Gay men in the Spanish film comedies of the Transition to democracy

Journal of Homosexuality, 60:1450–1474, 2013Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLCISSN: 0091-8369 print/1540-3602 onlineDOI: 10.1080/00918369.2013.819214

Hormones and Silk. Gay Men in the SpanishFilm Comedies of the Transition to Democracy

(1976–1981)

ALEJANDRO MELERO, PhDEd. Ortega y Gasset, Department of Journalism and Communication Studies, Carlos III

University of Madrid, Getafe, Madrid, Spain

This article studies the representation of gay men in Spanish come-dies of the 1970s. It analyzes how cinema used the stereotypicalimage of gay men projected by the dictatorship and how, once itended, this image endured in the comedy genre. It introduces filmtheories on the construction of humor taken from relevant authors,such as Jordan, Charney, Voitylla, and Petri. Afterward, it focuseson the works of Ozores as a filmmaker who encapsulates the maincharacteristics of the so-called comedia de mariquitas (sissy com-edy). It analyzes how the construction of humor was based onthe Francoist conception of gay men, and questions why the fig-ure of the gay man was so effective in the production of comedy.Finally, this article refers to Dyer’s theories around stereotyping,and develops them to study the Spanish context.

KEYWORDS comedy, Francoism, gay cinema, stereotype, RichardDyer

GAY MEN AND COMEDY IN SPAIN

Gay men became a recurring presence in many of the comedies of the1970s and even many actors (Emilio Laguna, Fabián Conde, or Paco Morán,

This article is part of the “Los Medios Audiovisuales en la Transición Española. LasImágenes del Cambio Democrático” [Media During the Transition. The Images of theDemocratic Change] research project (No. CSO2009-09291) funded by the Spanish Ministryof Science and Education.

Address correspondence to Alejandro Melero, Department of Journalism andCommunication Studies, Carlos III University of Madrid, Getafe, Madrid 28903, Spain. E-mail:[email protected]

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to name but a few) became typecast in this role.1 Popular directors, suchas Mariano Ozores or Ramón Fernández, included gay characters as pro-tagonists or in secondary roles in most of their comedies of the time. It isimportant to note that the use of gay characters with comic intentions datesback to a long tradition in Spanish popular culture. The chistes de mariquitas(gay jokes) constitute a real genre with their own books and comedians ontelevision and in theaters. Books, such as Tapia Rodríguez’s (1989) Chistesde Mariquitas, are good examples of these types of jokes. Up to now,actors such as Arévalo, Carlos Iglesias, or Florentino Fernández have becomepopular playing gay characters on television and in theaters.

The comedia de mariquitas (gay comedies) subgenre must, therefore,be framed within this peculiar domain of Spanish popular culture. By themid-1970s, many of the most popular comedies included gay charactersor situations involving gay paraphernalia. A number of standard situationsbecame typical gags in many of these comedies and were easily recognizableby the average spectator. Some of the most typical situations were sequencesof straight men pretending to be gay in order to have easy access to womenor to hide an infidelity, cross-dressing scenes in which straight men had topass for transvestites and suffer the social consequences of that, and gaymen insistently flirting with the male heterosexual protagonist, who verysoon gets angry.

It is interesting to note that the comedia de mariquitas were so popularthat it even became one of the main concerns for gay activists because of itshighly offensive portrayal of homosexuality. Thus, the activist Carlo Fabretti(1978) complained as follows:

When it comes to film and comedy, there is a persistent mockery of malehomosexuality (not surprisingly, in such an extremely chauvinist societyas the Spanish one). The annoying gay man with an irritating high-pitchedvoice is one of the most repeated devices in our pseudo-theatre and film.(p. 132)2

It may seem strange that the prudish Spanish film industry of thetimes could include so many gay characters when even in foreign indus-tries such issues were still ignored or banned.3 Intriguingly, although withinthe popular comedy genre the representation of gay men was very com-mon, a more serious analysis of homosexuality was not officially permitted.An interesting explanation for the legal and social tolerance of the repre-sentation of gay men in comedy is provided by Charney’s (1978) theory ofthe clown. According to him, clowning provides “a safety valve for ordinarysocial dealings that might arouse hostility in other conditions” (p. 174). Thetestimony of filmmakers of the time corroborates this idea and explains howthe film industry accepted gay men in comedy, but not in other genres. Forinstance, director Eloy de la Iglesia complained that he could only portray

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sexual minorities once censorship had been eradicated; and he rememberedhow, although the criteria for censorship was not clear in 1977, it was obvi-ous that “you could not show homosexuality, and the same applied to other‘sexual aberrations’, as they were called; all you could deal with were effem-inate and comic gay men” (Aguilar, 1996, p. 131). This was the only wayhomosexuality could be presented on screen: It had to be ridiculed and,preferably, condemned. Although many filmmakers made use of gay char-acters in their comedies, I focus on the films made by Mariano Ozores, whowas the most popular director of this genre. First, I present film and comedytheory, which is relevant for the analysis of Ozores’s films.

FILM THEORY AND THE CREATION OF HUMOR

The history of the study of the creation of humor in film is long and datesback to the origins of film theory. For the purpose of this article, I believethat there are three essential theories: superiority, the clown, and the comicdistance strategy.

Superiority Theory

One of the most important film theorists of comedy is Thomas H. Jordan(1975), who theorized how humor is very often built on “a sense of superi-ority to the object presented to us” (p. 13). The superiority theory says thatfilmmakers make the spectator feel superior to the object the film presentsso that such an object can be mocked. Jordan believes that the success of thesuperiority theory in film theory is due to the fact that, contrary to most the-ories on comedy, this one does not try to find the causes of laughter in thepatterns that make people laugh, but in the people who laugh themselves.

The earliest case study for Jordan’s (1975) theory is Thomas Hobbes,who, in Leviathan (2011), stated that laughter comes from “a sudden gloryarising from sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves; by compar-ison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly” (p. 14). Jordanalso justified his theory with other examples taken from The Illiad (Homer),Sir Francis Bacon, who “proclaimed deformity as the chief cause of laugh-ter” (p. 15), and modern slapstick to conclude that this particular strategy ofhumor has been effective in all times.

It is interesting to note that Jordan (1975) did not ignore the moralimplications of his pessimistic superiority theory, which, after all, comes tosay that people have a cruel inclination that can surface through laughter.Again, Jordan found inspiration in Thomas Hobbes’s motto, “The life of manis solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short,” and then stated, “It is not difficultto imagine that anyone who is clawing a path up from the hasty and brutish,would also take great pleasure in gloating over anything inferior” (p. 14).


Superiority theory has not won full approval due to this malignant basis,and Jordan (1975) himself admitted that, “It does not necessarily stand upwell to many forms of humour” (p. 15; e.g., he saw no sense of superiorityin most word plays). For the analysis of the comedia de mariquitas, however,superiority theory works very effectively, as I argue later.

