Este martes pasado discutimos varios aspectos de la relación entre géneros sexuales, géneros artísticos y la locura, en particular en lo que respecta a la representación de Don Juan Tenorio en el teatro, desde el siglo XVII hasta el Don Juan Tenorio de José Zorrilla. En su blogpost de esta semana, comente cómo be usted representadas estas relaciones en la película Juana La Loca de Aranda.
Deben colgar su blogpost en o antes del sábado 28 de octubre a las 5pm.
This week’s class discussion included distinguishing between “géneros sexuales” and “géneros artísticos” through the analysis of madness in Don Juan Tenorio and Juana la Loca. Both Don Juan Tenorio and Juana struggle with the question: Are you able to empty and abandon yourself for the sake of love? This is what ultimately drives both characters to madness. In Juana la Loca, Juana is in an arranged marriage to Felipe for the sake of unity. She is attracted to him but eventually goes mad after realizing that Felipe is cheating on her and is an unfaithful character. Even so, Juana refuses to bury Felipe after his death because she is in denial of his death due to her madness. This is called “locura de amor”, or madness caused by love. Aranda, the director of this movie, chose to project this film from Juana’s perspective. I personally thought this was a beneficial perspective to choose because it revealed much of Juana’s internal processing that would have otherwise been overlooked had he taken on a different character’s perspective. This choice also allowed for Aranda to express the extent of madness in a film through Juana.
La sociedad no está de acuerdo con aquellas personas que quieren romper los límites del binarismo de género de mujer/hombre. Este enfoque no-binario permite que las personas no se tengan que conformar con la manera que las personas actúen. Un ejemplo es que las mujeres deben enfocarse en la cocina, en los niños y en la limpieza de la casa. El hombre trabaja para traer dinero y alimentos al hogar y carga cosas pesadas. El hombre no llora.
En la película Juana la loca , el director Aranda usa este tema del género sexual y la locura. Juana, la protagonista de esta película, vive de acuerdo a las normas sociales. Su madre le impuso ser «culta» ya que Juana es una princesa. Al legar a cierta edad, Juana se ha de casar con un joven Archie Duque llamado Felipe. Juana altera su papel de mujer en varias ocasiones, pero para este propósito usaré un solo ejemplo que juega con la sexualidad y la locura. Juana desea a su marido y dice que se ha vuelto loca de amor por él. Una mujer no puede andar corriendo y gritando por el palacio bajo la lluvia pronunciando las palabras: «mi madre ha muerto y mi marido me engaña», pero es exactamente lo que Juana hace cuando descubre la muerte de su madre y que su marido Felipe le ha sido infiel con una de sus criadas. Rompiendo con los estigmas de que una mujer debe ser sumisa ante su marido, Juana no teme retar a su marido cuando él la llama loca y la quiere sacar del trono más adelante en la película. Por otro lado, Felipe juega el papel de hombre como Don Juan Tenorio en El burlador de Sevilla al ser un mujeriego sin pena alguna. Me atrevo a decir que por esas infidelidades es que Felipe alcanza su propia locura.
Viendo los signos lingüísticos ser representados en los signos dramáticos como un género artístico, podemos apreciar la locura de Juana gracias a la cámara. Con un enfoque en los elementos audiovisuales del cine, las tomas eran generalmente oscuras, la vestimenta de los actores iba a la par con el siglo representado y la banda sonora deleitaba al audio-vidente. Para proveer un ejemplo vivo del género literario, quiero usar la misma escena de cuando Juana comienza a gritar y correr bajo la lluvia que su madre murió y que su marido la engaña. En esta escena, se puede ver el elemento audiovisual de la lluvia juntado explícitamente con la locura de Juana. Es interesante que el título de esta película esté en tercera persona – distante de la protagonista – cuando realmente, Juana es la que narra esta película.
Esta semana vimos lo que tiene el poder de conducir a ciertos personajes en obras artísticas a la locura y lo que esta locura parece. En la película de esta semana, Juana La Loca, el director incorpora los temas de la locura y el sexo para ayudar a desentrañar la acción de la película. Los dos personajes principales-Juana y su marido Felipe-eventualmente llegan a sus propios estados de locura, o un estado de ser mentalmente inestable y de actividad frenética o caótica. La locura de Juana a través del amor loco se hace evidente cuando se entera de que Felipe le engañó con una de las doncellas y procede a correr alrededor gritando ‘ mi marido me engaño!’ Esta locura también fue vista en el drama romántico, Don Juan Tenorio por José Zorrilla, cuando Don Juan es conducido loco por el amor por Doña Inés. Él es incapaz de convencer a la gente de que él está cambiando sus caminos y que él está realmente enamorado de esta mujer, y como resultado, él es enloquecido y termina matando a Don Gonzalo y Don Luis. Ambas situaciones de locura de amor se retratan de manera similar-con colores oscuros y ropa oscura-mejorando aún más la triste y desconcertante situación que crea la locura de amor.
