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Patrick Paul Garlinger

Hispanic Review, Volume 73, Number 1, Winter 2005, pp. 124-126 (Article)

Published by University of Pennsylvania Press

DOI: 10.1353/hir.2005.0006

For additional information about this article

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/hir/summary/v073/73.1garlinger.html

Access provided by McGill University Libraries (23 Aug 2014 18:07 GMT)

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p er ri am , c hr is . Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema: From Banderas to Bardem. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2003. 221 pages.
Chris Perriams 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 Gomez, Javier Bardem, Jordi
Molla`, and Jorge Sanz. All of the actors were born between and 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. Perriams goal is thus to pin down what exactly
is special, attractive, and sometimes disturbing in these highly mediated men ().
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 stars image through
a detailed analysis of various film and television roles. The first chapter explores
Arias, the classic novio de Espana, 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 , on Banderas, Perriam examines
the progressive evolution of the original chico Almodovars 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 Gomez, who most closely approximates the classic
model of the leading man who repeats the same role in film after film: Gomez
represents a solid yet sensitive virility () whose brand of masculinity denotes
an earthiness that is also cerebral and emotionally dispassionate. Chapter turns
to Bardems hypermasculine image, his broad face and thick body denoting both
machismo and morbo. The fifth chapter engages with the serious Molla`, 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

ultimately repaired by the restoration of male sexual power. In the final chapter,
Perriam examines the careers of rising stars Eduardo Noriega, Fele Martnez, Liberto Rabal, and Juan Diego Botto. Noriegas dark sensuality, Martnezs geeky
vulnerability, Rabals youthful sex appeal, and Bottos innocent and wide-eyed
masculinity are treated in brief.
In his analyses Perriam moves seamlessly between fictional characters and the
stars media image, weaving together the various strands of an actors 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 actors 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 tremula in the
chapter on Bardem. Only in rare instances does the stars image seem to overly
influence his readings of certain films: the highly comical Perdona, bonita, pero
Lucas me quera a m, for example, is treated quite seriously in light of Molla`s
characteristic gravitas. In addition to the analysis of male character development
in the films, Perriam focuses closely on the actors facial expressions, body type,
and movement, as well as the directors use of the camera to represent the vicissitudes of masculine subjectivity. For example, Gomez repeatedly uses muted facial
expressions to keep emotion tightly restrained, his stoic look straining to repress
psychic conflict. Bardems performances also evince the tension between a hardened masculine exterior and a tortured, emotional interiority; Perriam draws attention to Bardems use of non-verbal cues to represent psychological and
dramatic tension.
By organizing each chapter around the multiple facets of a stars image, Perriam
successfully avoids treating each and every performance as a repetition of a homogenous, fixed type. Instead, he places considerable emphasis on the ambiguities of their star personae and on-screen roles as they negotiate the complexities
and psychic turbulences of masculinity, especially with regard to issues of sexuality.
All of the stars have chosen roles that portray masculinity in crisis: loss of power,
vulnerability, betrayal, and masochism. Ariass later performances emphasize a
dark, sinister side of the actor that conflicts with his earlier image as the wholesome
nations sweetheart. Banderass embrace of masculinity in rebel roles is shot
through with sexual ambiguity, as his image fails to shed all tinges of homoeroticism garnered during his early film career associated in large part with Pedro Almodovar. Gomezs telluric masculinity stands at odds with the psychological
turmoil that his characters often face. Bardems multiple performances of homoeroticism in films such as Boca a boca and Segunda piel give his star persona a
queer bent. The characterization of Molla` as the most intellectual actor of his
generation has paradoxically contributed to his perception as different and even

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raro. Sanzs performances of masculinity often convey a state of vulnerability (e.g.,

Amantes), and in a reversal of traditional gender patterns, his body is regularly on
display, perversely and knowingly available to the spectator.
The ambiguity of these filmic performances of masculinity extends to Perriams
discussion of the connection of the production of character and personality onand off-screen to the social and psychic construction of masculinities (v). In
contrast with the highly nuanced readings of each actor, the author is reluctant to
draw overarching conclusions about stardom and the cinematic representation
of masculinity in the Spanish context. Throughout the study he underscores the
dismantling of conventional gender norms and the reconsolidation of less desirable aspects of masculinity, yet he does not venture a final hypothesis about what
these performances say about the function of masculinity in cinema or how they
reflect cultural values and perceptions of masculinity in Spain. Near the end of his
study he briefly notes that the six actors have, at one point or another in their
careers, given a counter-cultural edge to their star personae (). To his credit,
Perriam resists invoking an all-too-common teleological narrative of subversion
and emancipation from the Franco to the post-Franco era. Nevertheless, some
synthesis of the entire range of masculine performances and their meaning for the
construction of masculinity in Spain would have been welcome at the studys close.
At the end Perriam is refreshingly forthcoming about what the study does not
accomplish, of the arbitrariness of his choices (Nancho Novo is conspicuously
absent, he admits), and or the need for a comparable volume on female stars. He
acknowledges the rapidly changing tides in cinema are such that some actors now
dominate the silver screen while others have retreated from the limelight. Stars
who do not live up to the galan moniker (e.g., Pepon Nieto), he notes, should also
have been given their due. Perriams book is on the whole exceptionally well written and edited; the one glaring mistake is the consistent misspelling of diegesis as
diagesis. The number of images that accompany his analyses (usually two per actor,
but none is given for Rabal) could have been more generous, particularly for cinematic moments that he discusses in detail, but undoubtedly this was an editorial
rather than authorial decision. These are, to be sure, minor quibbles. Perriams
admirable achievement in this study is the opening up of a field of inquiry heretofore unexplored in Hispanism. Stars and Masculinities in Spanish Cinema is
groundbreaking, and scholars will find Perriams fine analyses and the detailed
actors filmographies included with each chapter to be invaluable resources for the
study of visual culture in Spain.

Northwestern University