Essay: What 'Kiss of the Spider Woman' can teach us about surviving fascism

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When “Kiss of the Spider Woman” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, it was in the shadow of President Trump’s return to office.Just days earlier, Trump had begun his term with a wave of executive orders to expand the country’s immigration detention infrastructure, fast-track deportations, remove protections preventing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials from targeting schools and churches, and a declaration that the U.S.government would recognize only two sexes.Referencing these developments ahead of the screening in Park City, Utah, writer-director Bill Condon told the audience: “That’s a sentiment I think you’ll see the movie has a different point of view on.”Released in theaters Oct.

10, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is set in the final year of Argentina’s Dirty War, the violent military dictatorship that spanned from 1976-1983.The story begins in the confines of a Buenos Aires prison, where newfound cellmates Valentin Arregui Paz (Diego Luna) and Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) find they have little in common.

Arregui is a principled revolutionary dedicated to his cause, while Molina is a gay, flamboyant window dresser who’s been arrested for public indecency.Undeterred by their differences, Molina punctuates the bleak existence of their imprisonment — one marked by torture and deprivation — by recounting the plot of “The Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a fictional Golden Age musical starring his favorite actress, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez), casting himself and Arregui as her co-stars.Transported from their dreary cell to the bright, indulgent universe of the musical, their main conflicts become a quest for love and honor, rather than a fight for their basic human rights.When Argentinian author Manuel Puig began writing the celebrated novel, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” in 1974, it was just a year into his self-imposed ex...