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Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: From Banderas to Bardem (review)

2005; University of Pennsylvania Press; Volume: 73; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/hir.2005.0006

1553-0639

Patrick Paul Garlinger,

Cinema History and Criticism

Reviewed by: Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: From Banderas to Bardem Patrick Paul Garlinger Perriam, Chris . Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: From Banderas to Bardem. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. 221 pages. Chris Perriam's excellent monograph aptly captures the sense of visual pleasure associated with watching male stars perform their signature styles of masculinity in on-screen roles and off-screen personae. The book is a study of a select group of Spanish film actors who achieved considerable success during the post-Franco period: Imanol Arias, Antonio Banderas, Carmelo Gómez, Javier Bardem, Jordi Mollà, and Jorge Sanz. All of the actors were born between 1956 and 1970 and frequently appear together in films, providing Perriam with multiple opportunities to draw connections and contrasts between them. The book is divided into an introduction, six chapters (each devoted to a star and in chronological order by date of birth), and a seventh that examines the careers of four younger, emerging actors. In the introduction, Perriam carefully contextualizes the concept of a "star" within the Spanish film industry, noting significant differences from the American and French systems. As galanes, the Spanish equivalent of "leading men," the six actors share traits in common: they are perceived as "ordinary" rather than glamorous and have sex appeal, qualities that enhance their capacity to elicit viewer identification and desire; yet, unlike the Hollywood muscled ideal, they tend not to have overly developed bodies. Perriam's goal is thus to "pin down what exactly is special, attractive, and sometimes disturbing in these highly mediated men" (14). He does so by examining the ways in which these actors, on- and off-screen, replicate and destabilize conventional notions of masculinity. In each chapter Perriam traces the polysemic contours of a star's image through a detailed analysis of various film and television roles. The first chapter explores Arias, the classic novio de España, who desires to avoid being seen as a "dumb hunk," with close attention paid to the oscillation of his image between modern and old-fashioned, exciting and dull. In Chapter 2, on Banderas, Perriam examines the progressive evolution of the original chico Almodóvar's career as he moves from predominantly homosexual to heterosexual roles and his subsequent exploitation in the U.S., albeit ambivalently, of his sex-symbol status as a "Latin lover." The focus of the third chapter is on Gómez, who most closely approximates the classic model of the leading man who repeats the same role in film after film: Gómez represents a "solid yet sensitive virility" (71) whose brand of masculinity denotes an "earthiness" that is also cerebral and emotionally dispassionate. Chapter 4 turns to Bardem's hypermasculine image, his broad face and thick body denoting both machismo and morbo. The fifth chapter engages with the "serious" Mollà, whose somber manner reflects the inner turmoil that often afflicts the characters he plays. The last of the single-actor chapters is devoted to Sanz, whose performances often convey youthful sex appeal in a light, comical tone, or sexual vulnerability that is [End Page 124] ultimately repaired by the restoration of male sexual power. In the final chapter, Perriam examines the careers of rising stars Eduardo Noriega, Fele Martínez, Liberto Rabal, and Juan Diego Botto. Noriega's dark sensuality, Martínez's geeky vulnerability, Rabal's youthful sex appeal, and Botto's innocent and wide-eyed masculinity are treated in brief. In his analyses Perriam moves seamlessly between fictional characters and the star's media image, weaving together the various strands of an actor's persona as constructed by on-screen performances, interviews, internet sites, and journalistic articles. The combination of textual and visual analysis is quite successful in portraying the accretion of an actor's image, and Perriam complements the emphasis on the representation of masculinity with occasional forays into more detailed interpretations of films, such as the extensive treatment of Carne trémula in the chapter on Bardem. Only in rare instances does the star's image seem to overly influence his readings of certain films: the highly comical Perdona, bonita, pero Lucas me quería a mí, for example, is treated quite seriously in light...