Spider Woman has been hailed as both a magnificent film and as a deep and serious study of human relations and of sexuality. Its central theme is the relationship which develops between Molina, an effeminate gay man, and Valentin, a very definitely straight revolutionary, as they share a Latin American prison cell. The staging, acting (especially William Hurt as Molina) are superb. But politically, Kiss of the Spider Woman is far from being as 'right-on! as some have claimed.
If unity of the most extreme opposites was what Babenco wished to create, in order to explore an evolving relationship and to question the basis of male sexuality, then those extremes are certainly presented. The problem is, that they are demonstrably stereotypes of the most predictible form. Valentin is strong, bearded, silent, wedded to the revolutionary cause. Human enough to show fear of torture, he nonetheless withholds the names of his comrades. For him, expressions of emotions such as love and affection are out of order. Molina is the full gay stereotype. A former shop window dresser, his public identity is with great film actresses, he camps everything up outrageously, from dress to speech. He dotes on his elderly mother, his dream is of meeting a 'real man' to whom he can be passive 'wife'.
How do two such characters come together? The process is actually quite predictible Through shared hardship and through heated arguments Valentin's cold exterior is broken down. Yes, he does know fear; yes, he has a girl friend, and she does matter to him; but his first girl friend matters more, still. He recognises a deep human kindness in Molina which overcomes his prejudice, and he understands that it is not impossible to be a devoted revolutionary and a loving human being. Molina's evolution is different. A running thread of the film is his recounting, as episodes between current events, a slushy romatic film he once saw, in which his identity is totally with a romantic, doomed heroine. It soon transpires
wartime German propaganda exercise, to Valentin's (initial) fury. This is an occasion for more stereotypes: notably the attractiveness of 'blond young
Yet in dramatic contrast, it is Molina who first becomes the 'strong' man in this menage, taking his companion through his crises. Then, of course, the reverse occurs, and Valentin, having been converted from fanatic to human, International, No. 3, March/April 1986
comes to Molina's rescue as he movingly recounts the miserable tale of his own life, a tale of persecuted and unrequited love, of deep loneliness and an uncaring and superficial 'scene'. The causes are thus levelled off: the selfless revolutionary (who just happens to be from a comfortable background...) sacrificing himself for the cause of humanity, and the selfcentred, poor, homosexual, struggling in his own heroic way against a mighty oppression.
It is only to be expected, of course, that Molina falls in love with Valentin and that they end up in bed together - a scene touchingly and convincingly done.
So what is wrong? Stereotyped characters are never convincing, even when played as strongly as there are in this film. And if the stereotype of Molina is a problem then so is that of Valentin, but made to seem less so, both because Hurt's performance is so overpowering, and because his stereotype is perhaps far closer to the real thing, and certainly far more 'acceptable'
The fundamental problem is with the role of Molina. Throughout he is the receptacle of weakness and corruption. We find out well into the film that he is acting as an agent for the prison warden, trying to find out from Valentin what the torturers cannot extract, in return for an early parole. Soon, of course, by falling in love he becomes useless for this plan. So they let him out anyway, hoping that he will lead them to Valentin's associates. Of course,
Valentin has indeed asked him to pass on a message. And so our poor, weak, helpless gay, having finally decided to take up just a small piece of the heroic revolutionary cause, dies in the process, running from the police and shot, symbolically, by Valentin's current girl friend
In the final sequence, Valentin falls into a morphine-induced sleep after another bout of brutal questioning. He dreams of being spirited out of prison by his first girl friend, his real 'true love', and of embarking on a little boat to row away into the moonlight. So what have we proved? Valentin, through the medium of his gay friend, and briefly lover, has rediscovered his real love; he becomes the 'real man' of Molina's vain longings. Molina, in abandoning for once his self-centred search for beauty and affection in favour of the Cause, has lost his life. It is once again the gay as catalyst, the gay as victim. There can be a connection between gays and revolution. It is a connection which comes about through lesbians and gay men fighting for their liberation and through socialists (from whatever part of the world) recognising that these causes are not contradictory but related. Kiss of the Spider Woman does not make these connections. The cause of gay liberation has no need of more victims and martyrs or 'straight' liberal sympathy. And that, in the end and despite its pretentions, is what Kiss of the Spider Woman gives us.
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