Of Muscles and Men Read online

  David Simmons, in “‘By Jupiter’s Cock!’ Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Video Games, and Camp Excess,” suggests that the popular 2010 Starz Network television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand derives its main narrative structures not from popular peplum films, but rather from contemporary video game forms. Using both camp aspects inherent to the series and the dialogue, structure, and artistic representation of violence in the show itself, Simmons creates a powerful argument that perhaps the next generation of sword and sandal filmmaking may owe as much to current obsessions over video games as it will to the previous waves of peplumic film. In Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Simmons traces the blankness of the main character (suggesting that Spartacus himself functions as a type of avatar, or player, for the viewer), the development of the plot (with its increasing “levels” of difficulty or difficulties needing to be over-

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  Introduction

  come), the manner of the fighting, and the depiction of stylized violence directly back to video game culture. Crafting larger connections to both audience and reception, Simmons demonstrates that the sword and sandal genre’s obsession with masculine utility may be taken quite literally, as a representation of the audience at “play,” as well as symbolically.

  My own contribution to the collection, “Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls: He-Man, the Masters of the Universe, and Gay Clone Culture,” explores the juvenilization of the sword and sandal film. In adolescent representations of the genre, including the 1980s Filmation studios syndicated thirty-minute action cartoon series He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, women are largely absent from the worlds of men, making an inherently homosocial and male-centric genre even more so. My essay compares the material culture of the He-Man action figure with the corresponding social movement of the gay clone, both of which emerged at roughly the same time, suggesting not a correlation of one to the other but reflections of social anxieties about the movement away from a male-constructed and dominated view of masculinity itself. By focusing on the hyperdeveloped male form, and then reproducing it ceaselessly, both He-Man and the gay clone draw attention to and simultaneously obtund the muscular male form; taking away the uniqueness of the strongman character results in the delineation of said figure’s masculinity and the heroic form he generally represents. Chris Pallant also looks at a juvenile adaptation of a common peplum hero/myth. “Developments in Peplum Filmmaking: Disney’s Hercules” explores the generic dynamics of the eponymous 1997 animated feature.

  Unlike He-Man, Disney’s Hercules is a much more traditional take on the peplum, casting a classical, mythological hero in the role of forzuti who rights wrongs, defeats the bad guy, and generally saves the day. Hercules even shows its classical bent through highly stylized animation that reflects Grecian artistic forms. Yet even in such a faithful adaptation of the sword and sandal model Pallant demonstrates an anxiety in the inherent conflict between the originating genre and its juvenile facsimile. Pallant argues that the Disney animated feature, itself a distinct and nuanced genre of film, ultimately clashes in key ways against the peplum, creating a film that, in the end, cannot fulfill the dictates of either genre successfully.

  Modern sensibilities and constructions of receptivity often conflict with filmic depictions of the ancient past, as filmmakers attempt to balance the dictates of history and/or genres based in ancient times versus the expectations and mores of contemporary audiences. Sometimes, however, this inherent tension can be utilized by the filmmaker to create an interesting commentary on both ancient and contemporary social structures and strictures. In the concluding essay in this collection, Daniel O’Brien demonstrates this in “Hercules Diminished? Parody, Differentiation, and Emulation in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules.” A peplumic parody, The Three Stooges Meet Hercules mocks the sword and sandal genre’s fascination with and depiction of hyperconstructed muscular

  Introduction

  13

  masculinity, arguing that such overdeveloped male forms do not connote heroism but rather violence, thuggishness, and simplicity. Yet, at the same time, the film cannot hide the desirability of such forms as well, ultimately recrafting the peplum hero into a more modern man, one who is still singularly developed but who, nonetheless, possesses modern social mores regarding intelligence, women, governance, and justice, suggesting, perhaps, that the ideal man is both contemporary and old-fashioned, with one muscular leg in the past and one stepping towards the future.

