what really is normal

While watching the film in class on Monday, I could not help but notice that there seemed to be an overwhelming amount of excess as I sat and watched the numerous plot lines unfold. There seemed to be a lot going on all at once and I couldn’t quite understand how it all went together. The whole movie was incredibly dramatic and over-the-top, thus achieving the purpose of causing the audience to think and question what was going on. In my mind, this was not a normal movie, and every action carried out served as a counterexample to the idea of “normativity.” I consider normativity to be what is considered acceptable and normal in everyday life, but none of the scenes in the movie seemed quite normal to me, such as when the police officer comes in to Pepi’s apartment and she acts like a whore so she doesn’t get in trouble and when there’s the men’s erection contest at a party. These events seemed to be taken much further than necessary, but it may just be that the director Pedro Almodovar was trying to make a point about normativity that it’s a relative term that can mean something different for everybody. The film we watched contained very little of what I would consider “normativity” and normal actions, but what is normal is really what you were taught as a child, and for some it might be different than others.

I also find the role of women in this movie very interesting, especially the relationships between Pepi, Luci, and her husband. Pepi was raped by Luci’s husband at the beginning of the movie and is looking to get revenge on him. She goes about doing this by getting close to Luci and turning her against him. Before Pepi, Luci was an obedient and ideal wife doing whatever her husband said and she was leading a fairly monotonous life. Pepi changes Luci into a person who is much less dependent on men and who realizes that she does not need to please men in order to be happy and have a good life. Luci was a very dynamic character changing drastically throughout the film. Luci started out the movie as a very timid and obedient character who she thought she should be in society, and as the movie progressed, she changed into the person she really was with a more outspoken, independent, and confident personality. The director made her so dynamic to show the changing role of women in society.