âShe could devour him if she wanted toâ: Hunger, Scopophilia, and Power in The Skin I Live In

Sarah D. Harris

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Chapter 4 âShe could devour him if she wanted toâ: Hunger, Scopophilia, and Power in The Skin I Live In

In: The Pathogenesis of Fear

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Sarah D. Harris

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 59â78

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004388093_006

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Abstract

For the first time in 2011, a film by international superstar director Pedro AlmodÃ³var premiered outside of his native Spain. This same film was also AlmodÃ³varâs first foray into the horror genre. Despite these unusual characteristics, The Skin I Live In (La piel que habito) simultaneously maintains a certain consistency with the directorâs broader oeuvre. In it, he continues to explore, for instance, themes of gender identity, complex families, and melodrama. In the 2011 film, however, there be monsters. One monster dwells and schemes in some classic monstrous spaces: a dark cave and a private laboratory/fortress, where he builds Vera, a cyborg-like character whose seams remind us of Frankensteinâs monster, and of some of Louise Bourgeoisâs sculptures. The mad and wealthy doctor who designs Vera also keeps vigilant watch over her, tinkering with her body and using a complex security system to gaze upon his masterpiece. The doctorâs vigilance introduces a visual play on power through images of hunger and mouths. Meanwhile, when another monster, less socially powerful but more physically adept, penetrates the fortress that the two main characters have shared, the power dynamic shifts drastically. Looking at Vera through a security camera, the intruder gushes, âIt smells good. Iâm hungryâ, and licks the screen. The real shift in power, though, comes when Vera looks back. This chapter draws on notions of the cyborg and the monstrous feminine by Laura Mulvey, Barbara Creed, and Donna Haraway to consider all three charactersâ monstrosity through the hungers that drive them and their slippery power dynamic.

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The Pathogenesis of Fear

Mapping the Margins of Monstrosity

Series:Â At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, Volume: 116

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004388093

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 28 Feb 2019

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Chapter 4 âShe could devour him if she wanted toâ: Hunger, Scopophilia, and Power in The Skin I Live In

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The Pathogenesis of Fear

Mapping the Margins of Monstrosity

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Chapter 4 âShe could devour him if she wanted toâ: Hunger, Scopophilia, and Power in The Skin I Live In