Mafalda: Middle Class, Everyday Life, and Politics in Argentina (1964-1973)

ISABELLA COSSE

HISPANIC AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW, THE

Duke University

Lugar: Durham, North Carolina ; Año: 2014 vol. 94 p. 35 - 75

0018-2168

In this article I reconstruct the history of Mafalda, the famous comic strip by Argentine cartoonist Quino, which was read discussed, and viewed as an emblematic representation of Argentina?s middle class. With the aim of contributing to discussions on the interpretation of the middle class in Argentina and Latin America, I examine the emergence, circulation, and social and political significance of the comic from its first strips in 1964 and until Quino stopped producing new installments in 1973. To that end, I propose two conceptual and methodological approaches: a perspective situated at the intersection of the everyday and the political; and a valorization of humor as a way of exploring social identities. More specifically, I posit three arguments. First, that Mafalda?s ironic and conceptual humor worked with the contradictions of the middle class as it faced social modernization, cultural and political radicalization, and a weakening democracy. Second, that the strip contributed to build a representation of a heterogeneous middle class that was marked by ideological differences, but was nonetheless conceived as one. Third, that such a representation lost its relevance under the political polarization and violence of the 1970s, as portraying a middle class?or a society?united despite their differences was no longer feasible in that context. To illustrate this, the article closes noting that, shortly after the strip was discontinued, state terrorism would brutally demonstrate just how little space there was in Argentina for the young, anti-establishment generation depicted in Mafalda.