The Clown Theory

Jordan’s (1975) superiority theory is not incompatible with Maurice Charney’s(1978) thoughts on comedy. According to Charney, “The comic hero mayserve as the ritual clown of his society, acting as a scapegoat for its taboos”(p. 172). Charney not only based his thesis on the study of various primitivecultures, but also on the works of Shakespeare and Melville to conclude thatthe scapegoat-like clown impersonates some taboos of his or her society. Theobservation of certain Indian tribes of the American Southwest exemplifieshow the figure of such clowns operates:

Like the scapegoat, the clown takes upon himself all the taboos of thesociety and spends his time obscenely flouting everything decent andsacred. He masturbates publicly, covers himself with excrement, makessexual advances to virgins and married women alike, utters forbiddenwords, and openly blasphemes against the gods. His outrageous conductfills his auditors with emotions of loathing, fear and terror, since theyexpect the gods to strike him down at any moment. But the clown playshis carefully assigned role with merriment and abandon. He is a jester, asacred fool, who has license to break all the taboos during the time heis on stage. . . . The ritual clown acts out a forbidden social role for thegeneral good of the community. (Charney, 1978, p. 172)

These ceremonies, like many other religious rituals, give the opportunity forall sorts of mockery, parody, and even blasphemy, but within a frameworkof social tolerance (Charney, 1978, p. 173).

Charney (1978) studied the figure of the fool in Shakespeare’s plays andanalyzed how because the fool is completely outside the social hierarchy, heis free to speak and behave without constraint. The fool is “totally fearless”(p. 173). It seems that, except for his role as ritual clown, there is no othernarrative purpose for the fool:

The fool and the ritual clown are far from any heroic notion of thecomic hero, yet they fulfill a necessary and vital function. They are themost humble of creatures, the lowest on the social scale, completelyanonymous and insignificant. Yet as truth-speakers they are endowedwith a terrifying power. . . . They merely act their role according to theprescribed forms and in an unsophisticated and unselfconscious way.

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Their purposeful folly and licensed wit free them from any restraints orordinary men. (p. 173)

Charney’s (1978) theory explains very well how the comic effect is pro-duced by the breaking of the taboo and the transgression implied in suchbreaking. Because it is done on stage, the audience is allowed to enjoy asituation that would not be acceptable under other circumstances, and theclown has the license to act beyond socially permitted rules.

Comic Distance

Finally, there is a third theory on cinematic humor that is very useful for theanalysis of the Spanish comedies and that relates very well to both Jordan(1975) and Charney’s (1978) theories. In recent years, film theorists suchas Sol Saks, Stuart Voytilla, and Scott Petri have studied the mechanics ofcomedy from a historical point of view, and concluded that filmmakers ofall times have always made use of the so-called comic distance effect—that is, “the ability to separate ourselves from an event in order to laughat it” (Voytilla & Petri, 2003, p. 162). This comic distance is exemplified byMel Brooks when he said, “I cut my finger, that’s tragedy. If you fall downa sewer, that’s comedy” (Voytilla & Petri, 2003, p. 15). Because the comicevents that take place on screen happen to other people, spectators havethe right to feel safe (no matter how cruel those events might be), and areallowed to laugh at them:

Comic distance is the ability to stand back—distance ourselvesvicariously—so that we can laugh at the situation. We watch as voyeursand feel safe that we can laugh without consequence. It is true that com-edy is pain. And if we have the right amount of distance, we heartilylaugh at the misfortune of others. (Voytilla & Petri, 2003, p. 16)

One of the easiest ways to maintain comic distance is the manipula-tion of the visual representation of the character. Voytilla and Petri (2003)wondered the following:

Why do we laugh at circus clowns? Their representation gives us per-mission. Their outrageous make-up and clothes, and slapstick antics, tellchildren of all ages it’s okay to laugh. . . . We often see characters wear-ing stock masks and phalluses to establish comic distance, again givingus permission to laugh at whatever may happen to them. (p. 16)

The films analyzed in this article create a unique universe in whichgay men wear their own paraphernalia. The exaggerated makeup and


unrealistically effeminate clothes help the actors in the construction of theirstereotyped mariquita (sissy boy), as I examine later.

Comic distance is a useful device for scriptwriters because it can be bro-ken so that the audience can then identify with the character. Scriptwriterscan modify the narrative line and make the spectators empathize with thecharacter and feel the pain with him. According to Voytilla and Petri (2003),filmmakers developed the comic distance procedures while they were fight-ing to move from short to feature-length silent films. Characters needed morecomplexity and the comic story more sophistication and, by breaking thecomic distance effect, the audience had the chance to identify with them.

There are various techniques that help to break the comic distance,such as the close-up, direct address, and interaction with the character’s pastexperiences through flashback (e.g., when Woody Allen [1977] addressed thespectator to talk about his childhood in Annie Hall) or voice-over narration(the confessions in Bridget Jones’ Diary [Maguire, 2001]).

THE COMIC GAY MAN IN OZORES’S COMEDIAS SEXY

Of all the cinematic genres of the 1970s film industry, comedy was the mostprolific and inexhaustible. As the censorship relaxed and sex impregnatedmost films, comedy developed into the so-called comedia sexy (sexy come-dies), where humor was often based on pseudo-erotic situations. HernándezRuiz and Pérez Rubio (2004) studied the ideological edifice of the comediesof the time, and explained it as follows: “The Spanish sexy comedies wereknown for their tacky aesthetics and conservative ideological apparatus. . . .

They contributed to a discourse that aimed at caricaturising the new demo-cratic liberties and, therefore, perpetuating the culture of Franco’s regime”(p. 139). Martínez Expósito (2004), who developed one of the most com-plete studies of the comedia sexy, went even further by noting how “thewhole genre was deeply anti-gay, as much as the rest of the Spanish cultureand society under Franco” (p. 224).

With 30 films between 1975 and 1982, Mariano Ozores (1926–present) isone of the most representative directors of the comedias sexy of the time anddefinitely one of the most prolific filmmakers of the comedia de mariquitastendency. Writer and director Mariano Ozores is the creative component ofthe Ozores family, who were enormously popular comedians in Spain andcontinue to be to the present day. His early films already show his tastefor popular comedies and his talent for discovering new faces. During the1960s, his comedies developed an interest in discreet innuendo that wouldbe exploited in the late 1970s. After the dictatorship, Ozores’s films becamemore political and included reactionary ideas against the new democracy,exploiting the ideas promoted by ultraconservative groups, such as Falange.

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Thus, Los Autonómicos (The Regionalists; Gutiérrez Santos, 1982) satirizes thedismembering of Spain into little states, the dangers of divorce are mocked in¡Qué Gozada de Divorcio! (Divorce is Such a Pleasure!; Ozores, 1981d) andEl Primer Divorcio (The First Divorce; Ozores, 1981a), and ¡Que vienen lossocialistas! (The Socialists are Coming!; Ozores, 1982d) warns of the politicalcorruption and liberal policy intrinsic to the democratic system. It must benoted that few Spanish filmmakers have enjoyed such popular success asOzores’s. His films were box office hits and have had several releases onvideo and television. For instance, in 1990, out of the 10 most seen programson television, 5 of them were Ozores’s films (Filmoteca Española database).

