Men in Crisis: Pornographic Images in Quim Monzó’s Fiction

Drawing on feminist theory and masculinity studies, this article analyses one novel and four short stories by Catalan author Quim Monzó – Benzina (1983), ‘El regne vegetal’ (1980), ‘Pigmalió’ (1993), ‘La mamà’ (2001) and ‘Dos rams de roses’ (2001) – to show how the presence of pornography in these works highlights the characteristic inadequacies of Monzó’s male characters against the values of hegemonic masculinity. Pornography in this body of texts also reflects the tensions between high and mass culture and the conflict between aesthetic and political interpretations of art in Monzó’s literary project. Although analyses of Monzó’s narrative from the perspective of gender and sexuality are still rare, this article claims that critical debates in these fields are essential to understand Monzonian fictional masculinities. My main aim is to demonstrate that the influence of pornography on Monzó’s fiction is intimately related to one of the central tensions of this author’s literary production, namely, the representation of hegemonic masculinity in crisis.