The Three Caballeros

THE THREE CABALLEROS In this essay I’m going to write about “The Three Caballeros” movie. The interest of Walt Disney Studios of making “The Three Caballeros” movie has to do with the historic background of American society in 1944. In 1939 the United States was involved in World War II, the film industry was affected not only because the materials used in the war, such as cellulose used to produce film, but because of private and public money canalized into war as well. As a consequence of the US situation and because foreign movies stopped showing in Mexico, Mexican film industry started to experiment a great boom and all the films were exported to different countries including the US and Latin America mayoralty. As is well known, cinema, music and art it’s a great vehicle for the transmission of some cultural values. In the 1940’s, Mexican film industry found new sources of materials and equipment insuring its position in the production of films worldwide. During the World War II the film industries of Europe and the United States focused on war films, it made possible for Mexican movie industry to become dominant. It is for sure that Walt Disney Studios found profitable the production of this film, because many of the most famous movies of Mexican cinema golden age, such as: “Ahi esta el detalle” (1940), “El Baisano Jalil” (1942), etc”, were already seen in other countries. Also these movies had a good acceptation between the American audiences. In this way, “The Three Caballeros” guaranteed a big success. In my opinion, there are good aspects in the way the movie shows mexican national identity, I consider that some of our valuable costumes and traditions are well represented in the movie. Of course some people might find offensive the Mexican character stereotype represented in “Pancho Pistolas”. But Pedro Infante has the same characteristics of Pancho and nobody find him offensive.