ZECCHI 05. All About Mothers. Pronatalist Discourses in Contemporary Spanish Cinema

All about Mothers: Pronatalist Discourses in Contemporary Spanish Cinema Author(s): Barbara Zecchi Reviewed work(s): Source: College
Literature, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter, 2005), pp. 146-164 Published by: College Literature Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25115250 . Accessed: 24/01/2013 06:55
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AllAbout Mothers: Pronatalist Discoursesin Cinema Contemporary Spanish

Barbara Zecchi
Barbara
Zecchi University
teaches and
at
Johns co
Hopkins
has
"Las mujeres dicen: si quer?is que teng amos si no hacemos ayudarnos; hijos, Y de maternidad. los hombres huelga dicen: maternidad si quer?is libertad, cargad Lamo (Emilio con la de
edited the books Sexualidad y Escritura (1850-2000)
solas."
Espinosa, El Pa?s, 17 Jan. 2000)

["Women children, on a say: help if you us; want us we men to will say: have go if o otherwise And bear is
(2002) and La mujer en la

Espa?a actual: ?evoluci?n
involuci?n? ( 2004).
you alone"] plays
strike. maternity want freedom, "The writer
maternity someone who ... in order
with
his mother's
body
to glorify it, embellish it, or in order to it." (Roland Barthes, The dismember Pleasure of theText) In the twentieth Spanish women
transcendental
of century, the condition went drastic and through

transformations. From the
oppression to an unprecedented political Republic,
of Primo
de Rivera's sexual
dictatorship liberation and the Second of ultra-tra
during emancipation from the reimposition
Barbara Zecchi
147
ditional ments
gender roles during Francisco of women's social possibilities

"femininity" and
Franco's regime to the fast improve after Franco's death, the concepts of
have been written and rewrit
"womanhood,"
"maternity"
an ideal ten several times on female bodies. While dictatorship had promoted woman as measures that image of self-abnegated mother through legislative from the workplace removed married women and sought to boost the birth an increased rejection of tradition rate,1 late capitalist democracy witnessed al gender roles that implied "the redefinition of the family ... the refusal to on return to the domestic [and] the post sphere becoming unemployed, of childbearing" ponement (Jones 1995, 392). most fertile society in Europe As a result of these changes, Spain?the in the early 1970s?now has the lowest birth rate in the world (1.07 children woman once in the this and the fact is, per year 2000) again, origin of new a debate that in and reproduction, role debates around women's production to acquire new social and political dimen transcends the strictly personal to have kids has become a potential and social stability of the country, since it will allegedly generate a series of unexpected First, the job consequences. market will apparently suffer a dramatic shortage of workers;2 second, given the fact that life expectancy has increased, the size of the retired population will soon surpass the size of the work force, with alarming consequences for one most the retirement is and this of the thirdly (and system;3 frightening threats for some sectors of Spanish society), in order to compensate for such a decrease in the active population, Spain will have to open its doors to
immigration.4
sions: the choice of Spanish women threat to the future of the economic
not
is that, even though both women are and men for in the birth decrease women's inser rate, obviously equally responsible tion in the job market?and their abandonment of an exclu consequently What should be noted sive dedication hood?is this to domestic duties and of their "natural" mission of mother generally context, contemporary that, either plethora of discourses considered the main cause for this problematic future. In women are bombarded Spanish being by a
or of procreation through the glorification as non and the sine for an fear, promote maternity qua through guilt again warn of womanhood. Talk shows and documentaries integral fulfillment about the social dangers of their choice; medical childless women experts illustrate
one
the risks of late pregnancies and the advantages of having more than articles and the benefits of exten child; newspaper magazine highlight a more In sive families. subliminal way, the pregnant female body has a new in in commercials and the world of glamour. In acquired prominence an the has been characterized inflation of signs short, public space lately by that, sometimes in a subtle way, sometimes quite explicitly, address women in
148 College Literature 32.1[Winter 2005]

