As an allegory of the homeland and a representation of the powerful, unredeemed and Catholic nation, the female body was an effective vehicle for Franco's ideology during the early years of the dictatorship. At the same time, its voice was also a protagonist in this symbolisation of patriotic and popular values and, thus, the copla became the song par excellence that even now we irremediably associate with Francoism. This workshop proposes an analysis of the change that took place in the mid-1960s when, spurred on by the tourist phenomenon and economic liberalisation, Spanish musical comedy began to explore new horizons by resorting to a male star, Manolo Escobar, as its protagonist. A symbol of the Latin lover who conquers foreign women with his guitar while at the same time, with his rancid and macho songbook, ensures the fulfilment of traditional values in Spanish women -wife and mother-, the analysis of his figure is key to tracing the origins of the myth of the Iberian macho that even today seems far from showing its death throes.

Bionote

Irene Marina Pérez Méndez. Pre-doctoral researcher in the Department of Art History and Musicology at the University of Oviedo (Spain). Graduate in Art History from the University of Oviedo (2016) and Master in Artistic and Architectural Heritage Management, Museums and Art Market from the University of Santiago de Compostela (2017). She is currently working on her doctoral thesis on the images of femininity in Spanish cinema during the second Franco regime (1959-1975). Her research interests include cultural studies, Spanish cinema and popular folklore and music reinterpreted from a gender perspective.

First session of the Series of Seminars on Cinema and Masculinities, organised by the Observatório masculinidades.pt