A Feminist Approach to Arts

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.

“The penis story” is a short story by Sarah Shulman. It starts by highlighting a troubled relationship between two lesbians in New York: Jessie and Ann. Then one day Ann wakes up to find out that she has a penis. Afterwards, the narrator takes us inside Ann’s thoughts, feelings and adjustment to her new life with a penis until the end of the story. The objective of my comment is to focus on Freud’s idea of “penis envy” in women in this story. In his essay “Some psychological consequences of the anatomical distinction between the two sexes”, Freud mainly talks about the difference between men and women and how women since their childhood up to adulthood have this “penis envy” which refers to their inner desire to have a penis to feel complete because they have something missing without it. Freud’s phallocentric perspective is noticed from the beginning of this essay as he takes the male child as subject of his investigation.

In “The penis story” from the beginning the narrator gives the reader the impression that something’s going wrong in the (sexual) relationship between Jesse and Ann, as if something were missing. This point is made clear when Jesse says: “I want to know that my lover is a man. I need to be able to say that”. Therefore, although, Jesse is a lesbian, she still thinks she needs a man in her life. Afterwards, we are transferred to a scene where dream intersects with reality, in which Ann was dreaming then suddenly woke up and saw that she had a penis. In this situation, Freud’s interpretation of dreams as “repressed thoughts” which come out in the form of dreams is to be considered because she longed for this. Besides, Ann’s reaction to this new organ in her life wasn’t negative which reflects that she unconsciously wanted this to happen. But the narrator points out that Ann’s penis was different: “It didn’t behave the way most penises do. It rather seemed to be trying to find its own way. It swayed a bit as she walked to the bathroom mirror, careful not to let her legs interfere…In fact, everything appeared to be the same except that she had no vagina” (212). This “different” penis description is represented as if it was an inner repressed desire which came out to discover a new world and this desire has the form of this organ. Ann felt it was fun to have a penis which again reflects the “penis envy” that Freud talks about because Ann’s feeling of acceptance of this new “male” organ was very positive as if she was lacking something before having it. Moreover, she felt proud to be “a lesbian with a penis”. Ann wanted to share this new event in her life with friends who she proudly showed her organ to. Ann attributes this “phenomenon” to her habit of usual masturbation which she feels thankful to. This is another point that Freud discusses in his essay as he explains that masturbation is a masculine act which is absent in women because it is mainly an act of penis not a clitoral one.

Then, the narrator takes us inside Ann’s subconscious where before having the penis, she has always fantasized sex with Jesse as between two gay men. This is another point which refers to Freud’s theory of that women have a sense of inferiority of clitoris to the penis which they consider as a punishment for them. Later on, we see Ann’s sexual adventures with a gay man with whom she felt great pleasure because she was finally able to say “suck my cock” and a female lover Muriel until in the end she decides that she wants to be a complete woman again, after living with a penis for approximately a month or more and undergoes surgery for this aim. On the other hand, we find out that she didn’t tell Jesse the reality of her penis but Jesse too confesses that back in her mind she thinks that mentally she has a penis.

To sum up, I could say that it’s quite an interesting story written in an ironic style whose two main characters as we saw in their subconsciousness had this “penis envy” in Freudian terms.  We went inside the world of difference represented in the figure of a “lesbian with a penis” and how society reacts to this difference and how Ann as a person reacted to it. It’s a literary work that takes us to a world that combines between fantasy and reality to develop important issues as sexuality, identity, difference…etc.

Regarding the pride that men feel with their penis, it is clearly seen in the distinction between men and women’s washrooms where men get to see each other and sometimes they check each other penis’s sizes to feel proud. But in the case of ladies ones, each woman is trapped inside as if we don’t have anything to be pride of and this “enclosure” reflects our status of oppression as well.

Today I went to the movies and watched “Fast Five“. It is the fifth part of the “Fast and Furious” and ofcourse this type of action movies is dominated by male characters as we all know. But my main concentrarion here will be on the secondary roles assigned to female characters in this type of  action movies.

In Fast Five, there are three female characters: Mia, Gisele and Elena. Mia is supposed to be one of the main characters in the movie. But on the contrary, while all men have power, are able to fight, make plans….etc. Mia’s role was doubly sterile obviously because of her gender and what worsens this character’s situation is that she is pregrant which totally eliminates her existence and reflects her subordination to the main characters not only physically(because men are known to be more powerful than women) but also mentally, because men plan everything. She is always inside a private closed sphere and rarley comes out to public spaces but not as often as men. Men are driven by their minds, while women by their emotions as if the the two words women and mind can’t come together.

Another woman in the team is Gisele, which uses her body as part of the team’s plan. Here, gender performance relies in woman’s body which affirms the stereotype that woman is nothing but a body, they are “imperfect men” in Aristotelian terms. The third female character is Elena, a police officer who was at first mocked at. But even as a police emotions are what control women. Even Brasilian ladies appear as mere bodies to be exploited by men.

As a whole, women performativity was merely and solety through body and emotions. On the other hand, even women who appear in cinema industry are of a specific category: white or bronze, sexy, thin…etc. Rarely did black women have major roles in movies. In this point bell hooks confirms that many don’t really inderstand what feminism really is, when the word feminism is mentioned a specific race(white) and specific class( bourgeois) comes to minds. But feminism should include all races and classes because it’s not just about a socio-political movement and it actually goes beyond this perspective:

Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aimis not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to tranform in a meaningful way our lives… Feminism as a movement to end sexist oppression directs our attention to systems of domination and the inter-relatedness of sex, race and class oppression. (hooks, 240)