Of Muscles and Men
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Introduction
a clashing dualistic ideology of masculinity that the films often both reveled in and, thematically speaking, largely ignored (at best, these films deliberated more on examining the nature and manifestations of patriarchy available to maintain order, and did not question whether the essence of patriarchy was in and of itself at issue here). Therefore, while it may be tempting to try and connote one particular political ideology to an entire corpus of films, it is hardly apt; while individual peplums or series of peplums often express political observations, the entire genre is generally, in and of itself, less than concerned with ideology.
Rather, the cynosure of the sword and sandal film is the form of the muscleman hero himself. As Bondanella notes, the “single most important feature of the Italian peplum is its typical protagonist: a strong man, usually a bodybuilder, whose muscular physique dominates the screen and defines the nature of the various plots” (163). Günsberg echoes this when she writes, “These films are particularly renowned for their depiction of mythical (Achilles, Ajax, Hercules, Theseus, Ulysses), invented (Maciste), literary (Saetta, Ursus), historical (Spartacus, Thaur) or biblical (Goliath, Samson) apotheoses of the heroic male body” (97). David Chapman takes this focus on masculinity one step further when he argues that “masculine torsos, nude and straining with effort, are at the heart of the message here” (19). Yet what is the message contained within these muscular forms? In presenting the male, in placing the male body at the forefront of the entire genre, the sword and sandal movie treats the male form as no other genre of films does. Generally speaking, in film, the male form is obtunded or, if celebrated, is done so in collusion with the female form, placing the two naked or nearly-naked forms side by side, suggesting both heteronormative eroticism and tantalizing the male gaze with thoughts of sexual and social dominance. Yet in the sword and sandal movie, the revealed male form is habitually presented on screen alone, continually exposed, and put on display for an audience Bondanella rightly describes as being “composed of men” (178).
Günsberg reinforces the significance of highlighting the male form in the sword and sandal film when she writes, “In particular, consumption of the enlarged cinematic screen-as-surface also offers participation in a dynamic of desire set in motion by the various mechanisms of identification, voyeurism, fetishism, and scopophilia” (104 –105). Normally, she argues, films generally — and generically — sexualize the female form:
Fetishism of the female, rather than the male, body, then, dominates in cinema, resulting from anxieties concerning fragmentation and sexual difference rooted in basic fears of powerlessness. These fears are commonly relocated onto the female body, specifically the body of the m/other, separation of which is a vital part of individuation and recognition of a unified, independent self [107].
In the peplum, Günsberg contends, these fears are placed on to the male form: The excessive, overdetermined and parodic nature of the signifying properties of the heroic, built body, pulls away from the furthest opposite extremes of femininity....
This fetishistic display of the male body may be read as indicating anxieties about
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both sexual difference and fragmentation of the body, under cover of excess and parody which function, like Freudian negation, to couch affirmation of an anxiety in denial [108 –109].
Yet the hyperdeveloped male form in these movies does not act as a nexus of anxiety nor, indeed, is it treated in any parodic sense. If anything, the exaggerated muscularity of the sword and sandal strongman seems to unite the potentially fragmented form; just as the hero’s muscles work to save the day and restore what was wrong, so, too, does his form come to represent that which unifies, restores, and recovers what had been lost. Chapman notes that, in both advertisements for these films and at numerous points during the movies themselves, “the hero’s physique is usually shown ... performing some destructive feat of strength so that the musculature is displayed as it flexes, twists, and drips with perspiration” (26). Indeed, it is this functionality of the hero’s body — its very utility — that is key to understanding how the male body should be read in the genre itself.
It is no accident that another name for this genre is the “strongman movie”
(in Italian, the fozuto, derived from the word for a strongman, forzuti,) a name that would seem, at first, to go against the predominant material theme reflecting the other common generic names for these films. However, like the sword, the sandal, and the peplum, the hero’s body exists as a tool, to serve a purpose, to function, in the larger schema of the film. Günsberg rightly notes that these movies “[allow] for little character development” (110). Rather, characterization in sword and sandal films is established by “what the hero does and how he does it” (Günsberg 110). Yet what the hero does (save the day) and how he does it (kill the monster, rescue the virgin, topple the tyrant, right the wrong) is all accomplished through his own singular muscularity. In fact, the hero’s muscular development is his essential character development: “The hard musculature is key in differentiating the hero from other men, who either have less or no muscles, or whose bodies are not exposed to the camera eye” (Günsberg 116). The strongmen heroes of these films become different from other men, both within the confines of these movies and in the wider popular culture, through their forms, developing into “heroic protectors” whose existence is a combination of service and strength. “Heroic masculinity in the peplum also constantly defines itself through differentiation from other types of masculinity,” Günsberg rightly argues, though not because of its parodic or excessive nature, but because of the functionality of the strongman’s muscles themselves (115). Irmbert Schenk labels peplum heroes “saviors,” but they are saviors not because of their innate, overdeveloped senses of right and wrong, but because their singular muscularity functions, in many ways, for no other real, distinct purpose. They must act when no one else can, not because it is the right thing to do (or, to be fair about this, not just because it is the right thing to do) but because they are the only individuals who possess the means to do so. When Conan destroys the evil cult leader Thulsa Doom, he acts not for any greater good, but out of revenge; when
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Gladiator’s Maximus kills Commodus, he, too, acts out of revenge. In the recent retelling of Clash of the Titans (2010), Perseus kills the Kraken to avenge the loss of his family at the hands of Hades. Spartacus, in the Starz television series Spartacus: Blood and Sand, likewise acts out of revenge for the death of his wife and his betrayal by the Roman legatus Gaius Claudius Glaber. None of these acts reflects noble intentions, and despite their well-deserved status as heroes, none of these men can rightly be labeled noble in intent. Yet each of them is viewed as a savior of an entire group or race of people. What they do— and how they do it —vociferates volumes more than why they do it. Schenk considers these figures “old-new heroes of individual and collective strength,” and his description of their forms aptly encapsulates the dualistic nature of the sword and sandal hero; they are individual beings who possess a collective strength —
i.e., the strength of ten, twenty, thirty men — and as such are called upon to act or to commit to action when others simply cannot, not because they lack the will to do so, but because, rather, they lack the tools to do so. All inhabitants of Argos would have longed to kill the Kraken and preserve their home, but only Perseus had the means to do so. His motivation for doing so— relatively futile attempts on the part of the filmmaker to craft some semblance of characterization — are largely irrelevant. He has the tools to do the deed, and thus by the dictates of the genre, act he must.
