Queer Creators and Supporting Camp: Comical and Transgressive Feminities in Classic Spanish Cinema

Abstract

In Spanish cinema, there is a longstanding tradition of creative collaborations between queer creators and comic supporting actresses characterized by an abundant camp potential that has not yet been studied in the academic field. Examples from recent decades such as Pedro Almodóvar’s collaborations with actresses like Loles León or María Barranco, which are prolonged in filmographies such as those of Félix Sabroso, Paco León or Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi with actresses like Gracia Olayo, Mariola Fuentes or Belén Cuesta, have their roots in classic Spanish cinema. This article aims to study these relationships, evidencing precursor collaborations between queer creators such as Juan de Orduña and Luis Escobar with comic actresses such as Julia Lajos and Julia Caba Alba, who used to represent excessive and transgressive femininities. Specifically, this research takes as case studies their films Rosas de otoño (Orduña, 1943) and La canción de La Malibrán (Escobar, 1951) to show how these filmmakers activated, took advantage of, and increased the camp potential existing in such actresses, whom we propose to conceptualize as “campy supporting actresses”.