Film cultures and gay communities in Spain 1960-1980
Lead Research Organisation:
Oxford Brookes University
Department Name: Faculty of Tech, Design and Environment
Abstract
Research Context
The present project follows on my previous work on homosexual cultures in Spain (published in 2004). In that book, I outlined the evolution of homosexuality as a cultural identity in Spain. Although I dealt with film largely from a textual point of view, I felt further work was needed on the actual mechanisms of film cultures and the way such images were consumed and appropriated by homosexuals. A second strand of inspiration is the AHRB-funded international project 'An oral history of cinemagoing in 1940s and 1950s Spain', led in the UK by Prof Jo Labanyi, in which the cultural implications of film-going are thoroughly discussed. My work aims to shed further insight on some issues that have been studied by specialists such as Prof Chris Perriam (the area of camp) and Prof Paul Julian Smith (on representation and intellectual approaches to film).
Areas of Work
The project will address, through interviews and exploration of printed materials, ways in which film culture was important to homosexuals of the period. I will focus on three areas of study:
a) Cinema-going and how it related to the specific situation of homosexuality. 'Sharing' feelings on film in a period of enforced silence about sexual dissidence. How homosexuality shaped choices in filmgoing.
b) Film as document: how plots and images in film could be read to throw some light on the consequences of being a homosexual in a particular society. Film as a cultural arena, where attitudes towards homosexuality were constructed and documented. To what extent such attitudes were read ironically or straightforwardly by audiences (for instance, in the wave of films on homosexuality coming from the States in the 1960s)
c) Film as fantasy: how homosexuals used film to fill a gap in their fantasy life. Issues of desire, self-image, symbolic shaping of individual experience. Camp and appropriation
In order to account for differences in social context, findings will be structured into two main sections:
a) 1960 to 1976, in which, after the silence of the previous decades, it is possible to argue that more open and alternative ideas on homosexuality have filtered into the Spanish cultural landscape.
b) the years of the Spanish transition (until 1983) and the end of legal prohibition of homosexuality. The distinction has implications in terms of articulation of the gay community and homosexual self-experience.
Materials and procedure:
a) The key and newer element of the project is to carry out a series of interviews with homosexuals to find out the relevance of film culture in their lives, specifically as it affected their own self image as homosexuals and how it shaped their fantasies. This is clearly a perceived gap in current research on homosexual cultures in Spain, as it tends to be assumed (this is an issue also in my own work on the subject) that film cultures in Spain are parallel to those in the Anglo American cultures (i.e., based on the strands of positive/negative representation, identification and camp), but actual research on the subject is still pending. Discussion with interviewees will take place along the areas outlined above: film-going and film as a shared, 'social' activity, the status of film as a document of reality and the way particular fantasies were encouraged. The aim is to find out about key films, especially films that were recurrently important for homosexuals, as well as to study the different ways in which homosexuals engage with such films.
b) Also, the references to film culture in the work of key 'privileged' homosexual voices of the period (Jaime Gil de Biedma, Terenci Moix, etc) will be taken into account and complement the opinions of 'average' audiences and provide a more articulate description of the impact of film in their lives.
c) Finally, there will be a survey of publications originating in the gay community, also structured along the sections set out above.
The present project follows on my previous work on homosexual cultures in Spain (published in 2004). In that book, I outlined the evolution of homosexuality as a cultural identity in Spain. Although I dealt with film largely from a textual point of view, I felt further work was needed on the actual mechanisms of film cultures and the way such images were consumed and appropriated by homosexuals. A second strand of inspiration is the AHRB-funded international project 'An oral history of cinemagoing in 1940s and 1950s Spain', led in the UK by Prof Jo Labanyi, in which the cultural implications of film-going are thoroughly discussed. My work aims to shed further insight on some issues that have been studied by specialists such as Prof Chris Perriam (the area of camp) and Prof Paul Julian Smith (on representation and intellectual approaches to film).
Areas of Work
The project will address, through interviews and exploration of printed materials, ways in which film culture was important to homosexuals of the period. I will focus on three areas of study:
a) Cinema-going and how it related to the specific situation of homosexuality. 'Sharing' feelings on film in a period of enforced silence about sexual dissidence. How homosexuality shaped choices in filmgoing.
b) Film as document: how plots and images in film could be read to throw some light on the consequences of being a homosexual in a particular society. Film as a cultural arena, where attitudes towards homosexuality were constructed and documented. To what extent such attitudes were read ironically or straightforwardly by audiences (for instance, in the wave of films on homosexuality coming from the States in the 1960s)
c) Film as fantasy: how homosexuals used film to fill a gap in their fantasy life. Issues of desire, self-image, symbolic shaping of individual experience. Camp and appropriation
In order to account for differences in social context, findings will be structured into two main sections:
a) 1960 to 1976, in which, after the silence of the previous decades, it is possible to argue that more open and alternative ideas on homosexuality have filtered into the Spanish cultural landscape.
b) the years of the Spanish transition (until 1983) and the end of legal prohibition of homosexuality. The distinction has implications in terms of articulation of the gay community and homosexual self-experience.
Materials and procedure:
a) The key and newer element of the project is to carry out a series of interviews with homosexuals to find out the relevance of film culture in their lives, specifically as it affected their own self image as homosexuals and how it shaped their fantasies. This is clearly a perceived gap in current research on homosexual cultures in Spain, as it tends to be assumed (this is an issue also in my own work on the subject) that film cultures in Spain are parallel to those in the Anglo American cultures (i.e., based on the strands of positive/negative representation, identification and camp), but actual research on the subject is still pending. Discussion with interviewees will take place along the areas outlined above: film-going and film as a shared, 'social' activity, the status of film as a document of reality and the way particular fantasies were encouraged. The aim is to find out about key films, especially films that were recurrently important for homosexuals, as well as to study the different ways in which homosexuals engage with such films.
b) Also, the references to film culture in the work of key 'privileged' homosexual voices of the period (Jaime Gil de Biedma, Terenci Moix, etc) will be taken into account and complement the opinions of 'average' audiences and provide a more articulate description of the impact of film in their lives.
c) Finally, there will be a survey of publications originating in the gay community, also structured along the sections set out above.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Alberto Mira (Principal Investigator) |