Brothel Singer
This minor character makes a brief but impactful appearance in the film Neruda (2016) when the titular Pablo Neruda is in hiding from anticommunist persecution in his home country of Chile. His friends, family, and members of the communist party urge him to stay inside and stay hidden at all times, but Neruda gets fed up with this, going against the better judgement of those around him and leaving the house to visit brothels. While at one of these brothels, Neruda meets an ambiguously queer singer who sings for him and asks him to recite his poetry.
The singer is treated as disposable at first, even an object of ridicule, both by the plot and by the other minor characters at the brothel. Neruda, however, subverts expectations by showing them kindness and respect. This would later turn out to be beneficial, as when the singer is taken in for questioning by the police, they instead give a speech on Neruda’s kindness, and how he saw them as an equal and a fellow artist.
In Referential acting and the ensemble cast, Mathijs writes “Referential acting involves the self-conscious design of a performance on the basis of a previous one, often by the same actors, but also based on archetypes, exemplary models or cliched stereotypes whose point of reference remains shrouded in what Raymond Durgnat called the ‘fog’ that is culture.”(Mathijs 89-96) The singer in Neruda plays off of many stereotypes surrounding queer people, coming dangerously close to being a harmful representation. Mathijs also writes briefly about “‘typage’: types of bodies used for their idiosyncratic and athletic talent to look good ‘in group’.”(Mathijs 89-96) The singer deliberately plays against this stereotypical typage of what one might expect to find in a brothel full of women. They have a very ‘male’ presenting body while wearing a woman’s dress. This reinforces the idea that this character is strange and out of place. One of the women in the brothel pours a drink on them. The other characters laugh at them. The film makes a joke at their expense that they had their testicles removed in order to sing better.
All of this is done to reinforce the negative stereotypes film audiences may hold about queer minor characters. This is a character who is ridiculed on the basis of their gender nonconformity, inhabiting a highly sexually charged environment, and yet the film does this in order to subvert our expectations of how such a character ought to be treated. Neruda causes viewers to question this treatment when he shows the singer kindness, reciting his poetry for them. Then, when the singer is brought into police custody, they give a speech which not only elevates them as a character but puts them on the same level as the film’s protagonist, as a fellow artist. This is one of many times that the film attempts to challenge or subvert common understanding of who gets to be a “major” or “minor” character.
Works Cited
Neruda. Directed by Pablo Larraín, 2016. Kanopy.
Mathijs, Ernest. “Referential acting and the ensemble cast.” Screen, vol. 52, no. 1, 2011, pp. 89–96, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjq063.
Provide Feedback