Wild Desires in Diferente (1961), La ciudad sin hombres (1969) and Las vampiras (1971): An Approach from Jack Halberstam´s Critical Term Wildness

Abstract

Wildness plays a fundamental role in the configuration of queer subjectivities and sexualities in three films released in Spain in the last years of Franco´s regime: Diferente (1961) by Luis María Delgado, La ciudad sin hombres (1969) and Las vampiras (1971) both by Jess Franco. Wildness, as Jack Halberstam understands it, is a space, a name, and a complex critical term, that comprises everything that escapes the logic of the norm. Perhaps because of the inability to name homosexuality under Franco's censorship, desire and identity are configured in these films as open and uncontrollable entities. These wild configurations are built from the ambiguous characterization of the identity of the characters and their sexual orientation, the disorder of the plots of Jess Franco’s films, the suspension of a linear temporality, the predominance of fantasy and dream, and the location of certain parts of the movies on remote and inaccessible worlds. In these movies, the wild can generate entities that escape the regulation of life by institutions such as the church and the family, but it also perpetuates discourses that legitimize exploitation and dehumanization. This duality of the term is very useful to understand the link that is established between queerness, blackness, and indigeneity, since, despite this negative vision of the wild, in this connection lies a great potential to create alternative ways of life.