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Descended from Hercules

Biopolitics and the Muscled Male Body on Screen

By: Robert A. Rushing

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eBook | 6 June 2024

At a Glance

ePUB
224 Pages

Grade
17+

Dimensions(cm)
22.86 x 15.24

eBook

RRP $28.59

$22.99

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Muscles, six-pack abs, skin, and sweat fill the screen in the tawdry and tantalizing peplum films associated with epic Italian cinema of the 1950s and 1960s. Using techniques like slow motion and stopped time, these films instill the hero’s vitality with timeless admiration and immerse the hero’s body in a world that is lavishly eroticized but without sexual desire. These "sword and sandal" films represent a century-long cinematic biopolitical intervention that offers the spectator an imagined form of the male body-one free of illness, degeneracy, and the burdens of poverty-that defends goodness with brute strength and perseverance, and serves as a model of ideal citizenry. Robert A. Rushing traces these epic heroes from Maciste in Cabiria in the early silent era to contemporary transnational figures like Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Barbarian, and to films such as Zach Snyder’s 300. Rushing explores how the very tactile modes of representation cement the genre’s ideological grip on the viewer.

Industry Reviews

"One of the most unappreciated and oft-mocked genres of the 1960s, the Italian sword-and-sandal films are generally given the short shrift by critics, historians, and film fans alike. Therefore, anytime an entire book is devoted to the films of Hercules and his godlike brethren it is cause for celebration. [... Rushing] presents a fascinating historical overview of the genre."