What I found really interesting is Almodóvar's commentary about how gender is a social construct. He illustrates this through the character of Vincent/Vera, who, this blogger argues, "accepts the submissive role of the female is stunning, and it starts from the moment Ledgard gives him a vaginoplast."
But what I found most intriguing is the idea that "Almodóvar doesn't chuck in transgender forms for the sake of shock but to examine the ways that the binary opposition functions and enslaves us." I think that The Skin I Live In definitely calls into question the idea of gender versus self-identity. Did Vera still view herself as Vincent even with a total gender swap? How much of your identity is engrained in your gender, and beyond that, in your own physical features--your face, your body?
Watching Vera look at the picture of herself in the newspaper before her surgery was definitely jarring and brought into question how much of our identity is based on our physical features, and our body itself, and how much of it is intrinsic to ourselves? So much so that if we stripped away gender and our physical features, what would we have left?
There's a lot of questions that this movie raised, what do you guys think?
I'd like to believe that gender doesn't matter and that anyone can be whoever they want. However, because of these stereotypes around gender it seems that people subconsciously let themselves become caged by social expectations. Of course, with new technology allowing people to essentially become the other gender, those expectations aren't as strict any more. I think with The Skin I Live in, since the gender switch is portrayed as forced, it obstructs our perspective of gender identity. It's interesting when Vicente conforms to his feminine role as Vera, but what if he actually wanted the change? I know this idea strays from the point of the film, but I think that if we look at it as if he wanted the change, we'd come to the same conclusion--he would most likely take on the same stereotypical role as a woman. The movie presents so many aspects to talk about that it's hard to narrow it down. I'm just trying to look at it from a different perspective.
ReplyDeleteI think that the article takes an interesting stance when it states that “everyone, on some level, is a monster.” It’s interesting that the women are portrayed in these literal states of monstrosity (“Vera's lab rat, Marilla's beast of burden or the wife's hideous alien”) and men have this inner evil that people cannot seem to see on the surface. Does this imply that women’s outward appearance is more important to society than that of a man’s?
ReplyDeleteAlso, one of the most interesting aspects of the movie for me was the idea of choice for both genders. When we talked about Persepolis, the general consensus seemed to be that women should be able to wear the veil if they wanted to, but the second their option for choice is taken away, this is a violation of a person’s rights. Throughout the film, the women are put in the role where they seem to have less choice. Vincent is given a sex change without his consent and immediately acts in a more submissive manner. I also think that it is significant that all of the sexual experiences for the women were not their choice. Norma and Vera are both raped which seems to perpetuate the idea that women do not have the power to choose and that men have the option to choose for them. This seems to imply in itself that gender is merely a social construct.