Stars on tape: Masculinity and ethnicity in 1980s Greek VHS culture

In 1980s Greece, the spread of home video technology catalysed the emergence of a prolific direct-to-video industry that reconfigured media production and audience engagement outside the traditional film and television industries. This article explores the careers of Stamatis Gardelis and Michalis Mosios, two male stars representative of the VHS era, whose personas became sites for negotiating masculinity, class and ethnocultural identity within a shifting sociopolitical landscape. Gardelis, an emerging young actor, transitioned into VHS romantic comedies and embodied a form of masculinity marked by emotional awkwardness and ironic detachment. Mosios, in contrast, achieved stardom through his portrayal of Tamtakos, a Roma comic figure whose exaggerated performance style oscillated between ethnic affirmation and ironic self-parody. The article draws on star studies, cultural theory and media historiography to examine how direct-to-video productions cultivated their own affective economies of recognition. Far from being a degraded cultural form, Greek VHS films generated distinct modes of stardom rooted in repetition, familiarity and social proximity. The analysis offers a critical lens into how popular media can articulate broader tensions around modernity, marginality and belonging.