SJB, Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas de Berkeley
On Wednesday, I have an all-day interview at San Francisco State, where I'll be teaching two classes for the assembled masses. One of these classes is a "Culture and Civilization of Spain"-type deal, and I agreed to rip the students straight out of the Golden Age and into wild, frenzied, sexy Transition Spain (1975-1982).
To that end, I'll start by teaching an excerpt of Martín Gaite's El cuarto de atrás (1978), which is pretty standard college reading with a partially historical view of Francisco Franco's death and the way Spanish culture and society changed thereafter. It's also in my dissertation, which is a bonus.
But, to wake the students up after all this tedious novel-reading, I thought I would show them a snippet of Pedro Almodóvar's first movie, made before he was the toast of Spain's film export business, back when he was still working for the phone company: "Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón" (1980). Alrighty, then. I dipped into Berkeley's vast video archive this afternoon to watch the flick and find a 5-minute representative sample of a 'non-historical' reaction to Franco's death and the aforementioned frenzy of liberty and intellectual freedom that followed.
Well, Almodóvar's first movie does not contain the, ahem, "conservative" fare you might find in "Todo sobre mi madre," or "La mala educación." No, no: "Pepi, Luci, Bom..." is more akin to early John Waters, replete with snot-eating, a knitting and peeing party (that's the only way to describe it), plenty of S&M and a very memorable scene in which Almodóvar measures the manhood, shall we say, of a number of willing contestants. There's not a 5-minute block in this movie that wouldn't somehow offend the sensibilities of, say, me, much less a group of college students. And it's always fun to preview a movie like this at the library, so that everyone can see that you're watching a movie with full-frontal nudity at 1:30 p.m. on a Monday. Luckily, though, I found a brief scene that merely describes a number of these 'questionable' actions -- set to high-velocity early-80s Spanish punk music, no less -- instead of portraying them directly. These are fine lines we walk.
My hope is that the SF State students will all be from San Francisco and not Kansas, where I can only imagine what sorts of lawsuits would be brought against a lowly job candidate who shows an S&M romp to undergrads in the name of "culture." But the bottom line is that "Pepi, Luci, Bom..." really does show the destape (literally translated: taking the lid off; figuratively: whatever goes, baby) in 1980s Madrid as a reaction to 40 years of censorship under an oppressive dictatorship. It's a movie that clearly pits old Spain (straight men in positions of authority) versus new Spain (lesbians, transsexuals, punk rockers, snot-eaters and frisky women), and new Spain is obviously more fun.
So, we'll see what happens when I show my clip on Wednesday. I really hope some dottering 80-year-old emeritus professor doesn't show up to critique my teaching skills, but if he does, maybe he'll learn a thing or two, ¿no?
To that end, I'll start by teaching an excerpt of Martín Gaite's El cuarto de atrás (1978), which is pretty standard college reading with a partially historical view of Francisco Franco's death and the way Spanish culture and society changed thereafter. It's also in my dissertation, which is a bonus.
But, to wake the students up after all this tedious novel-reading, I thought I would show them a snippet of Pedro Almodóvar's first movie, made before he was the toast of Spain's film export business, back when he was still working for the phone company: "Pepi, Luci, Bom y otras chicas del montón" (1980). Alrighty, then. I dipped into Berkeley's vast video archive this afternoon to watch the flick and find a 5-minute representative sample of a 'non-historical' reaction to Franco's death and the aforementioned frenzy of liberty and intellectual freedom that followed.Well, Almodóvar's first movie does not contain the, ahem, "conservative" fare you might find in "Todo sobre mi madre," or "La mala educación." No, no: "Pepi, Luci, Bom..." is more akin to early John Waters, replete with snot-eating, a knitting and peeing party (that's the only way to describe it), plenty of S&M and a very memorable scene in which Almodóvar measures the manhood, shall we say, of a number of willing contestants. There's not a 5-minute block in this movie that wouldn't somehow offend the sensibilities of, say, me, much less a group of college students. And it's always fun to preview a movie like this at the library, so that everyone can see that you're watching a movie with full-frontal nudity at 1:30 p.m. on a Monday. Luckily, though, I found a brief scene that merely describes a number of these 'questionable' actions -- set to high-velocity early-80s Spanish punk music, no less -- instead of portraying them directly. These are fine lines we walk.
My hope is that the SF State students will all be from San Francisco and not Kansas, where I can only imagine what sorts of lawsuits would be brought against a lowly job candidate who shows an S&M romp to undergrads in the name of "culture." But the bottom line is that "Pepi, Luci, Bom..." really does show the destape (literally translated: taking the lid off; figuratively: whatever goes, baby) in 1980s Madrid as a reaction to 40 years of censorship under an oppressive dictatorship. It's a movie that clearly pits old Spain (straight men in positions of authority) versus new Spain (lesbians, transsexuals, punk rockers, snot-eaters and frisky women), and new Spain is obviously more fun.
So, we'll see what happens when I show my clip on Wednesday. I really hope some dottering 80-year-old emeritus professor doesn't show up to critique my teaching skills, but if he does, maybe he'll learn a thing or two, ¿no?
posted by SJB at 11:11 PM
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