to persuade them to go back home to fulfill their maternal in duties, an open prona what must be considered order and For instance, campaign. during in Spain January of 2000, all newsstands were decorated naked by Ivonne Reyes' on cover and pregnant the front body (and advertising poster) of Man maga zine, thus competing with another preg nant belly, posted in all kiosks of the ONCE of Blind (National Organization the slogan "g?nate People of Spain), with una vida" ["gain a life for yourself"].5 The new efforts to foster the birth rate almost the same place In such a charged of honor have paradoxically granted motherhood it had during Franco's regime. social context, contemporary pronatalist Spanish cin terms. In this call to maternity?often in no innocent talist
to support the past several years films such as Puede ser divertido (Azucena Rodr?guez, 1996), Secretos del coraz?n (Montxo Armendariz, 1997), Yerma (Pilar T?vora, 1998), El milagro de P. Tinto (Javier Fesser, 1998), Flores de otros mundos (Iciar vuelvas a mi lado (Gracia Querejeta, Bollain, 1998), Cuando 1999), Solas Zambrano, 1999), Todo sobre mi madre (Pedro Almodovar, 1999), feature mother and glorify different among others, figures as protagonists and the institution of motherhood.6 the aspects of the experience Through to con of I five of these intend the ramifications?in movies, analysis study (Benito the discourse of maternity and its social Spanish cinema?of the implications: first, by examining self-sacrificing "angel" mother paradigm and its underside, the evil, self-satisfying mother, I'll explore how namely as the way both Solas and Puede ser divertido envision motherhood for temporary women's to women's and as the solution fulfillment, second, problems; the of El P. de Tinto and Yerma, I'll address the con through analysis milagro fusion between sexual and maternal that shapes the desires, a confusion
ema seems
maternal
Todo paradigm of asexuality; and third, by focusing on Almod?var's sobre mi madre, I'll reflect upon the dynamics of absorption of the concept of womanhood into the category of maternity. s position on maternity, I agree, in principle, with H?l?ne Cixous a "fas cinating time in the life of [awoman's] body" (1986, 89), that should not be a priori as "a trap ... that would denounced consist of making the mother woman an agent who ismore or less the accomplice of reproduction; capi and a causation talist, familialist, phallocentric reproduction. An accusation
Barbara Zecchi
149
not be turned into prohibition, into new forms of repression" not to It is intention here refusal of maternity endorse the that char my (89). acterized the political posture of the first feminist wave. However, we are no that should longer experiencing and to the feminism the women's wave? that gave origin to Cixous' stems from another of the differance.My work movement third wave? (still in search of a definition: in which the social context thought phase of the next
the institution of motherhood is back in the women. not to is the against My goal deny experience exer of maternity of maternity per se, but to attack the new manipulation cised by the power structure of late capitalism, through its hegemonic cul tural discourse.7 postfeminism?), front line of the war Limitsof the Anti-Patriarchal Discourse of Solas and Puede ser divertido. Solas (Zambrano 1999) and Puede ser divertido (Rodr?guez 1996) a in criticism of women's condition. The former condemns the situ engage ation of lower-class women between through the study of the relationship two females in Southern The latter traditional Spain. questions gender posi tions in marriage by focusing on the friendship of two upper-class women Both from as Iwill explain, both movies the Spanish capital. Nevertheless, dilute as the ultimate their potential feminist discourses by presenting motherhood
"salvation"?for women.
realization?and
Solas follows the story of a mother (Rosa) and a daughter (Maria) who reunite after years of separation. Their two stages: undergoes relationship at first; and, later, a of the daughter absolute hostility towards the mother sense of solidarity and identification between the two. At the beginning, the domestic violence of which both have been victims has driven them they them closer.While Rosa?too weak to protect her apart, instead of bringing to the abuses of her alcoholic husband, daughter?has silently surrendered Maria has rebelled against the despotism of her father: rather than reproduc her mother's to Sevilla. life, she left their poor Andalusian ing village to move to an she from her father's violence end in rela abusive However, escapes up tion with her boyfriend. Unemployed, she finds refuge only in alcohol. The low
conflictive and daughter seems to fol relationship between mother the parameters of Freudian psychoanalysis (the child's rejection of the a in historical it evokes of feminism when terms, and, mother), period women's liberation was seen as the negation of the Mother. Ann Kaplan underlines development
our cation mother own with on
a certain
symmetry between of the feminist movement:

Oedipal oppression counts: first, struggles of stood
psychoanalysis
in the way of . . .we were not give
and
the historical
complex the two
any
easy
identifi with independ the
the mother;
angry us the
because
she would
150
32.1 [Winter 2005] CollegeLiterature

ence because we or the wherewithal us adequately to discover against our
needed, she failed
identities; patriarchal
second, cul
to protect
an alien
ture by which we were psychologically, cally harmed. (Kaplan 1984,173) Ana

lows:
culturally and (sometimes) physi this tension

se da
Fern?ndez,
"Maria
the actress who

mujer que
embodies Maria,
... no quiere ser
explains
como
as fol
cuen
es una
es, porque
ta de que corre el peligro

is a woman who . . . doesn't
de repetir
want
los mismos
to be the way
fallos que
she
sumadre"
she
["Mar?a
realizes
is because
that
she runs
the risk of
rejects is the model Espectador, 7 March that Rosa follows the nineteenth-century represents, a maternal paradigm of the of the house?a and self-sac submissive, profile angel self-abnegating woman. a a wife: it is Her is that of mother and rificing only identity being only at the end of the movie. to nineteenth-century the angel of the house has the parameters, According and indirect power to "save" and this is precisely what Rosa does?subtly accidental Maria: the daughter abandons her aggressive and angry attitude ly?with thanks to her mother's love. disarming center At the cinematic diegesis, Maria's pregnancy marks of Zambrano's in It signals the fundamental her relationship with her mother. turning point a shift inMaria's identification: to solidarity and mother from anger and hostility to Chodorow's of Freudian Nancy reinterpretation according not do the of refusal of the go through (1978), girls Oedipal phase as stated in early psychoanalytic to but continue theory, identify attitude figure. Mother not that we will learn her name
repeating 1999)]. What Maria
her mother's
same mistakes"
(El Pats of motherhood
theory Mother, with the mother
a rela and daughter would thus maintain ahistorical Chodorow's study of the tionship of symbiosis/identification. link in the corresponds, history ofWestern mother-daughter psychological new to identification characterized the so the mother that feminism, figure called ment second wave. Solas articulates a similar It is only through in her. The transfor the woman and can finally perceive the daughter becomes more maternal, the mation is actually mutual: while the her mother becomes of less "angelic" (more sexual) through expression own desire towards the next-door neighbor. The continuum between mother of the characters. stand her mother Rosa at the end of the film is ultimately established by motherhood: and daughter new a Rosa?Maria's but born, a child who becomes dies, daughter?is link for the symbolic union of the two women, the necessary and who ful shift in the personal develop can under that Maria pregnancy
to their empty and lonely lives. fills and gives meaning To a significant degree, the undeniable intent of the movie is progressive at the end by the intrusion of the hegemonic call to maternity. undermined tone of social criticism maintained with the harsh neo-realist Breaking
Barbara Zecchi
151
concludes his film with a Utopian ending, the movie, Zambrano throughout a touching final sequence more the child suitable for a fairy tale, in which and salvation. The narration the cathartic element of redemption becomes
(Maria's voice-over at Rosa's grave), accompanied by a sweet external
melody
sigue manos se
played by violins,
trabajando las tiene quitado en
informs
sitio
the audience
that Maria
de la limpieza), y (gracias ya pero ya las
el mismo
acostumbradas aquel dolor
(como mujer le duelen y ya no ten?a por
tanto, y
le ha
que
dentro,
adem?s
a la hija) no tiene
pesadillas. (Zambrano
1999)
["Mar?a stillworks in the same place (as a cleaning lady) but her hands are now used to it and they don't hurt much, (and thanks to her daughter) the pain she felt inside is now gone and she no longer has nightmares."] is therefore presented as the solution toMaria's alcoholism, to her pain, and probably even to her economic insomnia, problems, to sell his apartment in Sevilla is planning since the "adoptive grandfather" is no room and take Maria and her daughter with him to his village. There in an and stability in her future context for doubts about Maria's happiness Motherhood to her Andalusian run away), a context that she had previously pueblo (from where as an time she will experience this unemployed single mother economically on an old man.8 dependent
Puede ser divertido presents an opposite By contrast Azucena Rodriguez's and model of motherhood. Formally thematically different from Solas, Puede ser divertido follows the lives inMadrid of two rich divorced women?moth ers of two little boys?whose is how to fulfill their sex only preoccupation as annoying ual desires; the two children function merely obstacles. Both a or women of the embody example self-satisfying self-indulgent powerful
mother. Nevertheless, contrary to traditional mother-blaming representa
this paradigm not as the underside introduces of tions, Azucena Rodr?guez the ideal mother, but rather as the ideal?positive?model. the two women As in Solas, the relationship between also goes through two stages. At first, Carmen remains anchored in the self-sacrificing model? she allows her ex-husband husband with friend Alicia into awoman the characteristics to exploit her and dreams about finding a new But her more of Prince Charming. expert transform from the self-abnegated wife and mother
helps her in search only of hedonistic and ephemeral sexual encounters. The relationship between Carmen and Alicia reproduces the practice ofaffi damento" theorized ["entrustment"] by the Italian feminist group of the Milan Women's
who-knows and
Bookstore.
the
This
practice
associates
two women
in a
(the woman (female) (1991)
woman-who-wants-to-know)
mother-daughter
relationship authority."9
based Alicia
on
the acknowledgement of their "disparity of thus becomes, for Carmen, what Luisa Muraro
152 College 32.1[Winter Literature 2005]