Ozores’s narrative structure is very simple and repetitive, and may helpto explain the copiousness of his writing. His films very often revolve aroundthe experiences of one or two male protagonists whose stability is threat-ened by an unexpected event. The introduction of the film, or first act,presents the protagonists to the spectator and shows some familiar situationsin their lives. Suddenly, their lives are disrupted by an unforeseen conflict.The conflict is normally sexually related—for instance, a wife discoveringan infidelity in Ellas los Prefieren Locas (Ladies Prefer Them Queer; Ozores,1976), a fatherless baby in La Lola nos lleva al Huerto (Lola Conquers Us;Ozores, 1984c) and El Hijo del Cura (The Priest’s Son; Ozores, 1982c), orsexual impotency in El Erótico Enmascarado (The Masked Erotica; Ozores,1980a). The second act also introduces the spectator to the rest of the char-acters, as the protagonists are always surrounded by a number of relativesand acquaintances—normally, five or six—who interact with the protago-nists while they create more comic conflicts that help in the development ofthe story. In the third and final act, all characters coincide in the same placeand, after several confusions and some changes of identity, the conflict issolved and the characters go back to their normal lives. These supportingcharacters are constructed on stereotypical fixed roles, such as the loyalbut clumsy friend, the beautiful young lover, the over-eager wife, and thedevout mother of one of the ladies. For the interpretation of these roles,Ozores used familiar faces of his universe; thus, it is easy to find his brother,Antonio Ozores, playing the average sex-addict Spaniard, or Florinda Chicoand Rafaela Aparicio as the pious old ladies. Andrés Pajares and FernandoEsteso were his favorite stars. In those films, where one of these actors didnot work, their role was played by other comedians of the Ozores’s factory,such as Juanito Navarro or Antonio Ozores.

Most of Ozores’s films made during the pre-democratic and democraticperiod include references to homosexual men or women. Even in those filmswith no gay characters, Ozores managed to include references to gays or gaysex, normally through jokes and insults. Very often, one of the characters ofhis ensemble comedies was a gay man. He could be the hairdresser, interiordecorator, or transvestite singer friend of the protagonist’s lover (Ellas los


Prefieren Locas; Ozores, 1976), the amoral vandal (Los Bingueros [The BingoPlayers]; Ozores, 1979), or even the wife’s gay lover (El Primer Divorcio;Ozores, 1981a). In other cases, one or some of the characters of the filmpretended to be gay to get closer to women (Cuentos de las Sábanas Blancas[Tales of the White Sheets]; Ozores, 1978d; and ¡Qué Gozada de Divorcio![Ozores, 1981d]) or to cover up adultery.

It is interesting to note how the gay press of the time (the first legalgay press in Spain ever) became tired of Ozores’s portrayals of gay men.An anonymous writer, in the gay magazine Amigos, wrote the article “Cinede Mariquitas” (“Sissy Cinema”) to condemn Ozores’s (1981d) ¡Qué Gozadade Divorcio!, where the actor “Pajares plays the inevitable, typical and stereo-typical effeminate homosexual” (Anonymous, 1980a, p. 17). For the analysisof the representation of gay men in Ozores’s comedies, Jordan’s (1975)theory of the superiority of laugher and the inferiority of the person orobject laughed at are very useful. In Ozores’s films, gay men are presentedas morally, intellectually, and even sexually inferior to the heterosexualcharacters of the films. I analyze each of these representations now.

In the universe of Ozores’s films, gays are morally inferior and, there-fore, they can be treated despotically. For instance, in Ellas los PrefierenLocas (Ozores, 1976), the main character, Pedro, is someone spectators arenever meant to like. He manipulates his friend to have access to a marriedstraight man, Alberto, and convinces him to pretend to be gay, and laterlies to Alberto’s wife and friends. Nothing stops him from getting closer toAlberto and converting him into a gay man. This is yet another film of thetime using Francoist ideas on the predatory intentions of homosexuals.4

The presentation of gay men as morally inferior individuals provideda cruel situation in which they had to be punished for their evils. Becausethey are delinquents, they can be beaten—a punishment they deserve andsometimes even enjoy. At the same time, spectators are allowed to laughat this punishment with no remorse because the evil gay men deserved it.A clear case is Los Bingueros (Ozores, 1979), where the gay men who wantto cheat the main characters are beaten and insulted when it is found outnot that they are swindlers, but that they are gay. This is a favorite situationof Mariano Ozores. In Los Chulos (The Pimps; Ozores, 1981b), there is analmost identical scene in which the main character pretends to be gay andflirts with his friend, but the latter finds out and, in anger, runs away callinghim a “pimp, filth and faggot” (p. 24).

Needless to say, Mariano Ozores was not the only filmmaker who madeuse of the figure of the gay man as an amoral criminal with comic intentions.The gay characters of Macarras Conexión (Criminal Connection; Esteba,1976) are drug addicts and delinquents who deserve the arrests they suffer.The gay man in Las Delicias de los Verdes Años (The Joys of the Green Years;Mercero, 1976) deserves the humiliation he suffers because he is an abuserwho uses his wife to attract men. In Haz la Loca, no la Guerra (Gay Games,

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War Games; Truchado, 1976), gay men are sad to leave confinement asthey enjoy decorating the walls of the prison and flirting with the guards;only when they are arrested do they feel relieved and, in fact, the happyending of the film is not the heterosexual protagonists’s marriage, but the gaymen’s desired return to prison. The connection between homosexuality anddelinquency was exploited in other genres outside of comedy. In Él y Él (Heand He; Manzanos, 1980), all gay men are killers or abusers. The final twistof the thriller Ensalada Baudelaire (Baudelaire Salad; Pomés, 1977) revealsthat the killers are a gay man and a transvestite whose misogyny leads themto kill beautiful women. In La Dudosa Virilidad de Cristóbal (Christopher’sDubious Virility; Bosch, 1977), it is the very homophobia that breaks thehomosexuality–delinquency connection when a character explains that it is“better to have a son who is a thief, than a homosexual,” ignoring that,according to Francoist precepts and cinema5, it was very often the samething.

As far as their intellect is concerned, gay men are always presentedas more stupid than the straight heroes. According to Francoist scientists,one of the causes and characteristics of homosexuality was idiocy.6 Thecharacters of some of these comedies follow this pattern, too, and confirmJordan’s (1975) thoughts that “through the theory of superiority we derive ourexpression to ‘laugh at’ someone, implying that the person laughed at is insome way foolish” (p. 13). Their main concern is dressing and makeup, andtheir ignorance is repeatedly shown either by their ungrammatical languageor by their low-brow interests. Pedro is the only gay man in Ellas los PrefierenLocas (Ozores, 1976) with an important part, and he is the stupidest of allcharacters. Alberto complains that “not only is [Pedro] an invert, but alsoan idiot” (Ozores, 1976, p. 33), and he is right to say so because Pedro ispresented as a stupid and brainless individual. His intelligence is cast intodoubt several times in the film. When he tries to speak seriously and says thathe wants to “show the depth of my way of thinking,” Alberto asks, “Is yourway of thinking male, female, or unisex?” (Ozores, 1976, p. 33), confirminghis bewilderment at Pedro’s sexual orientation.

