Imitation And Gender Insubordination In Todo Sobre Mi Madre

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Actors and actresses, drag kings and queens have much in common. They all constantly try on new identities and project personas that onto the world. In the movie “Todo Sobre mi Madre,” the idea of authenticity is explored through the various character present in the movie. The movie touches on the idea of realness in gender projection and presentation, the notion of being out, and also transcends the standard tragic transgender character depiction. Through the usage of Judith Butler’s Imitation and Gender Insubordination I will explore the central ideas presented in the movie.
Gender representation in a movie is quite often consistent to it being phallic centric. This is where Pedro Almodovar differs from the standard. The director presents to us a variation of characters who sway away from the standard gender roles and characteristics often presented to the audience. The men that are present in the movie do have have a significant handle on the plot of story, and are (in context of this movie) often dependent on the womyn in the movie. For example Lola, the absent father, is not present both figuratively and literally in the movie to make a difference, and through his death becomes an object of pity to Manuela. Another example would be Rosa’s father, who is suffering from Alzeimeher’s disease and is completely dependent on Rosa’s mother, who in the movie seems to lacks empathy for him, seemingly making Rosa’s father another object of sympathy to the womyn in the movie.
Contrary to this, the womyn in the movie run the storyline and actively run the events in the plot. Manuela is the main character in the movie, who takes various actions in search of Lola, (Esteban’s father) and makes her the bearer-of-the-look in the movie and not...

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...s, by embracing and letting the people in the movie know that yes she is a trans-womyn, and yes she still has the ‘male attributed’ organ. She continues to do this by admitting that she has constructed her body to fit the aesthetic expectations of ‘real’ womyn, and by doing this she herself and befallen to these rules, but yet she does not hide the fact that she in the eyes of other might not be authentic, because as far as she is concerned her projection of her internal feelings is what makes her
Agrado is a projection of the transgender character that would be beneficial to the cinematic community and the transgender community. She is someone who transcends the tragic character that is usually found through the transgender gaze, and uses identity disassociation to become someone who is authentic through internal interpretation and self-identification of who she is.

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