El boxeador: genealogía y transformación de un ícono en la literatura mexicana de los siglos XX y XXI =The Boxer: Genealogy and Transformation of an Iconnin Mexican Literature from the 20th and 21st Centuries

摘要

In this research I analyse a corpus of three short stories, one chronicle, and four novels by Mexican authors that use boxers as main characters. The chronicle is "Las glorias del gran Puas", by Ricardo Garibay (1978). The short stories are "Fuera del ring", by Guillermo Samperio (1975); "El Rayo Macoy", by Rafael Ramirez Heredia (1985); and "Campeon ligero", by Juan Villoro (1999). The novels are Con la muerte en los punos, by Pedro Angel Palou (2003); Las paredes desnudas, by Imanol Caneyada (2011); Juan Tres Dieciseis, by Hilario Pena (2014); and Artilleria nocaut, by Victor Solorio (2014). I approach this texts from an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing from journalism, sociology, film studies, and history of sports focused on the inclusion of ethnic minorities.;My intentions are to examine the icon of the Mexican boxer in pop culture and to explore the evolution of its portrayals in Mexican literature, by reviewing paradigmatic representations in cinema and press that preceded the literature around boxing. These paradigmatic portrayals include those created from the Mexican nationalist point of view of Mexican Golden Age Cinema. I demonstrate how the fictional depiction of the boxer has been that of one of the "pelados" (as Samuel Ramos called them) at the core of the stereotypes generated by the discussion on national identity in the after math of Mexican Revolution.;I argue that the boxer has been an ambiguous icon. In one hand, it is a figure prone to a catastrophic failure during the 20th century, often used to portrait certain stereotypes that emphasize shortcomings linked to social class, race and gender. However, it has also been used as a champion-figure representing those who come from the margins of society and questioning the power structures in Mexico after the social movements of 1968. Certain features have been essential to this ambiguity: strategies of hipermasculinization and questionings of masculinity, the creation of a champion of the people who ends up being both a hero and a scapegoat, and its public visibility that allows society to question itself by questioning the iconicity of the boxer. I argue that in the 21st century the Mexican boxer has been used in Mexican literature in a new way. It has been introduced through neo-detective literature as a potential hero who can overcome certain stereotypes from the 20th century. This hero fulfills the path suggested by Joseph Campbell and in doing so is also a vehicle of criticism towards drug-related violence, and life on the Mexico-United States border, and gender issues. We even encounter the first female boxer in the history of Mexican literature. However, the boxer remains a scapegoat, but in a more dynamic way, as proposed by Rene Girard: the boxer fulfills the functions of the receiver of public hate, but also, admiration. As Girard conceived it, this scapegoat carries in itself both harming violence and benefic violence. The boxer is a new type of hero for a new type of society.