Canibalismo iconográfico e subversão de gênero em Pedro Almodóvar

Abstract

This article aims to discuss some of the elements of almodovarian's aesthetics, based on the way the spanish director operates within his critique of catholicism and normative gender system, using the notion of iconographic cannibalism (YARZA, 1999). In Entre Tinieblas, Almodovar make an appropriation of some elments of catholic iconography to express the love story between two women. The sacred symbols are devoured to convey new meanings, sacralize and make intelligible the homo-directed experience. The specific metaphysics of Entre Tinieblas is figured as part of a subversive poetics of family in which desire is the driving force. This aesthetics is incorporated with the specific function of the dilution of oppositions such as the sacred and the profane, the spiritual and the human. This iconographic cannibalism inspires cannibalism of sexual gender roles, shown in characters like Lola and Agrado, in his film Todo Sobre mi Madre (1999), seen here as the culmination of an ironic deconstruction of the "inevitable comedy" of gender and paternal myth.