  McDowell concludes that “the whys and wherefores of masculinity are far-flung and often mutually contradictory” (363). It is true that the sword and sandal genre can never hope to present every aspect of masculinity that continually complicates and obfuscates representations of the male in both high and popular culture. Yet peplumic tradition does insist on the utility of what is male, on creating masculine figures that are overly developed but that, through this exaggerated muscularity, reflect a sense of usefulness as well. Ultimately, we admire the sword and sandal strongman not because of how he looks or how bulging his biceps are but, rather, because of what he has done or, to be more precise, because of the inherent possibilities of what he can do with his oversized, overdeveloped physique. Like the objects that give the genre its two most common names, heroic men in these films are extraordinary in their sense of functionality; useful not as objects of a representative gaze but rather as tools perfectly appointed for the completion of impossible tasks— slaying monsters, toppling towers, ending the reigns of tyrants— that no mere mortal would be capable of implementing. Ultimately, sword and sandal films remind us that masculinity is perhaps best admired when it is constructive, protective, and obliging. In the end, the hero’s muscles are like his peplum, his sword, or his sandals— not necessarily unique unto themselves, but dead useful all the same.

  NOTES

  1. I am, of course, not the first critic to make this distinction. Kevin M. Flanagan, in his essay in this collection, “‘Civilization ... ancient and wicked’: Historicizing the Ideological Field of 1980s Sword and Sandal Films,” makes a similar, if briefer, observation.

  2. It should be noted that there are subgenres within larger generic fields— such as the martial arts movie, a subgenre of the action film, or the “torture porn” film, a recent addition to the horror genre — whose names are not derivative of the tone or atmosphere of the movie itself, though that descriptive aspect is covered by the larger genre the subgenre is housed within.

  3. There are rare sword and sandal films that feature female heroic protagonists, such as Red Sonja (1985), directed by Richard Fleischer. Such instances, however, are exceedingly rare. Predictably, the common movie poster for the film features actor Arnold Schwarzenegger (famous for the Conan series) more prominently displayed than the heroine played by Brigitte Nielsen, with a larger profile and, also tellingly, a much larger sword.

  4. Perhaps the only exception to this rule is when the sandals belong to Hermes/Mer-cury, and thus have the power of flight. These specific footwear make highly infrequent appearances in sword and sandal films, and most recently appeared in Chris Columbus’

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  Introduction

  adaptation of Rick Riordan’s popular juvenile novel, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010), where Percy, the titular hero and son of Poseidon, borrows a pair of the winged sandals from the son of Hermes. Interestingly, this film is more a pastiche of sword and sandal movies than a traditional take on the genre itself, which can best be viewed by the fact that Hermes’ sandals are depicted as a pair of high-top sneakers. It is perhaps significant that in the re-telling of such Greek myths as the tale of Perseus, where the sandals of Hermes play a prominent role, the footwear is often written out of the film. For example, in both the original and re-make of Clash of the Titans, Perseus’ sandals are replaced by Bellerophon’s winged horse Pegasus, a more striking means of flight for the hero in these versions of the Perseid legend.

  5. The discrepancy here is caused, at least in part, by each
researcher’s shifting means of precisely defining a peplum film, and by imprecise record-keeping on the part of filmmakers and distributors, since so many of these films were made on tiny, shoestring budgets and had their names frequently changed as they moved from one country, or one part of a country, to another.