Likewise, Ozores’s gay men are incompetent and too immature to dotheir jobs, and always cause some trouble. For instance, Cristobal Colón, deOficio Descubridor (Christopher Columbus. Profession: Conqueror; Ozores,1982a) bases one of its gags on Boabdil’s homosexuality and stupidity, espe-cially when his mother calls him cacho marica (little faggot) and maricónde playa (flaming faggot) because he has been unable to save the city ofBenidorm from the Reconquest. Ozores’s indications for his actors in theoriginal scripts underline this idea that idiotic gay men can make peoplelaugh. For example, the gay werewolf in El Liguero Mágico (The MagicLeague; Ozores, 1980b) is meant to act as a gilipollas (asshole; see p. 108).

Other, non-Ozores comedies went further in their representation of thegeneral idiocy of gay men. In Haz la Loca, no la Guerra (Truchado, 1976),


gay men admit that they are not able to work as they prefer to spend theirtime knitting and listening to folk music, and that is the reason why theybecome thieves. The publicity poster of El Niño de Mama (Mommy’s Boy;Delgado, 1980) ran as follows: “He didn’t even know if he liked boys orgirls . . . such a stupid boy!” and it is true that when the film wants thespectator to doubt the protagonist’s sexual orientation, he is presented asa childish and dumb character (his concerns include dressing up, dancing,reading children tales, and playing with toys), but when, at the end, his het-erosexuality is confirmed, he becomes an intelligent and self-confident manable to expose his manager’s corrupt intentions. In Martes y Trece (Tuesday13th; Aguirre, 1982), there are two different steps in the construction of thegay gag: First, the spectator discovers that the character is gay and, immedi-ately afterward, that he is mentally retarded, making clearer than ever thatgay men can be funny in movies because they are idiotic too.

A third aspect of the inferiority of gay men as compared to the straightheroes of films is their sexuality. The Francoist legal literature described gaysex as “incomplete . . . [because] homosexual love is always inferior to thenormal one, as far as satisfaction is concerned” (Vivas Marzal, 1963, p. 47).These comedies coincide with this theory, and gay sex is presented as auseless, dangerous, and painful experience that can be mocked, as muchas a horrifying experience. The most extreme case is Las Verdes Vacacionesde una Familia Bien (The Green Holidays of a Wealthy Family; Siciliano,1980), where the gay character is raped by a violent man—an experiencethat he enjoys and has been waiting for during the film. Ozores’s films alsoparticipate in this conception. In Ellas los Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976), thegay man is beaten up several times by Alberto, the straight man he is in lovewith. The humiliation of a gay character by a straight man with whom heis (secretly) in love is another typical situation of Ozores’s comedies. Veryoften, this humiliation included physical aggression, always as part of thecomic gag. For instance, the gay character in El Liguero Mágico (Ozores,1980b) is slapped by nearly all the characters. It is easy to think here ofThomas Jordan (1975) and his thoughts on cruelty and humor as the bestexplanations for superiority theory: “We all have a cruel impulse within uswhich can surface through laughter much more easily that it can throughmalice” (p. 16).

In case there is any doubt about the conception of gay sex as disgust-ing, Ozores’s comments on his scripts can be very helpful. For instance, inEllas los Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976), when Alberto is reading a book onhomosexuality, “he raises his head, disgusted” (p. 23). Later, the betrayedwife says, “To share a husband is always disgusting, but to share it with aman is unbearable” (p. 104). A unique case is sequence 31 of Los Chulos(Ozores, 1981b), where a gay man is looking at his lover while he speakson the phone, and Ozores remarks: “He hangs up and looks at his lover,

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smacking his lips, like a dirty old pig” (p. 80). One might think that per-sonal opinions are not relevant for a script, but they must actually be read asmeticulous indications for the actors, as the final result of the film is a per-formance full of aversion and revulsion toward the image of a man lookinglasciviously at another man.

Ozores was very keen on portraying gay sex as something disgusting.Much of his dialogue and indications make reference to the revulsion thatheterosexual people might feel toward gay sex. Sometimes, metonymy isapplied, and not only was gay sex disgusting, but so were gay men them-selves. For instance, in Los Liantes (The Swindlers; Ozores, 1981c), a characterrushes to wash his hands after being caressed by a man he thinks is gay:“Now I have to wash my hands, this man is all hands, I don’t want to seehim again” (p. 57). The script reinforces this idea by indicating to the actorthat the character “rubs his hands, full of disgust” (p. 57).

A common idea shared by many of these comedies is the considerationof gay men as no hombres (not men). When Alberto meets Pedro, in Ellaslos Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976), he tells him that it is better to be “a man,”even if an evil one, than “such a flaming queen as you are” (p. 24). WhenAlberto later calls him man, he stops, corrects himself, and substitutes theword for being. Even gay men do not see themselves as true “men” Leocadio,the gay dressmaker in Los Chulos (Ozores, 1981b), says, “Oh, men, how rudeyou can be!” (p. 30). Gay men’s sexuality is inferior to that of the straightheroes because it is placed in a blurred, in-between area between manhoodand womanhood.

Other, non-Ozores comedies played with this idea of the liminality ofgay men’s sexuality, and went much further. One of the weirdest situations ina comedy of the time is that of Los Embarazados (The Pregnant Men; JulioColl Estepona, 1980), where the gay character (played by Emilio Laguna)explains his happiness at being pregnant and being productive for society:“I met Juanita, a lovely girl who changed me, yes, she did. My thing was justvice, not something I had been born with. . . . Juanita has regenerated me,sure, and my mum is so glad!” Laguna’s character is a clear case of the rep-resentation of gay men’s sexuality. Because he is not (re)productive, he is auseless person, but after he meets Juanita, not only does he become hetero-sexual, but he is also pregnant himself. Many other comedies insist on thisidea: In Guapa, Rica y Especial (Pretty, Rich, and Special; Puig, 1975), gaycharacters are called medio-hombres (half-men), and the prostitutes in LasSeñoritas de Alegre Compañía (The Ladies of Gay Company; Nieves Conde,1974) explain to their gay friend that when they are talking about men,they do not mean him (“You should not think we talk about you when wediscuss men”). Even gay characters themselves doubt this in films, such asHaz la Loca, no la Guerra (Truchado, 1976), as they envy the female mod-els and express their sorrow for not being able to be “as women as they


are.” What is more, the publicity press books of this film wrote betweenbrackets the word men. The sexuality of the gay characters of these comediesis incomplete, uncontrollable, and humiliating, but always a target ofridicule.

