What I found most shocking about the movie (and there was plenty to be shocked about) was the content of the ads that Pepi is shown working on. Her ads address unusual, "dirty" topics such as farting, urinating, and masturbating by showcasing a female product that allows women to do these things inconspicuously. This part of the movie elicited embarrassed laughter and mild revulsion from everyone in the room, and I think this is largely because women in particular are almost not expected to do such things as fart or masturbate. Even today, videos like CollegeHumor's "Why Girls Don't Fart" make fun of such topics because they are still considered taboo to this day; even though both the CollegeHumor video and Pepi, Luci, Bom portray this notion in a humorous manner, the underlying idea remains that it is vulgar for women to performs such natural bodily functions due to double standards in society. The ads would have been far more humorous and less shocking if they had shown men in the same situation, but since they showed women they made the audience feel uncomfortable.
The other thing I found most surprising about the movie was the way director Almodovar portrayed the women so that the audience did not really feel bad for them. Even Pepi, who is raped at the onset of the movie, is shown to be "leading on" her rapist, and her motivation to keep her virginity so that she can sell it to the highest bidder makes the viewer see her in a completely different light. Rather than feeling sorry for her, we begin to see her as manipulative and impure. Likewise, Luci, who is at first pitiable because of her condescending, cruel husband, is shown to have masochistic fantasies and a desire to be dominated by her husband. The fact that she wishes he hit her, whipped her, etc., makes her seem like less of a victim. In a different way, the unnamed woman who shaves her facial hair is portrayed as extremely annoying due to her high-pitched voice and constant nagging, and so it is hard to take her seriously or feel bad for her when she complains of not being satisfied seriously.
I agree - I felt her virginity was made to be an unimportant issue. I also wanted to comment about the lady who shaved her face (which I failed to mention in my blog), in my opinion was a man. Something about her face and her obvious facial hair - lead me to believe she was a man in her transgender role.
ReplyDeleteI think your comment about the viewer's feelings toward women in the film (i.e. not feeling bad for them) is particularly accurate. It seems Almodovar made a conscious effort to portray his characters as unsympathetic, isolated representatives of a population entirely motivated by selfish causes. The male and female characters are all included in Almodovar's efforts, with each harboring unique desires and schemes. In this way, Almodovar created a portrait of a very singular, sexually driven world that is both complicated and massively oversimplified in terms of emotional connection to the actions taken by his characters.
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