3 - Icons
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2013
Summary
This chapter examines some of the film-making personalities with whom queer viewers in Spain might be said to bond imaginatively and, at times, be influenced by in their real or their fantasy lives. In looking at some established, near-canonical actors and directors – Eusebio Poncela, Victoria Abril, Jordi Mollà, Rosa Maria Sardà, Ventura Pons and Pedro Almodôvar – the sugges¬tion will be that they respond to what López Penedo in her discussion of queer cultural representations and the imaginative production of queer common space (2008: 209-26) calls ‘figuras de culto’ (226) (‘cult figures’). I also explore some newer and, in many cases, intellectually or histrionically lighter, igures – such as Pablo Puyol, Pepón Nieto and Carlos Fuentes as well as the 1990s heritage comedy directors Alfonso Albacete and David Menkes, who use both cult figures (Jorge Sanz and Veronica Forqué) and new (Mario Casas and Ana María Polvorosa). These younger figures may or may not become cult, but they are, at the time of writing, visible, much watched and commented upon. In as much as the images, stories and performances embodied by these artists represent opposition to a sexually politicised norm, all evoke ‘una respuesta de afecto, identificación y admiración por parte de una devota audiencia queer’ (226) (‘a response on the part of a dedicated queer audience which is affective, identificatory or admiring’).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Spanish Queer Cinema , pp. 64 - 90Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2012