The movie “Juana la loca” embodies two of the themes we discussed in class this week really well: the theme of gender and the theme of madness.
The former is demonstrated in the arrangement of marriage between Juana and Philip. Before she is sent away to be married, Juana shares her concerns about not loving Philip with her mother, Queen Isabella. At one point of the conversation, Queen Isabella tells Juana that, even if she doesn’t have feelings for Philip, to tell people she married him for love. This scene shows that females in that time period were expected to submit to the wishes of others and often set their feelings aside. It would be these feelings, however, that would pave the way for the manifestation of the second major theme in Juana la loca.
Madness is present in several scenes in the movie. At times, it is shown through jealousy, just as Juana cut the hair one of Philip’s mistresses. It is also shown through dialogue, as Juana herself would often dismiss herself as mad and use that self-proclamation as an excuse for her obsessive actions. Nevertheless, the madness of Juana is never actually denied, not by Juana nor by the people around her.
Both of these themes came together in the movie to bring the themes we discussed in class this past week to life.
The movie “Juana la loca” fits very well into this week’s class discussion for its application of the themes of gender and madness. Just as the play “Don Juan Tenerio” poses the idea that perhaps the societal conventions of monogamy and gender drive one to madness, this movie presents a similar link between the two themes. In the film, Juana’s madness stems from her obsession for monogamous love with Felipe, a relationship that was ultimately a product of force and convention. It was seen as proper and expected for a woman to submit herself to a man for the sake of politics, regardless of Juana’s disinterest. Once in the relationship, the pressure for loyalty and monogamy begins to take a toll on Juana as well. This combination of society’s gender expectations and hetero-normative expectations of monogamous love ultimately drives Juana to “locura de amor”. However, it is very important that the director decided to present the movie from Juana’s perspective, so that we as the audience are able to hear her inner narrative and understand exactly how these social expectations regarding gender and love are closely related to madness.
Throughout history, gender has played an important role in dividing society. Women have been characterized as hysteric and mad while men are typified as being more dominant, intelligent, and in control. Don Juan Tenorio and Juana la Loca convey the themes of géneros sexuales and géneros artísticos. In Juana la Loca, Juana goes mad after discovering her husband Felipe’s infidelity. Though this marriage was solely political, she is unable to even bury her husband’s body after his death and walks around the peninsula aimlessly. The fact that she fawns over him while he betrays her highlights how women were considered to be intellectually and emotionally inferior. The first scenes of this movie explain the separation of Juana and her mother as she goes off to perform her duty of marriage. This speaks volumes about the role of women during this time period; Juana is expected to surrender her entire life to a man for the hopes of entering the Holy Roman Empire. This expectation proves that women were simply viewed as tools to facilitate the agendas of their male counterparts. Don Juan Tenorio also said “mi mayor placer es burlarse de un mujer y dejarla sin honor.” His love for a woman he finally wants to love drives him crazy after he spent his life deceiving women simply for the sake of his pleasure.
El tema del género, en particular la masculinidad de un hombre, está mostrado muy bien en la obra Don Juan Tenorio y la película y la obra de Bodas de Sangre. La pregunta del sexualidad y género está representado cuando Don Juan Tenorio se enamoraba con Doña Ines. ¿Don Juan perdió su masculinidad cuando quería casarse con Doña Ines? En esta edad, el hombre típicamente usaba las mujeres; y a causa de esta idea fue muy extraordinario que Don Juan quería estar con sola una mujer para el resto de su vida. ¿Puede un hombre mantener su masculinidad mientras muestra su afecto para una mujer? Similarmente, en Bodas de Sangre, cuando la Novia salió su boda con Leonardo, el Novio perdía su masculinidad. En estos tipos de obras, el hombre usualmente tiene el poder en la relación, pero en este situación, la Novia tenía todo el poder. Fue la idea de la Novia a parar su relación con el Novio durante su boda. En la película, la falta de masculinidad está mostrado en la escena del baile, cuando la cámara está enfocando en los deseos de la Novia (en relación a Leonardo) y está casi ignorando el Novio y Leonardo. Está elección del productor de la película representa otro ejemplo del control de una mujer en Bodas de Sangre.
