Chapter 10 - Transnational mobility and cross-cultural exchanges

Summary

Darín's international stardom is in many respects a contested construction. The question that persists in Star Studies is whether star consecration necessarily involves Hollywood's recognition or not. Leah Kemp, whilst insisting that Darín cannot be compared to Gael García Bernal in international reach, begins her analysis of stardom in Spanish America with the assumption that Darín is a star, and by trying to demonstrate that ‘the perception of Hollywood as a sort of finish-line in the race to stardom’ (2017: 38) for Hispanic American actors needs to be challenged when considering how the global south operates. Albeit a promising start, she eventually concludes (with some nuances) that indeed it is participation in Hollywood films that makes these actors transnational stars (2017: 46). When discussing Darín's transnational recognition, Nahuel Ribke and Jerome Bourdon arrive at a similar conclusion, privileging the use of the term ‘peripheral stardom’ when talking about stars outside the Hollywood system who transcend their own cultural specificity. They further explain that ‘peripheral stardom cannot have the global or international reach of Hollywood stardom and is dependent on specific reception processes in various geopolitical areas, while simultaneously influencing the self-image of the nation of origin’ (2017: 713).

Contrasting these assumptions, Darín has eluded working in the giant of the north and yet, as discussed in the previous chapter, it cannot be denied that his star status goes beyond his country of origin. Therefore, instead of looking at Darín as a ‘peripheral star’, or as having appeal only to Spanish-speaking audiences, this chapter aims to explore his international and transnational reach by considering that other centres exist within the Western world and that it is possible to talk about ‘stars’ beyond a Hollywood-centric and even Eurocentric perspective.

There are conceptual blurrings between the terms ‘global’, ‘transnational’ and ‘international’ which ought to be considered when exploring Darín's transnational mobility and cross-cultural exchanges. Nataša Durovicová has marked a distinction between ‘global’ – a category that implies totality – ‘international’, whose prefix implies a sort of parity between nations, and ‘transnational’, which acknowledges the agency of the state but where the prefix implies both unevenness and mobility (2010: ix–x).