The second theory that helps in studying the construction of humorin these comedies is Charney’s (1978) ideas on the clown. Charney’s fools“are the most humble of creatures, the lowest on the social scale, completelyanonymous and insignificant” (p. 173). The same applies to gay men in thesecomedies for whom the other characters do not feel any respect. In somecases, they are not even considered human beings: They are called “things”in Ozores’s (1984b) El Cura ya tiene Hijo (The Priest Becomes a Father),“poor things” in Ellas los Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976), and many otherinsults.7

Charney’s (1978) model helps in analyzing the basis of the humor ofthese characters, as it seems that the gay men of these films operate likeCharney’s clown and impersonate the taboos of the society of the time and,by breaking them, make the spectators laugh. Ozores’s actors based theirconstruction of the gay clown on stereotypical conceptions of homosexualityof the time, not ignoring the transgressive element of some of them. Forinstance, they carry a handbag when only women were socially permitted towear them. Even the gay werewolf in El Liguero Mágico (Ozores, 1980b) can-not help wearing his purse. This produces a comic effect that resembles thatof Charney’s native Indian masturbating in public because both actions aresocially prohibited, and the shocking vision of it makes the spectator laugh.The same applies to most of the actions gay men perform in Ozores’s filmog-raphy, from using lipstick (Los Autonómicos [Gutiérrez Santos, 1982]) to theireffeminate manners. Ozores was, in fact, very punctilious in his descriptionsof gay men’s attire, and his scripts are full of indications: “Leocadio, who isthe faggot we have seen before, wears a lady’s nightgown and plays witha handkerchief” (Ozores, 1981b, p. 45); or “He wears a nice bra” (Ozores,1978, p. 5). Likewise, the dialogues made use of transgressive behavior andincluded comic punch-lines such as, “I like to wear this little purse, next tomy bra,” or “I wish I had such a nice league” (Ozores, 1980, p. 5).

All this can be done because, like Charney’s (1978) clown’s flirtationwith a married woman on stage, it is a farce. This idea is reinforced bythe fact that Ozores’s films presented well-known actors whose romanticlives were publicly known and whose heterosexuality was unquestionable.They could afford playing effeminate gay men without the audience thinkingthat they were gay in real life. Thus, the taboo of a masculine attitude thatmen must not have is broken by their performances with a comic effect.They can be gay clowns on screen, but their real heterosexuality is widelyproven. Ozores makes use here of an interesting principle of the genre stud-ied by Alexander Doty (2000), who thinks that in relation to “film comedy,

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directors can challenge stars as important figures through which to readcomic texts—particularly among queer scholars” (p. 80). According to Doty,with knowledge of a filmmaker’s sexual orientation, the audience can “con-struct readings that interpret certain visual and aural codes in their films withreference to specifically queer contexts” (p. 80).

The taboos used by Ozores’s clowns are mainly sexual, but also behav-ioral and social. Señor Alcalá, in Cuentos de las Sábanas Blancas (Ozores,1978), can sleep with naked women because they and their parents thinkthat he is gay, and he enjoys such a privilege, and makes spectators laugh.Alcalá is breaking a taboo and providing the spectator with a funny sit-uation that is stressed by the actor’s performance, full of comic grimacescaused by his embarrassment and enjoyment of the situation. The sameapplies to the vast majority of these films; from Pedro’s enjoyment ofdressing and cooking in Ellas los Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976), to the cross-dressing scenes of Los Bingueros (Ozores, 1979) and Al este del Oeste (Eastof the Western; Ozores, 1984), the humor relies on the subversion of socialrules.

Finally, the sense of humor that operates in these comedias demariquitas also works because of the “comic distance” effect that authorssuch as and Voytilla and Petri (2003) have studied. Gays are distanced fromthe straight heroes of the film with whom spectators are meant to identify.They can be insulted, raped, beaten up, and humiliated (all this being funny)because they represent the otherness of the film. Being a thief, a rapist, evena killer can be tolerated, but characters cannot bear the idea of being consid-ered gay. For instance, in Los Bingueros (Ozores, 1979), Esteso and Pajaresbecome angry when they are called homosexuals (“That’s going too far,” theysay); they had been swindled, blackmailed, and beaten up and did nothingabout it; but when they are called homosexuals, a quarrel erupts. This isa favorite situation in the Ozores’s cosmos, especially when straight menhave to pretend to be gay while they show their repulsion for homosexuals.Again, this is clearly exemplified in Ellas los Prefieren Locas (Ozores, 1976).When Alberto first meets Pedro, he is repulsed by his sexual orientation,and speaks clearly: “[M]en . . . beings like you are disgusting, I’m allergic toyou” (Ozores, 1976, p. 20). Again, he even hesitates to call him a “man”, andcorrects himself. Later, he calls him a “social degenerate” and a “little lady”(Ozores, 1976, p. 25). When Pedro suggests that Alberto should pretend tobe gay to hide his infidelity, Pedro bursts out in anger, Alberto calls him“queer,” “sick,” and beats him up (Ozores, 1976, p. 24). For Alberto, nothingis worse than being a homosexual.

The comic distance effect created by the presentation of homosexualityas the most undesirable of possibilities is stressed by these films’ presentationof gay characters as “the other,” as opposed to the likeable protagonists withwhom spectators are meant to identify. Queer theory has often interpreted


Foucault’s (1990) studies on the creation of the figure of the degeneratemonster in contemporary societies. According to Foucault, the “abnormal”is created from the combination of three elements: the human monster, theonanist, and the individual to be corrected (1990). The sum of these threecategories makes the figure of a new persona, the abnormal, derived “fromthe juridico-legislative exceptionality of the monster” (Foucault, 1975, p. 53).However, what it actually generates is a monster-born category able to copewith sexual otherness. The examples mentioned earlier are accurate illus-trations of Foucault’s theories (1990). Pedro, from Ellas los Prefieren Locas(Ozores, 1976), like Foucault’s onanist, “places sexuality, or at least the sex-ual use of own one’s body, at the origin of an indefinite series of physicaldisorders that may make their effects felt in all forms at all ages of life”(Foucault, 1990, p. 54). It is his sex, or his sexual body, that is the prob-lematic focus of social disorder. The conflict of the film is not generatedby Alberto’s heterosexual drive and his addiction to extramarital sex, but byPedro’s uncontrollable eagerness to attract Alberto and “convert” (to use hiswords) him into a gay man. Without Pedro’s avid sexuality, there would havebeen no conflict in the film.

By insisting on the figure of the gay man as the perpetually distant char-acter and by stressing his otherness at all times, filmmakers neglected thefact that many of the viewers of their films must have been gay men. A mostinteresting issue arises here for those interested in questions of spectatorship:If the humor of these films is based on the comic distance effect, one maywonder how such humor could operate among those members of the audi-ence that could not distance themselves from gay characters because theywere gay men. The humor of these films addresses, therefore, a non-gayaudience, and one may conclude that these movies ignored gay men in andout of cinema.

Voytilla and Petri (2003) argued that the comic distance is an effectivedevice because it can be broken, and then allows the spectator to identifywith the character (p. 15). This was prolifically used in many of the comediesanalyzed earlier. For example, in El Niño de Mama (Delgado, 1980), whenthe spectator is sure that Luis is not gay (the second half of the film), thereare no more comic situations about his sexuality, and the humor of the filmis based on secondary characters; his sexuality is no longer mocked when heis a well-known straight man, and the comic distance effect does not operateanymore. It is very interesting to note that the script of Gay Club (Fernández& Vidal, 1981) presents the film as the first gay-friendly Spanish comedy,and states, “You could laugh with the homosexuals, not at them” (cover).That was in 1981, and new ideas had started to change Spanish cinema andsociety.