Un punto que no he visto ser discutido mucho viene de Bodas de Sangre de García Lorca, y como los géneros se exponen en las acciones de los protagonistas. Vemos que la novia, como era estereotipado para mujeres en general, actúa primariamente por parte de sus emociones, y deja al novio antes de que se casen. Esto es típico en las descripciones de mujeres en esta época de literatura. Lorca luego se distancia de los otros autores de su día con su descripción de Leonardo, quién similarmente a la novia actúa basado en sus emociones. Él tiene una mujer, y su vida era buena, pero lo dejó para perseguir a la novia con que tuvo relaciones hace años. Al que la novia y Leonardo se escapan de la boda, el novio les persigue fijado en la idea de venganza. En el final las emociones de Leonardo, el novio, y la novia causa una tragedia: los dos hombres mueren y la novia está dejada sola. En mi pensamiento Bodas de Sangre es una advertencia a lo que puede pasar si uno sigue sus emociones demasiado y cae en locura.
In class this week we discussed many topics including gender, madness, infidelity, and monogamy. We discussed Don Juan Tenorio and the idea that he did not love women; rather he loved the idea and act of deceiving women. This idea represents how gender norms were perceived. Men deceived women and were not held to the standard of monogamy, while women were expected to maintain their honor and to be faithful. We discussed in class that in Juana La Loca de Aranda, Juana becomes mad when she finds out Felipe has been unfaithful. In a way, the representation of her madness casts blame on her and portrays her in a negative connotation when in reality Felipe was the one who was unfaithful and should be viewed in a negative light. This idea reveals the inequity in the ways in which gender norms were perceived.
La película Juana La Loca (2001) de Aranda participa en una discusión sobre locura en el contexto de la sexualidad. Juana tiene como objeto de deseo a Felipe, quien tiene un poder sexual sobre ella. Pero él no tiene el mismo deseo por ella, el solo tiene un deseo sexual que no está atado a ninguna persona. La tensión es que Felipe debería estar solamente atado a ella ya que están casados. El querer actualizar su deseo sexual con Felipe, es lo que absorbe a Juana. Pero ella es una mujer, y la mujer no puede actualizar su deseo sexual en un hombre de la misma manera que un hombre puede actualizar su deseo sexual en una mujer (esto es en el contexto de la sociedad donde ella existe). Aquí es donde entra una discusión sobre los géneros sexuales. Tenemos una desigualdad entre dos géneros de sexualidad que entran en relación el uno con el otro sin la igualdad de poder social. Hay un punto en la película donde Juana quiere hacer celoso a Felipe, un intento de invertir los roles de género que ellos están dentro. Este intento falla, ya que no es una quistión de celos, sino una de poder. Mientras que, al mismo tiempo, Felipe está intentado quitarle el poder a Juana en la sociedad, acusándola de locura e inhabilidad de gobernar (la verdad es que ninguno de los dos es capase o deseable para gobernar). Felipe bien sabe que ella no está loca, pero dándole esa identidad le quita el poder de expresión y relativa autonomía. La cámara es capaz de capturar las expresiones faciales de los protagonistas, dándoles el texto que pone en contexto la locura. Vemos en Juana el saber que ella no está loca, aunque ella grita que está loca. Podemos ver que el conocimiento de nuestra locura nos da la visión para ver las locuras de todos los que nos rodean.
