All About Performance: Camp Esthetics in Pedro Almodovar's Films

• Main Authors: Ai-Chuan Tuan, 段愛娟
• Other Authors: Jui-Chi Liu
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/50785190015758716436

碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 外國語文學系碩博士班 === 91 === This thesis discusses the representation of femininity in camp performance in Pedro Almodóvar’s three films from a feminist perspective. Almodóvar’s films are famous for his representation of lives of women, drag queens, transsexuals, gays and lesbians, and those of other marginalized groups. As a gay director, Almodóvar likes to employ the strategy of camp to parody gender and to challenge the binary distinctions between masculinity/femininity, male/female, straight/homosexual, etc.. In his films, women often play important roles and are usually the focus of his works. In this thesis, I focus on three films by Pedro Almodóvar, including Law of Desire (1987), High Heels (1991), and All About My Mother (1999). I want to use the perspective of the feminist camp to examine how Almodóvar presents the feminine images in camp performance by appropriating feminine aesthetics and styles in his three films. Does his representation of femininity in camp performance subvert the patriarchal perception of femininity or does it only accentuate and repeat the stereotypical images of women in the patriarchal society? A further question is that since women play important roles in his films, how does he posit them in camp performance? Are they only the objects of camp or the camp subjects? This thesis is divided into three chapters. Chapter One is an overview of camp theory and Butler’s theory of gender performativity. Chapter Two is a detailed film analysis of how female impersonators and female characters represent femininity in male camp and female camp in Almodóvar’s three films. Concerning the male camp, I focus on how female impersonators and transsexuals represent femininity. As for the female camp, both femininity and motherhood are like a masquerade. Besides, female characters are often presented as camp goddesses with feminine and masculine attributes. They often excessively perform their femininity and make it look like a masquerade. If womanliness is a masquerade in female and male camp in Almodóvar’s films, what is the difference between them? Does Almodóvar’s representation of femininity repeat the patriarchal notion of femininity or does it challenge the traditional perception of gender roles? These issues are explored in this chapter. Moreover, I find that the feminine images in camp performance are often oscillating between subjectivity and objectivity. How do female spectators respond to them? Thus, Chapter Three is a discussion of female spectators’ reception of the camp performance in Almodóvar’s films. Almodóvar displays the multiple feminine images in camp performance, which enables female spectators to have different positions in looking no matter whether these feminine images are exhibited as stereotypical ones or positive ones. As a gay male director, Almodóvar cannot escape representing femininity by means of the gay male camp. Nevertheless, in Almodóvar’s world of camp, the maternal power, celebrated by all the people who act and become women, actresses, and mothers, enables women, gay men, and other marginalized people to stand against patriarchy and the hegemonic society.