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STEREOTYPING GAY MEN IN COMEDY

Theorists such as Richard Dyer (1993) noticed the narrative value of thestereotype and its importance in the construction of characters and plots, aswell as the risks implied by the use of stereotypical references. These risksare higher when it comes to portraying sexual minorities:

A fact about being gay is that it doesn’t show. There is nothing aboutgay people’s physiognomy that declares them gay, no equivalents tothe biological markets of sex and race. There are signs of gayness, arepertoire of gestures, expressions, stances, clothing, and even environ-ments that bespeak gayness, but these are cultural forms designed toshow what the person’s person alone doesn’t show: that he or she isgay. Such a repertoire of signs, making visible the invisible, is the basisof any representation of gay people involving visual recognition, therequirement of recognizability in turn entailing that of typicality. (p. 21)

There is nothing that shows that someone is gay, other than cultur-ally designed gestures and signs. Typification has been used both by thoseagainst homosexual rights and by gay and lesbian activists. Dyer (1993)remembered how from the subcultures of the 1960s

emerged the politics of the . . . gay movement, with its stress on acceptingoneself as lesbian/homosexual, identifying oneself with other homosex-ual people under the term “gay” and coming out, openly declaring andshowing oneself as gay to society as a whole. (p. 21)

This also applied in Spain with the so-called política de visibilidad (politicsof visibility) in the 1980s. The gay movement created a whole system offlags, logos, and dressing to be identified with the liberation movement andeasily assimilated by the media and marketing. Therefore, a gay typification(understood as visually recognizable images) is not something thought aboutgay people, but also produced by them.

Dyer’s (1993) theories suggest that, when there are no distinguishablesigns, they can be invented. This is very much what Francoist scientists triedto do, and also what cinema did. It is now well-known how Francoist sci-entists tried to find the morphological and physical features of gay men andlesbians, to the extent that scientists, such as Pérez Argilés, became obsessedwith the idea of how to uncover gay men. Pérez Argilés (1955) suggested,under what he called “morphological study,” that the manners and effemi-nacy of homosexuals were the fastest and easiest of the analyses, always tobe used before the “genetic” or “psychological study.” According to PérezArgilés, the “pitch of voice and manners” or some specific characteristics,including a “poor quantity of hair” or “longer and thicker eyelashes,” were


common to most gay men (p. 49). Most of these “scientific discoveries”(his words) came from traditional misconceptions that older Spanish peoplecan remember today. These features attributed to gay men are also takeninto account in the comedies of the time. In the following sections, I studyhow the comedies of the Transition made use of three stereotypical ideasabout homosexuality: gay men’s physical features and manners, gay men aspredators, and gay men as sick people.

Stereotype 1: Gays Are Effeminate

All Ozores’s films analyzed in this article fit in with Dyer’s (1993) theory,as they made use of and reinvented distinguishable signs for their gaycharacters. His actors made sure that when a character was meant to begay, he would fit in with the stereotypical image of gay men, and that spec-tators would easily distinguish these characters as gay men as soon as theyappeared on screen. In this sense, stereotyping works as “a shortcut for therepresentation of the personality of the character” (p. 17). Dyer’s theoriza-tion of stereotyping as metonymy is exemplified here, too, as these comediestake for granted that all gay men are effeminate—that is, they take part ofthe group (some gay men are effeminate) to define the whole of it (all gaymen are effeminate).

There is a comic sequence in El Currante (The Workaholic; Ozores,1982b) that exemplifies very clearly the way these comedies constructed thefigure of the gay man. The main character (played, once more, by AndrésPajares) pretends to be gay, but a woman he likes arrives at that momentand he has to combine his real heterosexuality with the high-pitched voice,clothes, and manners of the gay man he pretends to be. Spectators are meantto know that when Pajares speaks normally, he is playing Manolo, but whenhis voice becomes higher and his hands move all the time, he is playingLolo, the gay character. Pajares’s character is, therefore, constructing his gaypersonality the way these films constructed gay characters—that is, followingthe stereotypical feature that gay men have a high-pitched voice or, to useOzores’s indications, “with an unmanly accent” (p. 13). The original script isvery clear about it. When Pajares (Manolo) arrives, “he wears a wig, and afoulard around his neck, uses make-up and, walking like a woman, goes intothe shop” (p. 18). He meets Rigoberto (“a flaming queen” p. 18) and flirtswith him. But, suddenly, Laura (“an exceptional woman, pretty, attractive,to die for, etcetera . . .” p. 21) arrives, and “when [Manolo] sees her, hebehaves like a macho and goes back to his normal voice” (p. 21). Manolo,very interested in Laura, flirts with her. The problem arrives when Rigobertocomes again and “Manolo changes his attitude and behaves like a queer, allof a sudden” (p. 22). Needless to say, “Laura is very surprised” (p. 22), butManolo is clever enough to “look at her in such a passionate and masculineway” that she knows “it is all a farce” (p. 23). Other indications for the actor

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include “Manolo like a macho” (p. 59) for his heterosexual personality and,more comically, “Manolo looking like a loca [meaning both crazy personand effeminate gay man]” (p. 57) for his gay “Mr. Hyde.” Similar situationstake place in other comedies by Ozores, such as ¡Qué Gozada de Divorcio!(Ozores, 1981d). A twist is provided by Los Chulos (Ozores, 1981b) when itpresents the main character as a “bisexual man.” He says that he is straightduring the day, but when the night comes, he becomes gay. Needless to say,during his gay shift he wears a necklace over his silk robe and speaks in ahigher pitch.

The stereotype of the effeminate voice, to use the Francoist lexicon, isone of the most recurrent of these comedies, but it is a tricky one. A num-ber of films present the reverse stereotype when they include transvestitecharacters whose low voices reveal that they are (gay) men and not realwomen, surprising the spectator and making him or her laugh. Thus, in thetwisted universe of these films, gay men have (exaggerated) women’s tonesof voice, but transvestites have (exaggerated) masculine voices. In the scriptfor Agítese Antes de Usarla (Shake Before Use), Ozores (1983) indicates howRosa, a transvestite, “speaks with a deep, masculine voice” (p. 114). Thevoice betrays her, and the protagonists discover that the woman they havebeen flirting with is a man. This is the final and climatic gag with which thefilm ends.

Another important idea in the construction of the stereotypical comicgay man is clothing. The most extreme case is perhaps Haz la Loca, nola Guerra (Truchado, 1976), where the way the actor, Antonio Ozores, isdressed emphasizes his hips and coincides with doctor Arguilés’s assertionthat gay men have bigger hips and thinner waists than heterosexual men.Most of the actors playing gay characters in the films studied in this articlefollow this pattern for their characterization: When in El Currante (Ozores,1982b) Pajares’s character has to pretend to be gay, he uses a woman’swig and a purse. In many of these films, gay characters can be recognizedby their clothes; for instance, in Aunque la Hormona se Vista de Seda (TheHormone Wears Silk; Escrivá, 1971), when the father-in-law sees a man witha purse and a wig, he decides that he is gay like his son-in-law, and says,“one of those queers.” The mother in Mi Hijo no es lo que Parece (My Sonis Not What He Looks Like; Fons, 1973) suspects that her son is gay when hewears a wig and uses moisturizing creams. The gay character in El LigueroMágico (Ozores, 1980b) wears a bra and perfume. Clothes and attire were,therefore, an exceptional shortcut for the stereotypical representation of gaymen as effeminate.