would are able In this context, Alicia and Carmen call "the symbolic mother." a to reverse a situation of potential stance into of rivalry solidarity by explic the object of their desire. itly agreeing to share Angel, the friendship and complicity between will the two women However, terrible They Carmen fight when will make it calls Alicia
and have a they both fall in love with Angel encounter at in other each they night, Angel's bedroom. at nine the months end of the movie, when later, up only in for help. She is labor, pregnant with Angel's daughter, end when will name her child after Alicia.
and alone. Carmen of motherhood in the female
two opposite models In spite of beginning by acclaiming in the male-directed film, and self-satisfied (self-denying directed the two movies
finish with similar ambiguous one), endings. On the one hand, both movies seem to propose what Iwould call alternative forms of motherhood the symbolic traditional (beyond order?) by challenging in in roles in Zambrano's and film, Carmen, patriarchal parenting. Maria, feature, decide to have a baby even though the respective fathers Rodriguez's have left. In both cases, the fathers will be replaced by alternative figures: "el abuelo Maria's and ("adoptive neighbor, adoptivo" grandfather"), Carmen's replaced subversive intent, the two films fail to Nevertheless, despite the obviously offer a real alternative to patriarchal discourse because they both end up glo is treated in both Maternity rifying precisely what they are condemning. the baby way out of solitude, of emptiness?with to In the and other law of the redeem, pacify words, power possessing unify. the Father becomes the law of the Son and the chain of patriarchal submis sion ismaintained intact. cases as the solution?a In both friend, Alicia.10 asexual by bondings. cases heterosexual relationships will be
The ConfusionBetweenMaternal and Sexual Desires inElmilagro de P. Tintoand inYerma. discourse and represses female sexual desire by sublimating as to it the family sphere and by disguising love?and "love" is, as limiting it Luce Irigaray said in another context, the conversion of sexual desire into the desire of becoming complementary. Women's sexual desire system hegemonic epistemol?gica! the twentieth century, Federico Garc?a Lorca tion of such superimposition temporary Spanish cinema?in and Pilar T?vora's of terms into maternal by the of the beginning had challenged the perpetua desire. At is absorbed Patriarchal
adaptation El milagro de P.Tinto of estrangement, parody and techniques Through satirizes multiple aspects of contemporary Spanish life, and attacks in partic and traditional gender structures ular the persistence of racism, superstition,
the character ofYerma; con s El milagro de P. Tinto, Fesser particular Javier of Lorca's Yerma?explores again such confusion. through
Barbara Zecchi
153
in rural society. This comedy follows the story of a man?P. in Tinto?who, order to fulfill his desire to form a family with numerous children must find an alternative to procreation in adoption since he simply doesn't know how to perform this solution does not help his sexual intercourse. Nonetheless, a she believes is maternal what wife, Oliva, desire, and thus she lives satisfy a constant in with her stomach. She is only able to overcome knot this sen she finally has sex with one of her adoptive sation at an advanced age, when sons. Her "maternal" desire is thus finally satisfied.
Lorcas Yerma is also an example "en t?rminos m?s dram?ticos ... de esta
desmitificaci?n irreverente ... terms of this irreverent
del
llamado
deseo
d?mystification denounced Lorca conservative 2002, (Cruz 98)]. patriarchal conventions alienated those women who it was could not have children, even when to their own
maternal" ["in more tragic so of the called maternal desire" that not
infertility, but to their husbands'. By contrast and in spite of the absolutely faithful reproduction of Lorcas dialogues, T?vora's movie differs from the original drama, not only because the two socio-historical due contexts are obviously different, but also because tives. Reviewers have noticed that: Yerma
En en mujer
her work
has other
objec
(de Pilar T?vora)

