Queer Masculinities in Contemporary Latin American Cinema ─ Male Bodies and Narrative Representations

Gustavo Subero offers an assessment of the influence, importance and impact of a body of films from the mid 1970s to date that, he argues, constitute a Latin American Queer Cinema.

Gustavo Subero addresses major issues surrounding homosexuality in different Latin American societies, starting with the notions of gender and sexuality that are paramount in the construction of queer subjects in these regions. He explores questions of male effeminacy and how the maricon has become synonymous with homosexuality in the popular imaginary, suggesting how this stereotype might be reclaimed as authentic. He also analyses issues of masculine homosexuality in a series of films in which the main protagonists do not correspond to the previous stereotype, such as La leon and the work of Julian Hernandez, considering as he does so the closet and passing as hetero, as well as notions of hetero-patriarchy and masculinity. He also illuminates the way in which the male body structures, organizes and redirects notions of queer masculinity in Latin America while it also demonstrates the importance of filmmaking in societies in which homosexuality may be repressed to guarantee the circulation of queer narratives (and experiences) among gay subjects.

Gustavo Subero is Lecturer in Latin American Visual and Urban Studies at the University of Stirling, Scotland. He has published widely in such journals as Studies in Hispanic Cinemas, Journal of Sexualities and Culture, Bulletin of Latin American Research.