Stereotype 2: Gays Are Predators

Under Franco’s dictatorship, one of the most common stereotypical ideasabout gay men was their predatory intentions and their ability to con-vert people and spread their contagious sexual orientation. Tatjana Pavlovic


(2003) studied how this idea impregnated the representation of lesbianismin horror films, particularly with the figure of the vamp. This stereotype wasalso drawn on by comedies in such a way that the stereotyped gay manof these films was not only a figure of fun, but also a figure of danger.Spectators of the time could rely on the fact that a gay man in a comedy wassomeone to laugh at, and also someone to be afraid of.

Contrary to the stereotype of the effeminate gay, the homosexual preda-tor is not based on physical features or gestures. With this stereotype,filmmakers and actors faced again what Dyer (1993) called the problem of“making visible the invisible” (p. 19). The idea of gay men as rapacious peo-ple might have been part of popular imagery, but in film it could not workas the straightforward stereotype of the effeminate gay man. Therefore, inthese comedies, spectators could see gays plotting how to get their victims,or even people thinking that gays (or people pretending to be gay) weretrying to victimize the straight hero. In this sense, it can be said that thisstereotype was created through action and, above all, dialogue or mono-logue, such as Pedro’s speech at the end of the film Ellas los Prefieren Locas(Ozores, 1976), revealing his machinations. This film is the clearest case ofthe use of the predator stereotype. I have already analyzed how the plotof this film bases its structure and conflict on Pedro’s resolution to breakAlberto’s marriage and convert him into a gay man.

However, the first comedy making use of this stereotype is possiblyNo Desearás al Vecino del Quinto (Though Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor(Fernández, 1970), where the straight protagonist’s mother and girlfriendare afraid that he has become gay after his many encounters with Antón, adressmaker who pretends to be gay so as to be a successful designer. WhenPedro, the heterosexual protagonist, sees his mother after spending a nightwith Antón, the mother asks him, “Did he hurt you?” Although he is meant tobe harmless to women, when it comes to his being with other men, Antón isseen as a predator. Similarly, in Mi Hijo no es lo que Parece (Fons, 1973), themother does not like her son’s friendship with his friend Hans, in case hebecomes gay. She does her best so that he can meet Mónica, a pretty lady,implying that if a man associates with gay men, he becomes gay, but if hegoes with attractive women, he turns straight. In the universe of these films,sexuality is, therefore, as unstable as it is malleable.

Stereotype 3: Gays Are Sick

The causes of homosexuality are sources of comedy in many of these films.Each film provides its own explanation for homosexuality, some of themtaken from Francoist mythology and some of them of new elaboration. Forinstance, one of the characters in Haz la Loca, no la Guerra (Truchado,1976) affirms that, “I was born like this,” and there is no way he can change.

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More comically, Fraude Matrimonial (Marital Fraud; Iquino, 1976) presentshomosexuality as a “negative Oedipus complex”—a mental sickness respon-sible for the failure of many marriages. In 40 Años Sin Sexo (40 Years WithoutSex; Bosch, 1979), a father whose son is expelled from the school blameshis wife for his child’s sexual orientation.

The film that is most concerned with the causes of homosexuality isAunque la Hormona se Vista de Seda, which considers it to be the con-sequence of traumatic events. Bienvenido, the character played by AlfredoLanda, sees his friend’s homosexuality as a result of his parent’s bad edu-cation. When he finds Fermín’s (played by Manuel Summers) picture as achild, dressed like a girl, he understands the origin of his friend’s sexualtendency: “What a perversion! This is like killing your child . . . your parentsdressed you like a little girl, made you play with dolls . . . and you’ll end upcommitting suicide!”

One of the most interesting examples of the comic use of the con-tagious and curable disposition of homosexuality is provided by this film.It starts with a cartoon ladybird (mariquita is the Spanish word for “lady-bird” and also for “gay”) explaining how homosexuality has existed in allcultures (“Some men are the way they are meant to be, but others are bent”).After showing comic situations in Sodom and Gomorrah and an effeminateAlexander the Great, the ladybird’s monologue goes on as follows:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, mankind is a crazy species devoted to warand, in times of peace, men get relaxed. They start refusing this [the filmshows a woman in miniskirts], objecting to that [a woman’s cleavage] andend up in a world of hesitation. Maybe it is just a flamboyant minority, butdon’t be so sure. Beware of pornography, sexy publicity, unisex fashion,yes, be alert! That’s the way many fall into that trap.

According to the ladybird, no one is safe from becoming a homosexual. Eventhose who feel sure about their sexuality must be aware because pornogra-phy and publicity can make someone change; the ladybird seems to agreewith judge Vivas Marzal (1963), who stated how “it is our duty to repress allkinds of homosexual propaganda and fight pornography and . . . publicity”(p. 44). These were two crucial steps to stop the homosexual “epidemic”(Vivas Marzal, 1963, p. 44).

Of all the comedies of the time, Aunque la Hormona se Vista deSeda is the one that is more aware of the fascist scientific theories aroundhomosexuality. To understand his problem, the protagonist buys a medicalbook with a tape and finds the following explanation, which deserves to bequoted as it is very similar to Francoist medical texts:

This is your friend doctor George Gordon speaking, from Saint Louis,Ohio. My studies, supported by the American Corporation of Natural


Sex, show that men can be victims of their education. Sometimes, a dom-inating mother’s selfish love can provoke problems in the future, theproblems that you have now. . . . React! You are like everybody else, youmust be normal! Otherwise, you’ll be inexorably lost.

Dr. Gordon’s pieces of advice are well-known by Bienvenido, who thinksthat Fermín is “a helluva guy, mistaken, but a great guy” and that “the firstthing is to be a macho, and then show it.” He is sure that the right womanwill cure Fermín, as “what he needs is a lady.” However, every time Fermíntries to have sex with a woman, he hears a turkey clucking and needs to runaway. Willing to help him, Bienvenido takes Fermín to a doctor. Under theeffects of hypnosis, Fermín reveals his secret and the cause of his trauma:“My parents wanted to have a girl but, instead, had me. My mother neveraccepted it and . . . they educated me as if I were a girl. My father was abrute and one day . . .” At this point, the film uses a flashback to show youngFermín spying on his stepfather raping the housemaid while his motherdrains the whey from a turkey. The doctor is then happy to have discoveredFermín’s traumatic memories and concludes, “I’ve got it! It’s very clear. This isa clear case of maternal obsession. The turkey is a trick of your subconscious,stopping you from doing what your father so brutishly did. My friend, wehave a diagnosis, You are saved!”

