Who Is the Spider Woman?

Abstract

Much has been said about the various types of discourse in the Argentinian Manuel Puig's novel, El beso de la mujer araha. In particular, critics have commented on how Puig, influenced by his love of 1940s Hollywood movies, introduces them through one of his main characters, Molina, and how they become recreated as they are retold, first by him, then by his friend Valentin, who joins in with comments and interpretations.' When the book was made into a movie, Kiss of the Spider Woman, by the Argentinian director Hector Babenco, and opened in the U.S. in the summer of 1985, the critical acclaim was almost universal. William Hurt eventually won the Academy Award for best actor, and the Academy was praised for recognizing a film on the subject of homosexuality. Manuel Puig himself was categorical: I hated the film, he said in a Boston Globe interview. Ironically, and apparently in a manner not to his taste, the work had come full circle: 1940s film discourse (the movies Puig saw growing up in Argentina), written discourse (the novel Puig wrote), 1980s film discourse (the movie Babenco made). But something had happened on the way: just as Molina had changed and edited the 1940s movies he had seen, so did Babenco change and edit Puig's 1976 text. Vincent Canby and others have discussed the trend to internationalization in movies.