Pedro Almodóvar is a prominent Spanish filmmaker with international recognition and can be described as part of popular culture in cinema. His films have a recognisable narrative, often black-comedy dramas that deal with passion, love, sexuality, politics and family.
Almodóvar’s filmography represents his particular use of gender, often challenging the norms and intentionally disrupting our preconceptions as part of his film style.
Limbach explains that gender is different from sex (genitalia), it is socio cultural maintained by ideology. (2012, p.117)
“Volver”
Gender role is a social role encompassing a range of behaviours and attitudes that are generally considered acceptable, appropriate, or desirable. Gender roles are usually centered on conceptions of masculinity and femininity and could dictate the roles of people in society for example work, family or status as assumption of gender.
In the movie Volver, Almodóvar presents Paco as one of the few male characters in the film, it can only be described a rather stereotypical “macho” Spanish man. Georgina Wardrop explains that gender roles are clearly examined in the film, for example in one of the scenes Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) arrives home and immediately starts preparing dinner; before she has time to even unpack her things she is within the boundaries of the kitchen as Paco (Antonio de la Torre) is lounging on the couch, drinking beer and watching football.
“All about my mother”
Gender is performative, means to act in some way, using roles and signifiers, rather than gender being an ingrained behaviour. Being performative produces a series of effects: act, talk, walk, speak, consolidate an impression of being a man or a woman.
Performativity is always taken to its limits in Almodóvar’s films: characters often play different versions of themselves – In all about my mother, the character of the Agrado a transsexual is interpreted by the actress Antonia San Juan.
Butler says, “One is not born a woman, one becomes one // but further one, is not born female, one becomes female; but even more radically, one can if one chooses became neither female nor male, woman or man’.
This help us to understand than gender is not universal.
References Gender
Almodóvar, P (1999) ‘All About My Mother: (Todo Sobre Mi Madre)’ (SBS 2); Time: 23:00:00; Broadcast Date: 05 Nov 2012; Duration: 01 hr., 37 min., 03 sec.; Availability: https://login.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/login?qurl=https://edutv-informit-com-au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/watch-screen.php?videoID=473610 [cited: 20/08/20]
Almodóvar, P (2007), ‘Volver’ (SBS ONE); Time: 23:15:00; Broadcast Date: 13 Apr 2013; Duration: 01 hr., 55 min., 48 sec.; Availability: https://login.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/login?qurl=https://edutv-informit-com-au.ezproxy.lib.rmit.edu.au/watch-screen.php?videoID=567368 [cited: 20/08/20]
GDI – Gottlied Duttweiler Institut n.d. Pedro Almodóvar, Film Director, Global Influence, viewed 20 Aug 2020, <http://www.globalinfluence.world/en/leader/pedro-almodovar/>
Butler, J (2011) ‘Gender Performance’, YouTube, viewed 20 Aug 2020 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fndkPPJBi1U>
Cheu, J (ed.) 2012, Diversity in Disney Films : Critical Essays on Race, Ethnicity, Gender, Sexuality and Disability, McFarland & Company, Incorporated Publishers, Jefferson. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [20 August 2020].
Wardrop, Georgina (2011) Redefining gender in twenty-first century spanish cinema: the films of Pedro Almodóvar. Viewed 20 Aug 2020. Retrieved from <http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2925/1/2011wardropmphil.pdf>
