Raised Voices in the Cine Montecarlo: Sex Education, Mass Media, and Oppositional Politics in Mexico

In: Journal of family history: studies in family, kinship and demography, Volume 23, Issue 3, p. 312-323

Abstract

This article closely reads a single protest by a small group of male high school stu dents in Mexico City, 1934. The protestors interrupted a movie to voice their oppo sition to sex education in the public schools (a new program that had inspired widespread controversy but was never instituted). This protest represented wider tensions over post-Revolutionary modernization and urbanization, particu larly in its effects on children and families. It marked the moment when these tensions ceased to focus on government policies directly and turned toward opposi tion to media representations of social transformations.