Masculinity, Parody and Propaganda in the “Transylvanians” Trilogy

Abstract The article focuses on the successful series of Red Westerns/Easterns produced in Romania in the late 1970s and early 1980s, known as the “Transylvanians” trilogy. The article will look at the films in the specific context of the period, one characterized by the increasingly idiosyncratic evolution of the Romanian communist regime and by growing economic difficulties, and will examine the way in which the films construct models of masculinity at the intersection between three different types of masculine models: those of the American Western (whether adopted or parodied), those of traditional Romania (such as the idealized, wise peasant), and masculine typologies derived from communist propaganda. I will argue that the films skillfully balance the tension between a critique of American models, in the face of which Romanian models emerge as superior, and legitimizing themselves as well as relying heavily in their entertainment value on the very models of the American Western they are supposed to subvert.