Leticia Neria PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

such as music, plastic arts, literature and cinema. 172 Filmmaker Alfonso Arau, who
directed two of the films considered in this research, Calzonzin Inspector and El Águila
Descalza, is considered part of this movement. 173 This explains one of the final scenes
of El Águila Descalza: a psychedelic party in which a group of escapees from a mental
hospital impersonate characters they actually believe they are, taking drugs and dancing
to rock and roll.
Finally, La Onda created its own language, ‘un argot que incorporaba viejos
coloquialismos populares, numerosos términos carcelarios, anglicismos y
neologismos’. 174 This language is spoken by the youth in Mecánica Nacional. In the
comic Hermelinda Linda, we hear the same language spoken by young people who act
selfishly despite their father being very ill. This example shows the negative perception
that much of society held about youth and the countercultural movement. However, as
we see from other sources, this language was later emulated by other social groups. 175
Characters in La Familia Burrón constantly play with words in English. In Calzonzin
Inspector the spoiled young daughter of the Mayor also uses English phrases (as does
Calzonzin) and invents words by making them shorter or changing the ending.
By the end of the 1970s, the Mexican middle class had abandoned La Onda,
whereas mainly poor and marginalised young people continued to listen to Mexican
172
For more on the contracultura mexicana and La Onda, refer to Victoria Carpenter, ‘When Was
Tomorrow? Manipulation of Time and Memory in the Works of Mexican Onda’, in (Re)Collecting the
Past. History and Collective Memory in Latin American Narrative, ed. by Victoria Carpenter (Oxford,:
Peter Lang, 2010), pp. 37-60. She analyses the literature of the time. For more on the cultural expressions
from La Onda and the youth at the time, consult Parménides García Saldaña, En la ruta de la onda
(Mexico: Editorial Diógenes, 1974). And for information on visual culture, see La era de la discrepancia.
Arte y cultura visual en México 1968-1997 (Mexico: Coordinación de Difusión Cultural, Universidad
Nacional Autónoma de México, Insituto de Investigaciones Estéticas, 2007). For cinema, see the article
by Álvaro Vázquez Mantecón in this same publication, ‘Contracultura en los inicios del cine mexicano en
súper 8’, pp. 62-65.
173
José Agustín, La contracultura en México… p. 95.
174
Ibid.,p. 135.
175
This phenomenon can be explained by an idea proposed by Eric Zolov, who considers that the use of
English by the middle and lower classes happened in order to break with the idea that it was a language
that was used only by the upper class and that its use provided social status. Zolov, Rebeldes con causa…
p. 215.
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