The other material aspects the genre’s name manifests— the sword, the sandal, the peplum skirt — all work to enhance the essential muscularity of the central, strongman figure. The sword highlights the bicep and triceps, the power of the arms; the sandals and peplum enhance the muscularit
y of the thighs, calves, and legs. The lack of shirt —commonplace to the genre — emphasizes the torso in all its manly, thewy glory. Deborah E. McDowell suggests that “the peplum —film and kilt —cast the white [masculine] body as spectacle” (361).
This is so, but the viewer gazes in awe upon these forms not for what they represent, but, rather, for what they are capable of accomplishing.
Each of the essays in this collection are concerned, in their own ways, with these questions of masculinity and utility, with examining a genre that so adroitly presents the male in ways that are continually heroic, violent, fleshy, and, ultimately, useful. To paraphrase Chapman, masculine forms, straining with effort, is what this collection is about, too. This is demonstrated in the first essay presented here, “Hercules, Politics, and Movies,” by Maria Elena D’Amelio. D’Amelio examines the interrelations between the Italian Hercules movies of the Second Wave of peplum films and how the strongman hero reflects a pivotal historical era in modern Italian history. As a response to and redaction of Italy’s recent Fascist history, Hercules represents both a path away from the past (and perhaps a fantasia on what might have been, had some representative strongman stepped forward for the collective will who lacked the tools to act) as well as a projection of forward-thinking values. Writing of these same films, Günsberg notes that pepla offer “validation of outdated traditional male muscle
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power in an era of economic boom and industrial advancement” (102). D’Amelio suggests that the depiction of the strongman, while representing perhaps old-fashioned or slightly outmoded manifestations of masculinity, nonetheless also rings forth with a strong sense of progression and promise for the future, a connection to both a dim past and hopeful outcomes for tomorrow.
Likewise, Kristi M. Wilson, in “Hero Trouble: Blood, Politics, and Kinship in Pasolini’s Medea,” observes the manner in which filmmakers— in this case, the famed auteur Pier Paolo Pasolini — use the figure of the muscleman and the sword and sandal genre as a means of crafting connections to a larger political society as a whole. However, in Pasolini’s Medea, Wilson finds a specific critique at play, a sword and sandal film that rebukes the same past that D’Amelio argues the Hercules films both wrestle and reckon with. Thus the same filmmaking tradition both critiques and rehabilitates images and ideologies of the past, a difficult task requiring the strength of Hercules, indeed.
Sword and sandal films are not only concerned with what is past, of course; they are also very much critiques of present social conventions and gendered mores. Often, though, in connoting present to past, by examining contemporary ideas in a classical milieu, these films complicate the very social relationships they mean to examine or critique. In “‘To do or die manfully’: Performing Heteronormativity in Recent Epic Films,” for example, Jerry B. Pierce demonstrates that Fourth Wave peplum films tend to exaggerate the presumed heterosexuality of the strongman hero in each film. Unlike earlier sword and sandal adventures, these films place the hero in a contemporary, patristic/paternal condition, going to great lengths to show heroes such as Maximus ( Gladiator), Leonidas ( 300), and Hector ( Troy) as husbands and fathers. Whereas the sword and sandal hero has often been played against submissive females who clearly represent the patriarchy’s traditional view of the non-dominant role of women in society, in these more contemporary versions of the genre, the role of woman is to reassure the viewer of the heterosexual privilege and standing of the strongman hero; otherwise his oft bare body and masculine, homosocial company may suggest homoerotic underpinnings to an audience that has steadily become more savvy about sexual messaging in film. Chapman writes that “many secret sensations and unspoken desires washed up on the shores of modern masculinity itself ” in peplum films, and that the thewy bodies on display in these movies may just be “tickling other deeper feelings in the movie-going public” (13).
