The Gender of Desire: Sexuality and Morality in the Work of Pedro Almodóvar

Abstract

This article discusses how, in the work of Pedro Almodóvar, characters are constituted as moral subjects through desire. First, desire is understood as the guiding principle of the characters’ actions. Second, desire appears as a structuring element of the meanings attributed to the body, gender, and sexuality. The analysis of both the ways the films are built and their regimens of visibility reveals differences in the construction of desire for each gender. Thus, those films both disjoint some of the hegemonic cinematographic gender codes as well as reiterate old patterns, reaffirming the same structure of domination they supposedly want to displace. Ultimately, this ambiguity contradicts, or at least relativizes, the transgressive element commonly attributed to the work of this filmmaker.