Between praise and disdain: femininity and leadership in La leona de Castilla

Abstract

The film La leona de Castilla (Juan de Orduña, 1951) constitutes a unique example of the paradoxical depiction of female heroism in Spanish cinema under the Franco regime. The film articulates a discourse that wavers between praise and disdain for the figure of the historical heroine, a figure promoted and, at the same time, feared by the dictatorial regime. In a period marked by extremely reactionary patriarchal values, what is the meaning of this figure of propaganda in the ideological framework of national Catholicism? The fact that this historical heroine constitutes a model of a strong and determined woman, a model for a film protagonist that inevitably stands in contrast with the actual absence of women in the political reconstruction of the country, raises questions about the extent to which this figure served as an ideological vehicle of gender values during the Franco regime.