Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo- Artifact Analysis

Kayla Hanifen
04.15.2016
ENGL306: Artifact Draft

Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Documentary Film

During the Argentinian dictatorship, also referred to as the ‘Dirty War’ (1976-1983), thousands of Argentinian citizens were abducted by the government in order to eliminate all that were opposed to the regime. Despite the denial of the dic

tatorship over these “disappearances”, occurred across social class and age line, however most were typically students and blue-collar workers (Rodriquez).

Cover of "Las Madres: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo"
Photo Credit: Pinterest 

“Las Madres” produced and directed by Susana Munoz and Lourdes Portillo, hones in on the power from the pain and determination of the mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, a symbolic group of women who “drove the enormity of political repression in Argentina into the world’s consciousness in the 1970’s” (Goodman). Every Thursday, they would gather around the front of Benos Aires, a plaza near the Presidential Palace, utilizing strong symbolic references, like white kerchiefs imprinted with the names of their missing children. With their numbers growing and developed a moral force that military juntas (oppressors) could not destroy, they shouted “They took them alive!” and “We want them back!” The documentary goes up through 1985, with the mothers “still calling for punishment of the officers responsible for torturing and killing their children. The Oscar-nominated documentary was not only useful in that it captured the performance of their collective identity, but was also “instrumental in providing a broader audience for said performance.” (Rodriguez)

The symbolic importance of ‘Las Madres’, is that the film follows the struggle of the Mothers of the Plaza of Mayo, trying to discover the story of their missing children taken by the regime. Why is it important? Explained by Renee H. Shea in her chapter: ‘Using Documentary Film as an Introduction to Rhetoric’, “Nonfiction is booming” (Shea). It gains a stronger presence allowing viewers to read the film and its rhetorical strategies as an argument through choice. Choice in words, tones, phrases, visual, audio, and text in the film (Shea). The rhetoric in the documentary lies in the nonfiction, visual culture, and argument of the film, its importance in the protest of the mothers of Plaza de Mayo lies in the definition of a documentary. “What, after all, is a documentary except someone’s argument that the audience should accept this viewpoint, take this action, make this commitment, understand the rightness/wrongness of this policy, etc.” (Shea).

Using the Latin American myth known as marianismo (the good woman as mother) as the foundation to analyze the rhetorical protest of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, motherhood in Latin America restricted to the realm of private families. From what Diana Taylor explains the “’public’ woman […] are considered prostitutes or madwomen – that is, non-mothers, even anti-mothers, while “good mothers are invisible,” (Taylor 195).  The success of the Madres of Plaza de Mayo movement were successful thanks to their theatrical nature. The mothers exploited the stereotypical characteristics of motherhood, more specifically in dress, to send their message and highlight their status as “outsiders in the political system actually allowed them to enter the system” (Rodriguez). Their trademark, white kerchiefs applied visually homogenizing factor, and while represented in the documentary, the women come from all kinds of socio-economic backgrounds. A majority of the women wore conservative skirts holding large handbags, wearing glasses to portray a look of “old, frail, and powerless” (Rodriguez). The look itself was a carefully constructed image by the Madres in order to become “quick change artists- some slipping on less traditionally motherly attire to escape arrest” (Taylor 195), one of the leaders of the Madres, Hebe de Bonafini, went to extremes by wearing her bedroom slippers to the demonstrations. This act essentially played with boundaries between the domestic and the public that they themselves were molding.

Their costumes were effective because of the patriarchal image of the mother (much based on the Virgin Mary) “as a passive, submissive being who is put on a pedestal because of her inherent goodness” (Rodriguez). At the beginning of the Dirty War, mothers were excluded from the different groups, but as their protests continued, the group acquired more and more visibility, an effective strategy because of it’s manipulation of ideas so ingrained in Argentinian culture. However, setting aside their choice of dress, the Madres also used their bodies as political statements. As shown in the documentary, the women used their bodies into “walking billboards” (Taylor 183) to emphasize their sorrows; some were even walking shrines to mourn their lost children. Initially, the mothers wore small pictures around their necks, but this quickly evolved to covering their tops, their coats, and kerchiefs of the disappeared. It didn’t stop there, it wasn’t long after this evolution that big signs, and blow-up pictured with phrases and demands for the return of their lost children.

The performative identity of the mothers revolved around the Mater Dolorosa, or ‘grieving mother’ (Rodriguez). The women would walk around crying and screaming in order to portray the real expressions of grief for their children. In the documentary, the Madre’s wept on the camera, interviews were recollection of the horrors of the Dirty War and “the “subversive” activity for which their children were persecuted, mostly social justice work in the regime that had suppressed all human rights.” (Rodriguez). In their performances, phrases like “we don’t know if they are hungry or if they are cold” were displayed on film exploiting the rather ‘mature’ children as that of defenseless young children. It was almost as though the kidnapping was an indirect attack on the identity of motherhood and as an obstacle for their job required upon by society. The protests were honing on their powerlessness and inability to prevent harm to their children much like the Virgin Mary who could not prevent the murder of her son. Needless to say, a pivotal role in religious identity was a major factor to the overall success of the protest displaying signs like “The Virgin Mary had his son in her arms after he died. We don’t even have their bones.” (Rodriguez).

The rhetorical performance of the Madres’ and their play on motherhood was effective in achieving the visibility of their cause: getting their children home to them. Their visibility to the public eye in contrast to the private dichotomy, was a political mobilization for societal change in female identity. While their performance provided the mothers a way to create and perform their own political stance, this organization is limited in the sense that their role as a mother can only be pushed so far. The tool of motherhood can only be manipulated in it’s own definitive scope, what intervenes with political goals and productivity to Argentina, was irrelevant to motherhood. Even showing great power in spite of their traditional confinement to the domestic sphere, and despite the limited scope of their identity, the mothers of Plaze de Mayo had tarnished the idea of feminine delicacy and reshaped the societal conditions of their nations and around the world.

Citation

Taylor, Diana. “Trapped in Bad Scripts: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo”. Disappearing Acts. Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Duke Univ. Press: 1997. 183-222.

Las Madres: The Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo. Dir. Susana Blaustein Munoz and Lourdes Portillo. First Run Features, 1985.

Shea, Renee H. “Introducing Rhetorical Analysis Through Documentary Film.” AP English Language and Composition: Using Documentary Film as an Introduction to Rhetoric. Ed. The College Board AP. 2008 ed. New York, NY: College Board, 2008. 4-13. Print. Curriculum Module.

Taylor, Diana. "Trapped in Bad Scripts: The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo". Disappearing Acts. Spectacles of Gender and Nationalism in Argentina's "Dirty War." Duke Univ. Press: 1997. 183-222.



QUESTION:  What would a more organic organization look like in an artifact analysis? Would doing my artifact analysis on the 'uniform' of the Las Madres be more beneficial/logical? Or is that not considered an artifact? The protest did not really have a turning point other than the fall of the regime, but that really didn't have anything to do with the Las Madres...