Gender roles/expectations have existed throughout history and even until today. In the film, Juana la Loca (Mad Love), these gender role expectations are accompanied by the theme of madness, both driven by love and by the expectations placed on women. Juana is forced into marrying Felipe for political gain by the Spanish throne. In general, and in the case of most marriages at that time, it is very common for women to be placed in this position. However, Juana ultimately acquires an immense love for him that also becomes an obsession. Felipe’s infidelity and unfaithfulness transform this obsession into madness. This madness is also driven by this aspect of gender expectations. In a way, it is socially acceptable for Felipe to have affairs or “mistresses,” and the opinions and feelings of Joana in reaction to Felipe’s actions are repressed and seen as insignificant or, in this case, crazy. Her outbursts about his cheating are regarded as madness, and in turn, this slowly builds up her actual “locura”. She begins to accept it by calling herself “Juana la Loca,” subdued and accepting the labeling a man places on her as is expected of her. When she tries to make Felipe jealous by making it appear as if she is having an emotional affair with the captain, Felipe demands an end to it and expects Juana to listen, whereas when Juana makes the same request, he does not listen yet continues to exercise his privileges and powers as a man. The idea of faithfulness is one-sided in this scenario. In addition, had word come out about Juana having an affair, there would be massive social disapproval of these actions for a woman. When Juana’s mother dies, she inherits much more power than Felipe has. Afterwards, there were consistent efforts to take this power away from Juana by taking advantage of her crazed state over Felipe. As a woman, they look for many ways to strip her of her powers. This doesn’t even begin to cover the span of the themes of madness and gender roles/expectations of this film, but these aspects are clearly seen throughout the whole film.
Esta semana hemos discutido los géneros sexuales y la locura – dos temas que aparecen frecuentemente en la película, “Juana la Loca”. Más específicamente, puesto que la película toma lugar en el siglo XIV, los papeles de genero se manifiestan de una manera muy obvio. Por ejemplo, por razones políticos, Juana tiene que casarse a Felipe, aunque no lo conoce y no lo ama. Juana no tiene capacidad ni poder de decir no y su mama le dice a Juana que tiene que comportarse como si la ame. Por otra parte, Felipe sigue teniendo relaciones sexuales con otras mujeres a través de la película mientras su marida está embarazado. Es más, otros hombres apoyan a Felipe y sus traiciones.
En la película, Juana se da cuenta de las traiciones de Felipe y en las palabras de su marido, Felipe, se vuelve “loca”. No obstante, me parece raro Felipe la considera loca por la sencilla razón de que ella se enoja cuando descubre que él ha tenido sexo con más mujeres. Es decir, es un ejemplo de los papeles de genero también ya que Felipe ignora los sentimientos de su esposa y la trata como si fuera tonta. Por otro lado, es verdad que Juana tiene ciertas tendencias locas mientras pasa el tiempo en la película. Ella es muy obsesionada y su estado de ánimo cambia de una manera muy rápida.
Corrección: Siglo XVI*
Reflecting upon Suara’s take on Bodas de Sangre and Juana La Loca’s depiction of Juana, I am interested in the power of silence as well as spoken words. I began by wondering what made Juana appear mad? Was it the things she said? Or was it the fact that she said what she said?
In the beginning of the year, Dr. Carrion mentioned that writing is violent because it forces the writer to express their thoughts in a way that caters to the reader. In a similar vein of thinking, I began to realize how violent expressing thoughts into verbal words could be as well. On the one hand, by not giving words to the actors of her movie, Suara allowed the individuals to maintain power over their words. On the other hand, by speaking exactly what she was thinking, Juana also claimed power over her thoughts. The paradox, however, lies in the fact that she was labeled as mad because of her honest words. It seems, then, that the issue didn’t only stem from Juana speaking as a woman, but in her honesty of saying what was true to her thinking.
En Juana la Loca, los relaciones entre los generos estan desafiados por los esfuerzos de Juana, una mujer intrepida. Ella hace cosas muy arriesgadas, consideraron el periodo historico de esta pelicula. Pienso que ella esta un personaje interesante porque representa dos lados de feminidad. En un lado, ella es muy fuerta y confronta el infidelidad de su marido, da a luz por su cuenta, y no tiene miedo de decir lo que piensa. Al mismo tiempo, ella tambien representa los debilidades que frecuentemente estan asociados con los mujeres- particularmente debilidades sexuales. En un parte de la pelicula, aunque ella sabe que su marido sea infiel, ella tiene sexo con el a pesar de todo. Estos tipos de acciones son muchas veces considerados la “locura” de mujeres- por que hay una nocion que como mujeres, no podemos controlar nuestros hormonas, y todo nuestra estabilidad depiende en los hombres testarudos. Juana desafia este nocion con su valentía para desafiar a Felipe, y para hablar en contra de los estándares de los hombres en este tiempo.
