Rape irony in “Kika”

Pedro Almodóvar is one of the major figures of the Spanish industry. It is worth mentioning that throughout Franco’s dictatorship in Spain there were different forms of repression either political, sexual…etc. In cinema, there was censorship not only on sexual scenes but on opponent political viewpoints as well. Therefore, after approximately thirty years of profound repression, Spanish cinema witnessed a revolution made by a new generation of filmmakers who finally could talk explicitly about their political background as well as showing explicit sex scenes which in certain works were interpreted as an opposition to the previous political discourse.
Almodóvar is one of most prominent film directors of this “post-Franco Movida” phenomenon. His movies have theatrical ambience , humoristic tone and he focuses on characters who remained marginalized in Spanish society for a long time: gays, transsexuals, tranvestites, lesbians…etc. He is known as “women’s director” because many of his movies are feminists as feminine figures play major role, they are independent, liberal and rebel to all restrictions imposed on them.
But I think his movie Kika can’t be put under this category. This movie is about Kika a make up artist who was called by the American writer Nicolás to go to his mansion and put on make-up for his dead son Ramón. But then, while Kika is working, they find out that he wasn’t dead and Kika starts a relationship with him.
In one of the most controversial scenes where Polvazo, ex-porno star who escaped from prison, goes to his sister and finds kika sleeping in a bed. Then he rapes her and this rape is represented in an ironic way which made us as spectators laugh at it inspite of the seriousness of this issue. The rape scene is presented in details where he keeps having sex with her and even when police came they keep trying to push him out of Kika’s body, but he refuses to get outside her and here we can see humoristic touch of Almodóvar. Afterwards, it is noticed that this rape issue is shown in a very shallow way, no one cares about the emotional and psychological impact of this incident on Kika. Even the T.V. presenter and psychologist Andrea which makes a reality show, goes to Kika’s house and keeps asking her annoying and unprofessional questions: if she had orgasm during the rape and if she knew the this person before…etc. Besides, her partner Ramón just doesn’t take it seriously and changes the subject when she tells him what happened.
This movie created great controversy when it was launched in North America where rape is taken very seriously. But as for Almodóvar’s response to this controversy he said: he didn’t mean to underestimate this issue and he just wanted to reflect different point of views.