lugar al no porque sexo, puede y
es algo completamente
nadie tambi?n hijos sabe muy resulta en un bien bastante pa?s donde
diferente
qu? extra?o nadie
(de la de Lorca).
en el drama especial de una con
primer relaci?n que
es el honor,
tener
quiere
tenerlos,
uno de los ?ndices de natalidad m?s bajos del mundo. [(PilarT?vora's) Yerma
the first
(Torres 1999, 14) (from Lorcas). In
is something
completely
knows
different
what of
because place nowadays to sex?, in relation and secondly not wants world.] have children turns them, out to be a country
nobody because rather with
honor
the drama
is?especially a woman can who
to have
in a country where strange nobody one rates of the lowest in the birth
Contemporary identify with from
Spanish the main
hijos" ["to my sons".] instead, her represses her own sexual desire and verbalizes, is always pain for an unfulfilled desire of maternity. Her absent husband, who own to an in the is Lorca's words almost effeminate fields, working according man "sin pelos en el pecho"11 figure?a ("with no chest hair, that is not vir Lorca's Yerma sexual needs. For this reason, she eventual ile") who doesn't satisfy Yermas and rage. ly kills him, at the end of the play, out of desperation in the the initial confusion between maternal and sex film, Conversely, ual desires disappears progressively, being replaced by Yerma's overwhelming
any possible the movie dedicating
women?"yermas" by their own choice?cannot character's conflict. T?vora, on the contrary, departs identification with a "childless woman by her choice" by "a mis
154
32.1 [Winter 2005] CollegeLiterature of the character of maternity. Juan Diego's interpretation to his lack of all husband?eliminates references possible Juan?Yerma's not a more is T?vora's Yerma virile therefore for love, but virility yearning a more in the play Juan hugs Yerma after fertile husband. While rather for this gesture is replaced by amore explic confessing his sterility, in the movie, it sexual attempt thatYerma?who does not want sex, but a child?interprets as rape.T?vora ultimately denies Yerma's sexual desire by covering it up com desire. By simpfifying Yerma's binary need, pletely with a stronger maternal the movie ofYerma's final act? reduces the complexity he is of her amother. because solely incapable making El milagro de P. Tinto offers a different perspective. she kills her husband obsession with
The ending decon structs this collapse of sexual and maternal desires through the explicit paro sexual needs. The condemnation of women's old dy of the traditional woman's functions the movie death after the completion as the expected does not end sexual intercourse (incestuous) narratives. of traditional Nevertheless, punishment intervenes there. The filmmaker literally ex machi of the
na:?he rewinds the scene, resuscitates the old lady, and thus eliminates any sense of moralizing mater Unlike Fesser denaturalizes T?vora, punishment. a female the asserted nal desire and thus acknowledges sexuality beyond female "natural" need to procreate.12 sexuality. His film is not a vindication of mater nity but rather of female
Womanhood. The Collapse of Motherhood Into seen in the previous examples, female sexual desire can be undifferentiation between the two desires the drive, eclipsed the of and of moth be womanhood could concepts by using strengthened have by maternal thus erasing the possibility of freeing female erhood as synonyms, can be found construct from maternal connotations.This patriarchal iswidely director who the work of Pedro Almodovar?a considered outside
transgression.
If, as we
identity even in (in and
Spain)
the most
representative
voice
of
Spanish
anti-patriarchal cinema is "the ... Almod?var's
a constant element in Almod?var's D'Lugo, search for alternatives to the traditional family configuration of the traditional plots most often involve the dismantling For Marvin and its reformulation at the order same new, regendered time, Almod?var's parodie discourse?his
not alter classical narrative
with
characters"
image of family (2002, 85). And yet, "mundo al rev?s"

where dis
["topsy-turvy
world"]?does
structure,
is always followed by "normality." In the case of Todo sobre mi madre (All aboutMy Mother) for instance, as Jacqueline Cruz has poignantly illustrated,
no a ser curioso la trama de Todo sobre mi madre gire en torno que deja de el teatral de Un tranv?a llamado ?nico la representaci?n deseo, puesto que
Barbara Zecchi
155
deseo madre). da en
que No
aparece
aqu? sexualidad o
es el de
ser madre en
(o el de la pel?cula:
ser
mujer
para o
poder sublima
ser
hay la maternidad
femenina
?sta
aparece,
porque degradada do de la periferia buscando acude Manuela relaci?n l?sbica entre
en la y el lesbianismo.Y prostituci?n digo degradada se hace ?sa es la representaci?n de ella: el descampa que se concentran barcelonesa donde las prostitutas, y al que a Lola, es una es especie cuanto de Averno menos grotesco, enfermiza. y (Cruz la
Huma
y Nina
2003,162) [It is surprising that the plot of All About My Mother revolves around the Named Desire, given the fact that the theatrical representation of A Streetcar here is of that that desire appears being amother (or of being awoman only
in order appears lesbianism. ed:?the centrate, Averno, to be either a mother). sublimated Female as sexuality or maternity because is not present into in the movie: it and degraded this is the way where prostitution it is represent
I am open
saying degraded in the outskirts field Manuela lesbian goes
of Barcelona looking
and where while the
for Lola, Huma
con the prostitutes is a kind of grotesque and Nina is to say
relationship
between
the least sickly.] For Cruz Medios it comes as no surprise that the Comisi?n episcopal espa?ola de Commission of Mass Media
y de Comunicaci?n [Spanish Episcopal the explicit and Communication] overlooked language and the irreverent, a nun AIDS dies of after blasphemous having had sex with a trans plot (i.e., and the movie the of vestite) granted rating "Muy buena" ["Very good"
(2003,162)].
In spite of the subversive appearance of his discourse, Almodovar's die to tends reestablish order his entire gesis ultimately patriarchal throughout production. As I have already argued in a previous study,13 since his very first the meaningful short in Super 8 with title of Dos putas o historia de amor que termina en boda (1974), Almodovar's catharsis implies always the return to the status quo through specific symbolic icons such as mar signs-patriarchal 's riage, the birth of a child, the return to the "pueblo," etc.14 In Almodovar Carne tr?mula (Live Flesh) constitutes the most revealing doc cinematography, ument of his conservative two child side. The movie and ends with begins scenes in birth the chronology of the Spanish transition clearly positioned to democracy. While Victor from dictatorship (a name with Francoist con was in under Franco's born 1970, notations) regime, the birth of his son takes place years later, in 1996, in democratic twenty-six Spain. A superficial read can be of this between and democracy ing simple opposition dictatorship out that "[Victor] was born For instance David Walsh deceiving. pointed and life was rotten; Spain is now a parliamentary under a fascist dictatorship fated everywhere famous film director?is and, all democracy, Almodovar?a in all, things are going rather well" stated that Almodovar himself (1998).
156