  6. All box office data used in this chapter is obtained from www.boxofficemojo.com.

  7. Critics often disagree on the appropriate categorization of peplum films; some critics argue that the First Wave identified here do not represent true sword and sandal movies, while others fail to recognize the Fourth Wave as commanding enough significance to be constituted as such. Still, for the purposes of this essay, the First Wave of the peplum runs roughly from 1914 to 1924/5; the Second Wave from 1957 to 1966/7; the Third Wave from 1981 to 1987/8; and the Fourth Wave from 2000 to the present day, though this wave, distinct from the others, seems more representative of a slow and steady progression of sword and sandal films as opposed to the popular gluts viewed in the other waves. For more on the history of the sword and sandal/peplum film, see Günsberg 97–100; Bondanella 159 –

  179. Irmbert Schenk provides a brief but detailed history of the First Wave of peplum films in his work “The Cinematic Support to National(istic) Mythology: The Italian Peplum 1910 –1930” (see Works Cited). It is interesting to observe that other scholars represented in this text codify the peplum/sword and sandal genre differently; rather than impose my own particular classification onto the various authors herein, I decided to let their own systems of classification stand, to more accurately demonstrate the inherent tension regarding the codification of these films into particular “Waves” or groupings by date.

  WORKS CITED

  Bondanella, Peter. A History of Italian Cinema. New York: Continuum, 2009.

  Chapman, David. Retro Stud: Muscle Movie Posters from Around the World. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2002.

  Günsberg, Maggie. Italian Cinema: Gender and Genre. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 2005.

  Lucanio, Patrick. With Fire and Sword: Italian Spectacles on American Screens 1958 –1968.

  Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1994.

  McDowell, Deborah E. “Pecs and Reps: Muscling in on Race and the Subject of Masculinities.” In Race and the Subject of Masculinities. Eds. Harry Stecopolous and Michael Uebel. Durham: Duke University Press, 1997. 361–386.

  Protas, Allison, ed. Dictionary of Symbolism. University of Michigan Symbolism Project.

  Web. 28 Jan 11.

  Schenk, Irmbert. “The Cinematic Support to National(istic) Mythology: The Italian Peplum 1910 –1930.” In Globalization, Cultural Identities, and Media Representations.

  Eds. Natascha Gentz and Stefan Kramer. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. 153 –168.

  Hercules, Politics,

  and Movies

  MARIA ELENA D’AMELIO

  The legend of Hercules finds its apogee in the Italian mythological movies of the Sixties, commonly called peplum or the sword and sandal genre. The Hercules series were low-budget productions made to exploit the international success of the Italian movie Hercules ( Le fatiche di ercole, 1958), for in this film Italian producers thought they had found the “magic recipe” to make low-cost movies with a high commercial success that could successfully compete with Hollywood epics. Generally the peplum revolved around a Herculean-type character played by an American bodybuilder performing feats of bravery in order to restore a legitimate sovereign against an evil dictator. The strongman character who starred in the Hercules movies was not only the semi-god Hercules, with more than twenty films between 1957 and 1965, but also Maciste, a Herculean character who had his cinematic origins in the 1914 silent film Cabiria and was resuscitated for this series.

  My purpose here is to investigate the connections between the Hercules myth, the peplum genre, and contemporary Italy. The strong, moral righteous hero of the Italian peplum flourished during a crucial turning point in Italy’s history, during the so-called “Italian economic miracle,” which catapulted Italy into a new era of economic, social, political, and cultural changes dominated by an industrial economy and mass culture. This study takes what can be described as a contextualist approach to these movies, analyzing the way the filmic texts engage with particular historical and social issues, such as the representation of the tyrant and the “repressed” memory of the past fascist regime, the relation with the Italian politics of the time, and the influence of American culture in shaping the social and intertextual representation of Hercules.

  This essay examines how and why the character of Hercules became so popular in the Italian movies of late Fifties and early Sixties, and how Hercules represents and negotiates some of the Italian political issues of the time. While the Herculean strongman’s goal is to rid society of the evil ruler, the hero always 15

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  Of Muscles and Men

  refuses the political power for himself; he’d rather leave the power in the hands of the legitimate heir to the throne. I show that this is the way in which the peplum genre deals with the “repressed memory” of the fascist regime: how the danger of a popular leader turning into a fascist dictator is exorcised through the narrative of a strongman hero who saves the country but refuses to be in charge of any political mandate. Finally, I show that the Herculean upper-body of the American bodybuilders playing Hercules symbolizes an idea of “American-ness” that relates to the Italian perception of the United States in the after-math of the war. Ultimately the American Hercules in the Italian peplum genre represents the America of Truman and the Marshall Plan, and the lure of the American consumerist way of life that the Marshall Plan intended to establish in the postwar Italian society.

