Spanish Erotic Cinema
Edited by Santiago Fouz-Hernandez
This book covers a significant part of the history of Spanish film, from the 1920s until the present day. Starting with a study of the kiss in silent films, the volume explores homoerotic narratives in the crusade films of the 1940s, the commodification of bodies in the late Franco period, and the so-called destape (literally ‘undressing’) period that followed the abolition of censorship during the democratic transition.
Reclaiming the importance of Spanish erotic cinema as a genre in itself, a range of international scholars demonstrate how the explicit depiction of sex can be a useful tool to illuminate current and historic social issues including ageism, colonialism, domestic violence, immigration, nationalisms, or women and LGBT rights. Covering a wide range of cinematic genres, including comedy, horror and melodrama, this book provides an innovative and provocative overview of Spanish cinema history and society in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Contributors- Brad Epps, Cambridge University
- Sally Faulkner, University of Exeter
- Santiago Fouz-Hernández, Durham University
- Antonio Lázaro-Reboll, University of Kent
- Annabel Martín, Dartmouth College
- Alejandro Melero Salvador, Universidad Carlos III in Madrid
- Jorge Pérez, University of Texas, Austin
- Carolina Sanabria, University of Costa Rica
- Rob Stone, University of Birmingham
- Tom Whittaker, University of Liverpool
- Eva Woods Peiró, Vassar College
- Sarah Wright, Royal Holloway, University of London
- Barbara Zecchi, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Santiago Fouz-Hernández’s edited collection on Spanish erotic cinema is a timely and ground-breaking contribution to the field of Spanish film studies in particular, and Film Studies in general, through its coverage of the ‘erotic content in Spanish cinema from the silent period until today.
With an ambitious scope and a roughly chronological coverage of a wide range of periods and mostly mainstream film genres (from 1920s Spanish film culture to the feminist cinema and queer male auteurs of the twenty-first century), Spanish Erotic Cinema is a distinctive landmark at the intersection of studies of sexuality and the body in Spanish Film Studies.
This collection of essays will clearly constitute a necessary reference for anyone studying Spanish erotic cinema. It should also be of great interest to all Spanish film scholars as it encourages us to look at familiar films, directors and actors in a new light. Moreover, it prompts readers to explore the wide range of what on-screen eroticism can express (discursively, symbolically, visually, aurally) and do (affectively, didactically), in addition to highlighting its crucial importance in the history of Spanish cinema and society.
Through detailed analyses and a wide diversity of theoretical angles, this book provides a rigorous re-examination of the presence and progression of erotic cinema in Spain, acknowledging and celebrating its political and commercial impact in society. It is likely to become an indispensable reference for the study of Spanish cinema.
