Owning the space like a boss: gender, costume and performance in The Good Boss.

Description

Abstract: Adopting an interdisciplinary approach drawing from film, fashion and cultural studies, this paper focuses on the representation of gendered dynamics of power, status and authority in Fernando León de Aranoa’s 2021 award winning satire El Buen Patrón (The Good Boss). The article forms part of Collins and Gilligan’s wider collaborative research project examining the fashioning of Spanish masculinities on and beyond the screen in contemporary popular culture.
Through the close textual analysis of the costuming of Javier Bardem as the slimy, middle-aged patrician Julio Blanco, the article examines how the costuming by designer Fernando García uses menswear to represent a particular archetype of white, wealthy, ageing Spanish masculinity. We argue that notions of dressed, undressing, and redressing function to visualise the ways in the illusionary stability of patriarchal power is destabilised and reconfigured in the shifting social contexts of contemporary Spanish culture. In order to retain any semblance of status, Julio must respond to the challenges to his authority, and learn to adapt to the rapid changes around him.

Period	2024
Event title	Borders: European Popular Culture Association conference.
Event type	Conference
Location	Tallinn, EstoniaShow on map