11. Domesticating Violence in the Films of Pedro Almodóvar

Summary

This chapter explores in detail the dynamics of the significant shift in the portrayal of gendered violence in Almodóvar's films. While most scholars tend to split along two contrasting lines of argument surrounding the issue of violent representation in these films, as either negative and misogynist or as a tool for understanding desire and sexual pleasure, this chapter revisits Smith's call to understand and situate Almodóvar's films within the Spanish cultural context. Re-reading his cinema in the light of the mobilization of anti-gender violence activism within Spain since the late 1990s, which is concerned with eradicating the larger social patterns of domestic and sexual abuse, it calls for a re-grounding of representations of gendered violence in Almodóvar's canon.