ITALIAN 470:  THE PEPLUM

T/Th 1-3

These will almost certainly be some of the worst movies you will ever see in your entire life.  They will be poorly dubbed into comical, non-idiomatic English (see the infamous “Uranus” quote to the right); the stories range from the silly to the absurd to the absolutely nonsensical; the acting is uniformly atrocious; the DVDs that we will screening were mostly made from the worst quality washed-out prints shown on late night television; and the “special effects” will typically consist of a man wearing a gorilla suit.  In the very best peplum films, the gorilla suit will have been spray painted gold.  The best peplum films will make you laugh; the worst are just long stretches of the most pure and intense boredom punctuated by occasional moments of a kind of aesthetic horror, as you perceive just how much the art of moviemaking can be debased. Why were these films so popular? Why are they still studied today?  Why have I watched over forty of them? One reason to be interested in these films is that they are mostly shown at gay film festivals today—but they were marketed at straight teenage boys when they were released. Another is that they have returned in force in the last ten years, from Gladiator to 300.