Is Soccer Just for Machos?: The Construction of Masculinity in Contemporary Peruvian “Kick-Lit” Stories and “Kick-Flicks”

Abstract

When analyzing Peruvian contemporary films and novels that use soccer as their main topic (which, in the present chapter, I called “kick-flicks” and “kick-lit” stories, respectively), we can observe that they are mainly focused on the construction of hegemonic masculinity: the male protagonists of these fictions succeed professionally, socially and in the private sphere only if they are able to practice, understand, enjoy and benefit from the beautiful game. In contrast, the male figures that do not fit under this representation of a macho (i.e. those belonging to marginalized and subordinated masculinities groups) are ridiculed, infantilized and portrayed as pariahs, while most of the female characters are depicted as mere secondary figures defined by their relationship with a male character or following gender archetypes (the maternal figure, the witch, etc.). The following lines will examine three Peruvian texts (two novels and one film) released in the last decade that show that in the literature and cinema of this South American nation, football is seen as an activity “just for machos”. Following what diverse Latin American Studies scholars have maintained about masculinities in this region, the analysis of these three Peruvian fictions sheds light about the fact that physical features and heterosexuality do not suffice to become part of hegemonic groups for men. In that sense, these stories reveal that, as R. W. Connell has argued in her classic book Masculinities, class and race represent factors that marginalize men from hegemonic male elites.

I have borrowed these two terms from Timothy Ashton’s Soccer in Spain: Politics, Literature, and Film (2013). Ashton uses the term “kick-flick” to refer to the “films that use soccer as either a central theme or a point of departure” (167). For the term “kick-lit” genre, the scholar argues that he utilizes the word “kick” for three reasons: English is the global language; the term coincides with other similar terms (“chick-flick,” “brit-lit”); and soccer is an English term from its origin (62).