Desiring Domestic Workers in "The Maid" and "The Desert Bride"

Abstract

This article analyzes the representation of feminine desires in two Southern Conefilms, The Maid (La nana, Sebastián Silva, Chile, 2009) and The Desert Bride (La novia del desierto, Valeria Pivato and Cecilia Atán, Argentina/Chile, 2017), that feature female protagonists who have worked as live-in domestic employees for the same families for over twenty years. Both films eschew traditional depictions of domestic workers as either servile or aggressive to instead present these women as desiring and desirable subjects, thereby questioning how desire and desirability are determined by dominant social norms of femininity predicated on privileges of age, class, and race. Following Rosi Braidotti’s work on nomadism, the article examines desire, as depicted in these films, as a fluid notion that emphasizes transformation and the process of becoming. Ultimately the desires that the protagonists experience in horizontal, affective relationships lead them to embrace newfound independence outside of employment.