It was really interesting to consider the ways in which the definition of “madness” may differ depending on the gender of the individual in question. When a woman is deeply infatuated with a man, she’s often labelled “crazy” by both men as well as by other women. While Juana’s devotion may have been extreme, I wonder if society would have given the same label to Felipe had the roles been reversed. On his death bed, Felipe apologizes to Juana for being unfaithful, implying that he sees with clarity now that Juana was always there for him, loving him unconditionally. Perhaps she wasn’t so “mad” after all. So why did Felipe disrespect Juana for such a large portion of their life together? Thinking back to our discussion of Don Juan Tenorio and the idea of male bravado and machismo, it’s clear that a societal fixation on hyper-masculinity also implies a perception of vulnerability and genuine affection towards a woman as weak and emasculating. By engaging in his various affairs, Felipe deliberately distances himself from Juana’s love and protects himself from succumbing to vulnerability. In Don Juan Tenorio, when Don Juan finally feels and expresses genuine love for a woman (Doña Inez), abandoning his life of engañas, he finds that he cannot escape his past, as no one truly believes that he has changed and, after killing Don Gonzalo and Don Louis, he leaves the country and Doña Inez dies. This moment in the play demonstrates how the effects of hyper-masculinity, and the behavior it demands, can became so pervasive, both in the life of an individual as well as in society, that they cannot simply just be switched off. Such an attitude has detrimental effects on both the males and females of a society and the generations to follow. For a woman like Juana, who is, as she states while holding a knife up to Felipe’s throat “mad with love”, she is affected by these very attitudes as it is conceptions of machismo that excuse male infidelity and insist that whole-hearted devotion to one woman is, in many ways, “mad.” This definition of madness, however, is more closely associated with words like “absurd” or “foolish”, while Juana’s madness is classified as legitimate form of psychosis as a means to completely disregard and invalidate her thoughts and feelings.
This week, I really enjoyed and thought I understood what was going on when we talked about “Juana la Loca”, and how it an example of it breaks its genre, the genre and themes of it’s time, and of the culture it was made in. We started by looking at “Bodas de Sangre”, and “Don Juan Tenorio”, in order to define the genre. We decided that on major theme revolved around men, and how they are the ones with power, and they are the ones making decisions, and being the center of focus. But while examining this theme, it became clear that in “Bodas de Sangre”, something else is going on too. “La Novia” actually seems to be the one making decisions and guiding along the plot. She is the one who decides not to marry “El Novio”, her desires and wishes are taken into consideration in this story, and she is the one making the plot changing decision. After realizing this, it became clear that the same was true for “Juana La Loca”. The plot focuses in on her feelings and her objections to her situation, she is not just a prop to be used by the male characters of the film. When Juana is married off to Filipe, it is clear that she does not wish to be seen as an object, and in many films and stories of this time that was unheard of. If a woman was unhappy with her plot in life, it was for the most part ignored and cast away as usual and not of relevance. But in this film, the whole storyline is based off of Juana, and her emotions and characteristics, even if she is portrayed as a madwoman.
This week we had really interesting discussions of gender and what it really means. In an attempt to understand this theme, we watched Juana la Loca and analyzed how it breaks societal expectations of gender. At the time it was filmed and even now it opposes what we understand to be the roles of women and the roles of men in the ‘metateatro’ of our society. These are our societal ‘scripts’. We also analyzed Don Juan Tenorio. This helped us understand what masculinity means and how it can be portrayed. This was really interesting because the image of what masculinity is still stands today. This hyper-masculinity is still expected of men in our society today. But in Juana La Loca, la novia and el novio have their roles reversed. It was really interesting for me to see this role reversal after having analyzed Juan Tenorio. I hope in the future in this class we can look at other examples that break gender stereotypes because they are still so prevalent and draining for us today.
Gender roles have always played a part in films relevant to romance where the woman usually goes mad due to some conflict in a relationship. This is shown in the film, “Juana la Loca”, by Aranda that embodies the theme of madness in relevance to sexuality. Juana desires Felipe as a person and sexually while he does not. Although he married to her, he only has a sexual desire which is why he cheats on Juana. The desire and need to understand why he cheated are what leads Juana to madness. There is inequality in the power they hold in the relationship. As a man, Felipe has more power where if he cheats, it affects Juana. Ultimately, Felipe realizes he has the most power in the relationship thus pushing him to accuse Juana of insanity. Aranda uses the camera to capture facial expressions and put them into a context of madness. Although her verbal actions want to convince the audience that Juana is crazy, she is not. However, for the most part, the film demonstrates the inequality of the genders where because Juana is a woman she is the one who had to go mad.