The explanation of homosexuality that this film provides coincides withthat provided by Sabater (1963), who claimed that “education and the influ-ence of the parents can contribute to their perverse inclination. More oftenthan not, parents protect this inclination and treat their children accordingto it, making them be more and more affected” (p. 202). Sabater set differ-ent examples of people who had become invertido (inverts) after childhoodtraumas, many of them very similar to the one elaborated in Aunque laHormona se Vista de Seda. In his work Gamberros, Homosexuales, Vagos yMaleantes (Hooligans, Homosexuals, Slackers, and Criminals), he analyzesthe following case:

A girl saw her father, who was drunk, having sex with the cook. The sightof the father’s altered face caused such a repulsion and excitement thatshe could never forget it. This episode determined her sexual orientation,leaning her towards homosexuality. (p. 211)

The coincidences between the Francoist texts and these films are very close.It is too late now to know to what extent the scriptwriters of Aunquela Hormona se Vista de Seda were familiar with these studies, but whatseems clear is that cinema was very well aware of the popular and scientificstereotyping of gay men.

It is very intriguing that some of these comedies questioned, inten-tionally or not, the idea that homosexuality could be cured, and created

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comic situations around this theory. Some films proposed the idea that ifhomosexuality can be cured, it must certainly be very difficult to do so.It seems that the very weakness and contradictions of the fascists’ scien-tific theories (homosexuality is a genetic sickness while also contagious andcurable) are laughable and comical. This can be clearly seen in El EróticoEnmascarado (Ozores, 1980a), with a long sequence in which a psychia-trist is attending to a gay man who says that he wants to be straight. First,the doctor analyzes: “You are not a loca, but you are a difficult case any-way. If you follow my instructions, I will cure your sexual mania,” but asthe sequence develops, the patient confesses that he is in love with thepsychiatrist. A similar situation occurs in Mi Hijo no es lo que Parece (Fons,1973) when Marga wants to “cure” her son but realizes, in anger, that thedoctor is a very effeminate gay man himself.

An interesting point arises with the study of the stereotype of the gayman as a sick person. For a 21st-century spectator, the use of effeminategay men with comic intentions is not something strange. After all, thereare effeminate gay men. The same could be said about rapacious gaymen. When it comes to seeing homosexuality as a sickness, different fac-tors intervene. Although some people might still see sexual difference asan affectation, the fact is that fewer and fewer medical and psychologicaltexts dare to lay claim to such a theory. A comparison between the sur-veys of the 1970s8 and the contemporary ones proves how a very smallpart of Spanish society considers gays as sick people or homosexuality asan illness that can be cured. In this sense, it can be said that Dyer (1993)was right when he said that one of the risks of film stereotyping is itsephemeral nature. The gags and sequences of the films studied in this articlethat based their humor in the stereotype “gay men are sick” do not workanymore.

CONCLUSION

Ozores’s legacy to the Spanish film history includes the creation of verypopular gay characters. His oeuvre has been traditionally overlooked byfilm academics and critics, perhaps ignoring the fact that they constitute avaluable cultural testimony of the post-Francoist representation, use, andconception of the gay persona.

Spectators of the 1970s and 1980s had the chance to see portrayalsof gay men based on stereotypical images that were very often offensive forsexual minorities. The use of these stereotypical representations was stronglycriticized by gay activists and spectators in several cases. For instance, an edi-torial of the gay magazine Amigos complained how these films put together“one stereotype after another . . . ignoring that we too are human beingsand deserve RESPECT” (Anonymous, 1980b, p. 11). The activists’ concern


with these offensive stereotypical portrayals of gay men is the response toa persisting discourse from the past that intended to live on the democraticyears. At a time of profound change, opposite sectors of society wanted totake part in the construction of a new cinematographic discourse for sex-ual minorities. The sexual discourse proposed by these comedies is relatedto the Foucauldian idea that the proliferation of discourses about periph-eral sexualities is part of the process of resistance to the repressive powers.Even if these discourses are contrary to the resisting forces (in this case,the gay activists or readers of magazines like Amigos), the fact remains thatrepression did not manage to silence sexual minorities. On the contrary, ithelped in the construction of a sexual discourse to which they are central.As Foucault (1990) argued, in our era

we have not only witnessed a visible explosion of unorthodox sexuali-ties; but—and this is the important point—a deployment quite differentfrom the law, even if it is locally dependent on procedures of prohi-bition, has ensured, through a network of interconnecting mechanisms,the proliferation of specific pleasures and the multiplication of disparatesexualities. (p. 49)

During the years of the Transition, Spanish comedies experienced “a vis-ible explosion of unorthodox sexualities”; although the law (censorship, theso-called Social Danger Legislation, police raids, etc.) worked to exclude gaymen and lesbians from film and society, popular cinema managed to developa specific discourse that was precisely influenced by that law (Focault, 1990).Beyond their ideological content, these comedies are the first approaches toa sexual minority and the first steps toward the construction of a new sexualdiscourse for gay men. I would like to think that the films analyzed in thisarticle are examples of a cinema that is very far and different from (evenopposite to) today’s narratives; and I, therefore, believe that film scholarsand historians should pay attention to them and take them as a shortcut toour recent past. They are an accurate way of getting to know the history ofsexual discourses in Spain and maybe also learning what a film should notbe like. If only for this, the study of these films is worthwhile.

NOTES

1. For instance, the actor Emilio Laguna succeeded in the 1970s with his many interpretations ofgay effeminate men.

2. For more on how the early gay press of the 1970s explored gay culture in cinema, see Melero(2010).

3. The use of gay men in non-Spanish comedies include very relevant examples, such as the Frenchseries Le Cage aux Folles (Molinaro, 1980), some of the British Carry On films (Thomas, 1974), and theItalian movies of Alvaro Vitali. It is not difficult to find gay men in the Greek comedies of the 1970s,especially those starred in by Stavros Paravas, Sotiris Moustakas, and Chronis Exarhakos.

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4. See Melero (2010), who analyzes the representation of gays and lesbians as predators in anumber of films, most of them horror “B” movies.

5. For instance, see Vivas Marzal’s (1963, p. 23) conclusions on the relation between homosexualityand delinquency (“one leading to the other”) in Contemplación Jurídico-Penal de la Homsexualidad (ALegal Study on Homosexuality).

6. Pérez Argilés (1955) talked about “the stupidity of the homosexual” to explain, among otherissues, “the inability of the pervert to appreciate the beauty of the female body” (pp. 46–47).

7. The insults for gay men were very prolific and very often constituted punch-lines inviting thespectator’s laughter. They also form a testimony of the lexicon of the time. Some of them are as follows:marica zarrapastroso (ragged fairy), marica loca and enfermo (sick; in Ellas los Prefieren Locas [LadiesPrefer Them Queer ]; Ozores, 1976), and marica desorejado (shameful fag; in Divorce is Such a Pleasure!).The scripts included insults in the indications, too: “He comes in like a flaming queen” (in Cuentos de lasSábanas Blancas [Tales of the White Sheets]; Ozores, 1978, p. 86).

8. See Tejada (1977, p. 202) and A. A. (1977, pp. 14–18).

REFERENCES

A. A. (1977, August). Cuestionario sobre la homosexualidad [A survey abouthomosexuality]. Guadiana, 17 , 14–18.

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