  Echoes of Fascist Memory

  As stated by Italian film historian Vittorio Spinazzola, the post–World War II period brought a surge of interest in the first experiences of democratic life —

  after the fascist dictatorship — that could not be totally ignored by the popular movies of the time, such as the film d’appendice and the peplum (61). The film d’appendice, coming out a decade before the movie Hercules, was significantly affected by the influence of a Dumas-style hero, such as the Count of Monte Cristo, a hero who struggles for revenge. Restoring order and hierarchy after the removal of a cruel usurper is natural to him, though not his main aim.

  Conversely, the peplum genre creates a mythical hero who fights for a higher purpose, such as the salvation of an entire community, rather than the emptiness of personal revenge. For instance, in the movie The Two Gladiators ( I Due Gladiatori, 1964), the brave legionnaire Crassus turns out to be the twin brother of the cruel Emperor Commodus, leading some Roman senators to plot to unseat the cruel brother in favor of the good one. Reluctant at first, Crassus eventually overthrows Commodus in an effort to save the people from Commodus’ barbaric methods of governance. A sequence in the movie depicted through intercutting shows the starving people of Rome pleading for bread being ridiculed by guards, while a feasting Commodus wastes large quantities of food on himself and his dog. In response, Crassus leads the people’s revolt against the emperor and is successful. However, when the same people, led by the Senators, want to crown him Emperor, the Legionnaire refuses, stating that

  “power is an inebriating drink, and I might get drunk” ( The Two Gladiators).

  The strongman hero in the sword and sandal genre would always rather leave the power in the hands of his sidekick, usually a young prince who is the rightful heir to the throne, than hold on to it himself. According to Luciano Canfora, the Greek word Demokratia was often used in Roman times to indicate the “dominion over the people,” and that the term demokràtor was often used

  Hercules, Politics, and Movies (D’Amelio) 17

  when referring to a dictator (9). Hence, Canfora implies that being a leader of the people might result — in extreme cases— in a conversion to a popular dictator. Canfora also states:

  It appears so, in all its certainty,
the extreme closeness of embarrassing and perhaps different forms classified by the doctrine as distant or opposed. It seems undeniable that the political experiment, or political “remedy,” that has helped better to create this feeling of closeness, and to confuse the ideas of not only the masses, but also of the political theorists, is the Caesarism-Bonapartism-fascism [10].

  Yet the danger of a popular leader turning into a fascist dictator, and the memory that this danger could trigger in the minds of the Italian audience after World War II, are exorcised through the narrative and the iconography of the peplum. In a sequence in Hercules Against the Tyrants of Babylon ( Ercole Contro I Tiranni di Babilonia, 1964), for instance, Hercules fights alone, bare-handed, against the well-equipped Babylonian army. Babylon — in the fictional world of this movie — is a vast empire that has conquered Greece and made its inhabitants slaves, with the exception of Hercules, who arrives in the heart of the empire to free the queen Esperia. Hercules is represented as the hero of the people, using only his bare hands and superhuman strength to defeat the Babylonian army and free the masses from slavery. In terms of film language, Hercules is often shown in medium shot, with the horizon at his back. Also, he is often shot from a low angle, standing above his enemies or overlooking the masses. Similarly, the same type of shots and plot may be seen in Son of Samson (Maciste nella Valle dei Re, 1960 ). Here, it is Egypt that is oppressed by the evil kingdom of Persia. Again, the strongman character Maciste (who is the alter ego of Hercules in many peplum movies, as well as Goliath or Samson) arrives to head the revolt and free the masses from the evil oppressor.