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School of Languages, Linguistics and Film

Sighting Gender and Sexuality in Latin American Cinema

Module code: SMLM011

Credits: 30.00

Contact: Prof. Else Vieira

Major films and landmark documentaries have projected the workings of gender and sexuality in Latin American political history in novel and complex ways. Moving away from such clichés as Latin American machismo, this course explores other perspectives on gender and sexuality opened by Latin American Cinema and also by renowned directors in the international circuit, Roman Polanski being a case in point. The focus will be on Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Mexico. The course initially analyzes codings of masculinity and power in representations of popular revolutionaries, notably Che Guevara, and of State authoritarianism, emblematized by General Pinochet; it also surveys representations of the encounter of the revolutionary and the libidinal in the lives of earlier twentieth century feminine icons Frida Kahlo and Olga Benario. The course then features important unfoldings of feminine agency in the context of dictatorships later in the century in major documentaries and award-winning commercial films: the politicization of motherhood and widowhood in response to violations of human rights; women engaging in armed struggle; women traumatized by rape during torture confronting its perpetrators. It also discusses film representations of homosexual persecution by the dictatorship in Argentina and the representation of sexual excess on the Brazilian screen as challenges to the repressive State.

Level: 7

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