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Introduction
In Argentina, men's soccer has historically served as a key cultural site for reaffirming ideas of hegemonic masculinity. Within homosocial spaces such as the stadium and sports bar, for example, men not only assert their masculine identity through team allegiance, but regulate heteronormativity and uphold patriarchy through overt expressions of sexism and homophobia. However, despite their hypermasculine personas, male players regularly show affection towards their fellow teammates through celebratory butt-slaps, piquitos (peck kisses), and other locker room antics. Regardless, mainstream media and film have most often downplayed or ignored the queer elements of men's soccer, thus perpetuating the sport's masculinist myths. For instance, cameras seldomly objectify the male body or film long takes of homoaffectivity. Although classics like Escuela de campeones (1950) and El hincha (1951) provided some of the first cinematic glimpses of nonheteronormative behavior-i.e. men joking around in the showers or idolizing over their favorite players-the narrative tendencies of these and other soccer-themed films have for the most part centered on masculine triumph and/or romance with female supporters. Furthermore, the careful use of editing, framing, and miseen-scene has allowed these filmmakers to effectively censor the nude male body and sequences of affective male bonding.1 In this way, the dominant depiction of men's soccer has historically perpetuated gender stereotypes and strengthened notions of patriarchy.
Only more recently have filmmakers begun to seriously challenge the masculinist myths of Argentine soccer. For example, Marco Berger's Plan B (2009), Ausente (2011), Tensión sexual: volátil (2012), and Taekwondo (2016) all offer more explicit depictions of male affection and eroticism in athletic settings.2 Martín Farina's Fulboy (2015), however, represents one of the only full-length documentaries to explore the topic. More so than Berger's narrative films, Farina's use of the observational mode (as defined by Bill Nichols and Julianne Burton) more directly illustrates instances of homoaffectivity between players on and off the field, in this case, among members of Club Atlético Platense (Florida Este, Buenos Aires). While this stylistic choice gives spectators the opportunity to "observe" non-heteronormative behavior, others apply a queer gaze that fetishizes and objectifies the male body, further countering the dominant depictions of the Argentine soccer macho, primarily, shots and sequences that embed ideologies of masculinist nationalism and heteronormativity. In other words, Farina's use of the...