11 - Conversion, Impersonation, and Masculinity

Summary

An examination of the films produced in Italy over the course of this century reveals changing perceptions of the masculine figure. Even the most blatantly masculinist texts reveal that the portrayals are not seamless and unitary, but expose the bricolage of their construction, how they are a compendium of different and often conflicting cultural data. The films are a trove of information concerning how the folklore of gender is created from the fabric of cultural common sense. This common sense relies on folklore drawn from popular and canonical literary works, paintings, other films, politics, economics, and popular psychology.

The folklore of masculinity is based on assumptions of difference between the two genders embellished, legitimated, and disseminated in social, legal, and cultural forms. Masculinity must be understood as having a partentage similar to femininity but different effects in relation to social and cultural power. If femininity is an abstraction with no intrinsic meaning but available to be endowed with value and significance, masculinity has been assumed as the standard of measurement for its value. Producers and consumers are complicit in the creation of cultural commodities, sharing in their value creation. These commodities produce monetary as well as social value as a means of fashioning the folklore of consensus. Although the profit motive is constant, the production process is hydra-headed, utilizing constantly changing strategies to ensure circulation and consumption. Considerations of sexuality and gender are fundamental components in the production, circulation, consumption, and determinations of social and cultural value.