the different: make at the imminent years the birth earlier cars the is the the circumstances deserted, now are the with better
though very crowds cheerful,
anxiety
same, were
twenty-six
streets the son
it impossible for consumers drunken
to move,
sidewalks in
are filled a much
. . . .Victor's
is born
country However
than his father. (Walsh 1998)
the year 1996 represents a very crucial date in Spanish democracy, the first defeat of the Socialist Party (PSOE) and the arrival to power namely of the right-wing Partido Popular the contin party that embodies (PP)?a uation of Francoist
ideology. The slogan of this party, "Espa?a est? bien" is in the concluding the voice-over by ["Spain well"]?paraphrased an of the happy ending unmistakable identification sequence?provokes PP. of the the with the conservative Furthermore, repetition of child politics birth scenes conveys the idea that in spite of the drastic changes (ac) claimed remains the same? the situation of Spanish women they are by Almodovar, still envisioned primarily as instruments of reproduction. This is true also in All About My Mother. an explicit All About My Mother with represents dialogue Joseph a on not focus the moth Mankiewicz's All About Eve (1950), movie that does female models, namely, the self-sacrificing career for her husband's sake, and the to succeed in is of order female who ambitious capable threatening anything a woman Eve in and redeems her Almodovar Manuela, recuperates (Eve). do any is but who would who (unlike Eve) (like Eve) capable of anything, of her son, as she interest, but for the well-being thing not for personal wife her brilliant says it to Esteban: "Yo ya he sido capaz de cualquier cosa por ti" ["I explicitly have already been capable of doing everything for you."] Once "maternal a her the loses that make selfish and those attributes would ized," protagonist traits. instead altruistic and and individual, self-denying acquires betraying a is permeated female world of lies and the American movie Thus, while by one is characterized of solidarity and by an atmosphere women. Eve 1950s embodied the fear of the pro While among complicity woman the of person, who totype post-war (a self-sufficient, independent a a own nor son for her husband did not need repre fulfillment), Manuela sents the model of patriarchal discourses. For Michael of femininity Sofair deceits, the Spanish
a more claim similarity particular to have lost husbands. between But Eve's Eve and Esteban loss was invented smother to make is that both her seem
er figure, but develops renounces who
two other
more vulnerable; Esteban might

about his father, and to see her
begin to doubt what Manuela

as driven by a similar need
has told him

her
to reinvent
self for him. (Sofair 2001, 42) It isworth centric that, while Eve lies about her alleged husband for ego noticing rescues the acts only for her son's sake. Almodovar Manuela goals,
Barbara Zecchi
157
female
mother.
figure,
but
in doing
so, he
transforms
her
into
a self-abnegated
of Esteban, her only child, Manuela loses her identity as as a and leaves her job nurse, thus depriving herself of her profes at the end of the movie, sional identity also. Only son, by adopting Rosa's a a sort does Manuela and her maternal become of recuperate identity, myth After the death a mother can save humanity, ical "virgin" mother of a miracle if not from child, who recover never will from AIDS. But her she sin, original professional subjec in medical she participates congresses on AIDS, where tivity, not even when she goes as the mother of her adoptive HIV-positive In All About My Mother a "real" father figure is nonexistent ismentally absent and Esteban-Lola child, and not as a nurse. ismissing: the nun's father for his first son?and def
initely cannot represent a father figure for his second son. The absence of the law of the Father is precisely the origin of the characters' problems, and only the return of and to the Father will that Almod?var's women lead to order. Stephen Maddison argues to patriarchal heterosexual relation have options have choices outside of their relations with men. The fact that
ships: "women is Stella is played in All About My Mother by the character of Ni?a [sic], who a actress with lesbian the this Blanche, having relationship playing heightens effect. Women have options, experiences, which don't include opportunities, men" (2000: 267-68). his female characters: to However, Almodovar gives only apparent options for instance Nina finds a way out of drugs?and (par when of homosexuality?only she finds a man, gets crises even
this
even out adoxically) and has a child. And Huma will overcome her depressive married, a non-conventional thanks to Agrado, thus forming couple?probably
more non-conventional than her previous relation with Nina. However,
Agrado
and
time, what will is determined

appearance.
not be absent
is the symbolic phallic presence of a penis, since to keep it, despite his several operations to change sex Rodriguez's forms of motherhood Puede ser divertido, Almodovar
As was is postulating
the case with Azucena alternative
beyond the control of a father not this does is sug figure. Nevertheless, necessarily imply that Almodovar outside the patriarchal order?i.e., the gesting the possibility of motherhood Luisa Muraro. All moth mother" About Mother's My "symbolic postulated by ers differ Almod?var's maternity mately order only on the surface? of the patriarchal is "different" because he opens the concept of merely proposal to any individual?including heterosexual men, homosexuals and from those
desires to mother. But Almod?var's characters are ulti
transvestites?who
confined
semiotic mothers15
whose
only
identity
aswoman
resides
in
158 College Literature 32.1 [Winter 2005]