Concern over these “secret sensations” has caused contemporary creators of sword and sandal films to embellish the heterosexuality of their heroes, often by contrasting them with an exaggerated, non-normative sexuality, often exemplified by their male antagonists. Of course, this contemporary vision of
“heroic” heterosexuality is at odds with the classical mores of these films’ setting, creating a type of cultural impasse when old and new are thrust side-by-side in conflicting, and not conciliatory, ways.
Andrew B. R. Elliott also looks at the contemporary filmic strongman; in
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“From Maciste to Maximus and Company: The Fragmented Hero in the New Epic,” Elliott hypothesizes that the “old-fashioned” and outmoded forms of masculinity present in Second Wave peplum create a disparity with contemporary visions of masculinity and the masculine hero in the sword and sandal genre. Utility here is again at question: Elliott examines the function of the peplum hero in modern film, and suggests that the creation of a new, fragmented hero represents a modern perspective of hyperdeveloped masculinity. Thus how we view these heroes, how we use them, and what audiences expect from them, has changed. John Elia is likewise concerned with the functioning of the masculine, specifically with respect to violence. “Reverent and Irreverent Violence: In Defense of Spartacus, Conan, and Leonidas” suggests that the acts perpetrated by the heroes of sword and sandals film function as modern day parables about reverence and irreverence, much like the Homeric tales of ancient Greece. Elia observes that the deeds of these musclemen come with special moral challenges, since they are often called upon to act in accordance to sacred duties to protect humanity and yet to keep violence within reverent limits. Thus despite his otherworldly strength, limitations are placed upon the utility of the strongman’s functioning; bounded by dictates of morality, the forzuti protagonist must conform to the heroic principles of the sword and sandal genre as well.
Kevin M. Flanagan’s work is perhaps best to conclude this section of the collection, since he endeavors to consign the larger genre into a particular ideological niche, based largely on these films’ understandings and representations of masculinity in its many and varied manifestations. In “‘Civilization ... ancient and wicked’: Historicizing the Ideological Field of 1980s Sword and Sandal Films,” Flanagan uses Conan the Barbarian to demonstrate a conservative ideological bent — politically, socially, structurally — to Third Wave peplum and, by larger extension, explores the rudiments of ideology in other categorizations of sword and sandal films as well. In many ways, Flanagan argues that the holistic and whole-hearted embrace of masculinity in these films can only be read conservatively, that a chief function of the masculine is the preservation of dominant social structures that have served the capitalist patriarchy so well.
Flanagan also notes that heroic masculinity is at work in these films as well; if, as he argues, these films uphold patriarchal readings of society and social mores, they also dictate that with such masculine powers (both in the collective and muscular senses of the word) comes a measurable and measured sense of accountability to act in accord to not only maintain the society but to uphold its (masculine) best as well. To paraphrase a recent popular superhero film (another type of film highly concerned with presenting the male), with great muscles, comes great responsibility.
The second half of this collection examines particular films located within the nexus of the sword and sandal genre, with each essayist adding to the arguments above by exploring specific examples in which masculinity engages form or function within the confines of one particular filmic expression. Robert C.
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Pirro begins this section with “Homer’s Lies, Brad Pitt’s Thighs: Revisiting the Pre-Oedipal Mother and the German Wartime Father in Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy.” Using Petersen’s 2004 interpretation of Homer’s Iliad as a case study, Pirro provides a psychoanalytic and historically-informed reaction to a film that, perhaps more than any other sword and sandal movie, places the strongman hero into a larger fami
lial as well as political context. Troy is a film rife with interrelated dependent relationships— parent to child, sibling to sibling, husband to wife, sovereign to subject — whose pre-oedipal valences are conditioned, Pirro argues, by Petersen’s early childhood experiences of Germany’s postwar devastation. According to Pirro, in presenting the male in Troy— in showing the function of what he describes as the masochistically-driven muscular male form, as encapsulated by the character of Achilles, played by Brad Pitt — Petersen demonstrates the pre-oedipal basis of male exhibitionism, transforming the usually opaque male form in these films into a source of sexual and social anxiety that must be symbolically resolved at the film’s end with the death of the hero. Likewise, Larry T. Shillock draws inspiration from Homer and another film variation of his famous text, the 2003 USA Network miniseries Helen of Troy. In “An Enduring Logic: Homer, Helen of Troy, and Narrative Mobility,” Shillock argues for the place of women in the larger context of these films, using the figure of Helen of Troy from both Homer’s text and the varying film adaptations of Helen’s tale to suggest that women’s functioning in these films is not limited to the roles generally cast to them by the larger patriarchy. At issue here are the means through which Helen’s characterization performs— with an emphasis on performativity — within the larger masculine sphere she inhabits; by achieving narrative and even ideological motility, Helen not only crafts a case for the larger functioning of women throughout a genre that either minimalizes or sensationalizes them, but also demonstrates that the genre’s fixation on the utility of being is not constrained to the male form, but may be placed on to the female form as well, creating new opportunities for other Helens and, consequently, new narratives that re-imagine women’s social motility.