications found at newsstands on busy downtown street corners or laid out on sidewalks in quiet neighborhoods. Because of their immense popularity, their content merits serious attention. Harold Hinds and Charles Tatum study the images of women in four comic books—Kaliman, Lagrimas, risas y amor, La familia Burron and El Payo—and assess the degree to which these images conform to or deviate from traditional stereotypes of Mexican women. They find that in some cases these stereotypical images are not found: but in most, readers encounter submissive, passive and long-suffering females dependent upon males for their self-esteem; or at least woman as ideal fiancee-spouse, as mistress-sex-object and as witch. Two women—Borola of La familia Burron and Lupe of El Payo—are more assertive and not cast in the same mold as most other comic book women.