In fact, paradoxically, in All About My Mother there are no being mothers. a in universe in strict mothers terms.16 Nevertheless, biological by creating which reinforces the nega any woman must be amother figure, Almodovar the maternal. tion of a female identity beyond World. Conclusion:Flowers fromAnother in contemporary survey of maternal paradigms Spanish cine are still subjected to traditional values without that women any real alternative to the patriarchal archetype, and that motherhood is still gen brief illustrates This
ma
in Spanish society as the ultimate fulfillment for a woman. erally conceived All the films I have analyzed (with the sole exception of El milagro de P. Tint?) event in in representing coincide the birth of a child as the only meaningful awoman's life.Moreover, P. all the movies El de Tint?) pres (including milagro and work as antithetical realities, since all the mothers we seen belong to the domestic and do not show any professional sphere In a social context of pronatalism, of mater such a vindication aspiration.17 a woman not to return the of of contributes model traditional only nity ent motherhood have
hood, but also transforms all the "yermas"?the non-mothers?into other
ness: negative
overriding as mothers whose them exclusively species and identifies] offspring would towards declining birth rates and thus prevent the deca check the tendency dence of Spain" (Nash 1991,160). in democratic However, Spain there is also room for "minority reports" discourse that attributes a and the hegemonic pronatalist and pro-domestic to women's rate exclusively in the workplace, insertion and that a vari to the domestic is the return of women by sphere, challenged some For affirm the different that of instance, ety declining perspectives. birth rate is only a temporary phenomenon and that young women have low birth invokes (and not simply postponed the problem of depopulation abandoned) is not due their maternity plans.18 to women's professional For others, insertion in
(or absent) models. As happened during the Franco regime, the concern about depopulation off as a separate "mark[s] women
in Spain without has happened itself, but to the fact that such incorporation a fair distribution of domestic duties between men and women, and without care in the child sector.19 And finally, support of social services adequate according
irnrnigration.20
to others,
the most
sound
alternative
to women's
domestication
is
Iciar Bollain's film Flores de otro mundo (1998) is worth conclude, as an case in the landscape of contemporary mentioning exceptional Spanish and presents cinema, since it departs from traditional discourses on maternity To
Barbara Zecchi
159
that synthesis of and reflection upon the alternatives to domesticity illustrated above. Bollain's female gaze offers a future full of hope and choices are dictated by personal digni optimism; a future in which women's are to or social opportunism, not a and conventions bound ty patriarchal I have cultural dif solidarity has the power to overcome ferences and defeat racism. In this movie, the vindication of traditional forms is not the answer to depopulation, of motherhood and domesticity but vice future in which women's two key and the consequent versa, depopulation shortage of workers become now a recon factors in the social reconfiguration is that Spain experiencing, a new ethnic map and, at the same time, new gender that includes figuration identities. Notes
1 as Francisco mothers Franco's or pronatalist potential to "a view had given of women origin politics as... new of the targets regime_Women
a perfect
basically
mothers
were
politicized
with
through
the social
the notion
Female function
of a common
work motherhood and
female destiny based on their

education was were and regulated considered in idealized
reproductive accordance
capacities.
sexuality, while
as a duty to the fatherland" (Nash 1991,160). 2 According to a study by la Caixa de Catalunya,

el n?mero de jubilados se al mundo personas que incorporar?n laciones m?s que nuevos Esto empleos. sufrir ci?n serios de problemas por en el a?o 2011 en Espa?a del superer? por primera habr? laboral vez el de jubi a las trabajo. Por entonces 42000
significa que la falta de mano de obra que el informe
el mercado si se mantiene define
comienza evolu
la actual
la poblaci?n.
Es un fen?meno
como
"preocupante."
(ElPa?sNegocios,
[in 2011
23 Apr 2000)
new
will of retirements surpass, for the first time in Spain, that of in the job market. retirements By then there will be 42,000 more than new jobs. This means is maintained, evolution that, if the actual demographic to suffer serious problems the job market will begin due to the lack of labor. The the number insertions defines such phenomenon as "worrisome/']
report
3Data collected by the BBVA foresees that

para el a?o 2050 A?adiendo lo que dad del [In 2050 low birth system 4 According stitution," Spanish los espa?oles a la baja natalidad alarmantemente de pensiones. will become that se convertir?n el hecho en Espa?a que en la poblaci?n m?s vieja del mundo. la esperanza de vida est? aumentando, es la viabili
peligra sistema
en un
futuro muy 20 May 2000)
pr?ximo
(El Pa?s Negocios, the oldest
Spaniards
population is growing, in the near Nations compensated
in the world. the viability future.] on
Adding of
to the
rate the fact be
life expectancy in danger United be
the pension
in Spain will to
alarmingly 2000 rate
the January low birth
report with
could
"migrations the annual
of
sub
immigra
160

tion than strong Professor tensiones extracommunitarian work permits released until 1999!). 2040 more (substantially encounters this proposal Juan Francisco masiva Jimeno, conlleva (El
of 240,000 the 30,000
workers in
the year However
objections
among
the most
reactionary
sectors. "la
For
of Economics sociales
at the University de integraci?n, can
of Alcal?: y dudo
inmigraci?n pueda
y problemas
que
ser la soluci?n"
Pa?sNegocios, 23 Apr. 2000)

gration and I doubt problems, 5 The are very examples lo mejor who
["massive immigration
that this be the numerous. de ti" ["reflects Canon's the best
leads to social tensions and inte

solution."] advertisement for its photocopy a preg of her). hijo" IKEA a
machine?"refleja woman nant naked posters have covered
of you"]?represented (i.e., the the call best "Ten part un
"was
reflected" subway
in a baby stations with
Madrid
["Have
child"]. Hundreds
in the TV commercial the recent sites ad, with algo. Cuando you
of babies have been filling up airplanes and fictitious continents

of slogan d? crave Iberia. MoviStarActiva "Siempre que se te addresses antoje, a pregnant y habla. llega woman, Cuando in a nece c?gelo creas que need
["Whenever
la primera Cuando patada. it take and talk. When it, you
el momento" When you feel
something.
his first kick.When (2 May

