Mad About the Boy: Teen Stars and Serious Actors

Abstract

This chapter takes as its primary focus Riccardo Scamarcio, the actor whose trajectory from unwilling teen heartthrob of films such as Tre metri sopra il ciel o (Lucini, 2004) and Ho voglia di te (Prieto, 2007)— both adapted from the cult youth-addressed novels of Federico Moccia—to serious protagonist of middlebrow drama makes him a fascinating figure. The chapter investigates the problems thrown up by the role of the teen idol, looking at the textual strategies that position Scamarcio as a brooding object of the camera’s gaze. The Moccia films have received little critical attention, and the few discussions of Scamarcio that have taken place have focused on his star image and on the heartthrob status the films accorded him. As we will see, the teen film has never enjoyed critical favour, and the target of opprobrium has often been its (presumed) young female fan base. This fan base will be discussed in the chapter, as will the attempts by Scamarcio to move on to more “serious” films, despite critics’ constant references to his status as a (former) teen idol. Scamarcio’s negiotation of his own physical beauty, both via interviews and even by means of self-parody in a film like L’uomo perfetto (Lucini, 2005), will also be addressed. The sexual objectification of the heartthrob additionally highlights the problem of the male pin-up, who of course troubles conventional ideas of the gaze and of hegemonic masculinity. However, I argue that in these teen films there is a complexity of the gaze, both the gaze directed on Scamarcio and that returned by him, which complicates his relationship both with implied spectators and with extradiegetic fans.