instance,
2000)
you think the moment has come."] Articles in El Pa?s Semanal and praise large families?for glorify women who are mothers
son guerreras" Guest ["Mothers speakers a more Are Warriors"] of the television and in "Las "El famil faro" Families."] program
in "Las madres ["Large to understand
ias numerosas"
(26May
if we want
2000) explain convincingly why we need to have children (more than one)
ourselves. For detailed study of this subject see
Jacqueline Cruz
and about for many maternity
(2002), to whom
conversations sexual violence and
I am indebted for the original

about this in La mujer See topic. en la espa?a also our actual:
idea of this essay

common ?Evoluci?n article o involu
fruitful
ci?n? (2004). Special thanks go to Gael Montgomery

this manuscript.
for her valuable feedback on (1976): the "experience

with has her that reproductive same potential
6 I am borrowing
is the her and with
this terminology
potential children;
from Adrienne Rich

of any woman of motherhood
of motherhood" powers under
relationship the institution
is not Betsy Israels recent study (2002), demonstrates that this manipulation rates countries in with low birth Southern European (Italy and only resurfacing are is with for the lowest but also hap Greece Spain competing fertility records),
pening in the US. It is a common problem shared by the so-called first world soci
patriarchal
control.
eties in which
real threat to 8 Gerard
the increasingly more

the patriarchal Dapena status quo. acknowledges
independent
that Zambrano's
childless woman
is becoming
might reduce
perspective
"women's purpose
constructed criticism function for being and
in life to their biological

as caregivers" (2002, feminists" Maria's that of "some community and
destiny
affirms for her
as mothers
instead
and their socially
31). Nevertheless
to countryside
affection
such a dismisses Dapena a return that "through in the will flourish daughter
warm
sun that bathed our final glimpse of her mother's

9 For an account of the animated debate about
face" (31).
this practice in Italy see De
Lauretis (1990). In Spain, Celia Amor?s
criticizes
itwith
irony:
Barbara Zecchi
161
no
creemos
que
el camino
adecuado
sea
...
el reconocimiento autoridad patriarcal.' simb?lica que Por no
y la vinculaci?n 'no se mide nada con quiere Los
a la
la autoridad masculina,'
de una mujer?el ni busca 'poder social ni cosas similares.
af?idamento?, en el orden Su revoluci?n
supuesto,
saber de cuotas varones no
es de ese mundo.
antifeministas, a dar de
les van
este discurso, oyendo la lata con reivindicaciones, ideal,
pueden
respirar
est?n muy
tranquilos: en entretenidas simb?lico.
las mujeres su particu estos a pro
lar versi?n varones ducir no desde
la cosm?polis
construyendo radicales
su orden
sospechan este 'punto nosotros
las verdaderamente
subversiones
Aunque que se van
tampoco
alcanzamos
en de Luisa Muraro. expresi?n arquimedeo,' a verlas por ahora. Ser? cuesti?n
Sinceramente, de paciencia.
(Amor?s 1997, 447-48)

[We don't to a woman's to the masculine think that the adequate way is ... the acknowledgement authority power that of and the link
authority?the one,' nor
entrustment?, looks for'social
is 'neither
comparable
wants to know about quotas or similar nobody not belong to this world. can breathe: to this discourse, antifeminist males Listening women since they are busy with will not bother them with vindications their ver sion males of the cannot ideal cosmopolis the while truly building radical their subversion it. Honestly, symbolic that will order. However from
in the patriarchal order.' Of course, Its revolution does things. symbolic
these this
anticipate
'Archimedean either. It might
as Luisa Muraro point,' of patience.] be a matter
calls
originate at this moment
I cannot
10 It could be added that these maternities

transgressive gular), desire (a desire that, following Ren? that materializes desire
seem to close a cycle and to fulfill a

Girard, we could Rosa's seals define as trian and frustrated a relationship
impossible
in its displacement: Zambrano displaces to Maria, for her neighbor who metonymicalfy "abuelo
between
offer baby cases to
the two elderly people, by having

become
the baby and accepting her neighbor's

the Carmen's Similarly, same man. In both
is the product of is the result the baby 11 In an interview un hombre de pelo
["adoptive adoptivo" grandfather."] the desire she has shared with Alicia for of about en a triangular his pecho, drama, me relationship. Federico ahoga
Garc?a de
Lorca Yerma.
pongo
el drama
explains El marido
that
"Si
es un
hombre
Yermas
d?bil y sin voluntad"

drama.The husband
(1998, 196) ["If I choose

man who lacks will
a virile man, he suffocates

power."]
is a weak
(1974) makes a distinction between "desire" and "need" by Juliet Mitchell two these the former (desire) concepts in a cause-effect relation. ForMitchell putting is the result of the lack of satisfaction of the latter (need).
13 For a more detailed study of this aspect, see my article on violence and sta
12
tus quo inAlmod?var's

14 Almod?var's
cinema
(Zecchi 2001).
discourse becomes apparent in, for instance, a final
conservative
marriage
Deserve
(in Kika and in Tie me up); in the arrival of a son (What Have
Women on the Verge a of Nervous Breakdown, and Live Flesh);
I Done
return
to
This?,
in the
to the father (Labyrinth of Passions); in the return to the "pueblo," ametaphorical cra dle of the most traditional patriarchal values (The Flower ofMy Secret and Kika); in death as symbolic punishment for the "transgressors" (HighHeels, Matador, and Talk
162

toHer). the same in All about My chaos is controlled
Following
parameters,
Mother,
by the birth of a (obviously male) child. 15 According to French and Italian feminisms, the feminine semiotic (the locus of mother-identification and of marginality) is opposed to the symbolic (the domain
of discernment 16Manuela and loses assertion). her son at the very beginning of the movie, and at the end she
will
thus
become
she does
an adoptive
not have time "mother;" phallic
(non-biological)
to become and finally, who
mother;
the nun dies giving birth

Lola-Esteban, the only her transvestite, the and biological daughter's
(and
is a
a mother); the nun's rejects her
biological er, is the
father absent
mother, daughter,
moth son.
mother,
17 It is important
work is questioned contexts. For bell in the context by hooks, of
to point out that the issue of women's

other for a family approaches instance as that stem from black different women that "Historically,
fulfillment
social have affirms to most
through
and racial identified
work
ty as women, in caring
as human
beings inside
humanizing love showing the home, labor
and
labor, work ... care.
their labor often
identi done seen
In contrast was
environment
outside
the home
as stressful, degrading, and dehumanizing" (1984: 133-134). 18 For Anna Studies of the Cabr?, director of the Center of Demographic Universit?t Aut?noma de Barcelona, and for the sociologist In?sAlberdi the declin
ing birth rate generations leave that tion, Anna home, choose and Cabr? el n?mero numerosas plena is only of women?a a temporary former and their (but form phenomenon originated that in order to emancipate generation a present women a new of and generation family; their professional while prepara parents they pursue to not of maternity. their plans abandon) According had by to a gap between two
get married to stay with thus postpone
's words, de nacimientos de nuestra tiene que que subir nacieron a la fuerza entre porque y las generaciones m?s est?n en edad de hu?a de las famil
historia,
1965
1976,
. . Antes . llevan un retraso. aunque reproducci?n, ocurre. eso no 12 Mar. Pa?s Semanal, ias; hoy 2000) (El [the number of births must born between ... increase 1965 for and sure because 1976,
la gente
the largest
generations fertile
of our age,
history, although happen.]
people they
are now left home
at their most early; now
are behind.
In the past people
this doesn't
19 Itmust be underlined that Spain also has the lowest rate in Europe of female in market. As the historian Mary Nash and the sociologist the incorporation job
Rosario Otegui si comparamos con unas como Holanda indicate, el n?mero de hijos femenina (2,1 hijos que por mujer de pa?ses muy en de nuestro por encima entorno de europeo
tasas de actividad ser Suecia
monetarizada por mujer no es s?lo
las nuestras, (1,68) y
pueden (1,61)
el a?o
90), Dinamarca de la mujer
comprendemos
la incorporaci?n
al tra
bajo monetarizado
sino principalmente la causante de la baja natalidad, que dicha se ha producido de los hijos en sin un reparto de tareas de cuidado incorporaci?n de servicios sociales en este sector cobertura el seno del hogar o sin una adecuada
Barbara Zecchi
163
que
ha obligado
a que
las mujeres la reducci?n
espa?olas del n?mero
tengan
que
utilizar (Otegui
como
estrategia
de
simple [Ifwe
supervivencia compare amuch per woman cause of
de hijos.
1999,143-44) European like Sweden coun (2.1
the number
of kids per woman of women (1.68) only
in our neighboring in the work and Holland force,
tries with children that the
integration higher in 1990), Denmark low birth rates
(1.61), we
understand
in the work incorporation a division has without force, incorporation happened an in the home of children related chores, and without of social coverage adequate to see in the decrease in this sector in the services .This has forced Spanish women women's but mainly the fact that this number of children a strategy of survival.]
is not
20
hand
During
fascist dictatorships
with a politics of
pronatalism
and the cult of motherhood

"the prevention
went
in hand
racial
anti-natalism?i.e.,
of'inferi
or offspring' for the purpose of'racial uplift'" (Block 1991, 234). As I have pointed
out above, contemporary pronatalist discourses are often supported by a xenophobic rhetoric.
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All about Mothers: Pronatalist Discourses in Contemporary Spanish Cinema Author(s): Barbara Zecchi Reviewed work(s): Source: College

AllAbout Mothers: Pronatalist Discoursesin Cinema Contemporary Spanish

edited the books Sexualidad y Escritura (1850-2000)

Espinosa, El Pa?s, 17 Jan. 2000)

(2002) and La mujer en la

you alone"] plays

strike. maternity want freedom, "The writer

maternity someone who ... in order

of century, the condition went drastic and through

oppression to an unprecedented political Republic,

dictatorship liberation and the Second of ultra-tra

during emancipation from the reimposition

gender roles during Francisco of women's social possibilities

148 College Literature 32.1[Winter 2005]

symmetry between of the feminist movement:

complex the two

identifi with independ the

32.1 [Winter 2005] CollegeLiterature

needed, she failed

ture by which we were psychologically, cally harmed. (Kaplan 1984,173) Ana

culturally and (sometimes) physi this tension

the actress who

ta de que corre el peligro

repeating 1999)]. What Maria

(El Pats of motherhood

theory Mother, with the mother

acostumbradas aquel dolor

(como mujer le duelen y ya no ten?a por

(the woman (female) (1991)

152 College 32.1[Winter Literature 2005]

and alone. Carmen of motherhood in the female

desmitificaci?n irreverente ... terms of this irreverent

(de Pilar T?vora)

primer relaci?n que

(Torres 1999, 14) (from Lorcas). In

nobody because rather with

is?especially a woman can who

Contemporary identify with from

Spanish the main

any possible the movie dedicating

identity even in (in and

anti-patriarchal cinema is "the ... Almod?var's

image of family (2002, 85). And yet, "mundo al rev?s"

porque degradada do de la periferia buscando acude Manuela relaci?n l?sbica entre

saying degraded in the outskirts field Manuela lesbian goes

and where while the

for Lola, Huma

con the prostitutes is a kind of grotesque and Nina is to say

32.1 [Winter 2005] CollegeLiterature

though very crowds cheerful,

streets the son

it impossible for consumers drunken

are filled a much

than his father. (Walsh 1998)

er figure, but develops renounces who

more vulnerable; Esteban might

begin to doubt what Manuela

has told him

time, what will is determined

the case with Azucena alternative

158 College Literature 32.1 [Winter 2005]

female destiny based on their

as a duty to the fatherland" (Nash 1991,160). 2 According to a study by la Caixa de Catalunya,