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Chapter 2
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Kiss of the Spider Woman, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Gender and Sexuality
Escapism
Surveillance and Trust
Ambiguity, Interpretation, and Truth
Summary
Analysis
Molina begins to describe the next film, which takes place in Nazi-occupied Paris. A beautiful French singer (Leni) and a blond German soldier fall in love. Molina describes their beauty at length, but he avoids talking about the singer’s introductory song, which scares him because her expression as she sings is one of surrender. The soldier sends Leni flowers from the German Alps.
Like the film about the panther woman, this movie features a glamorous leading lady in a troubled love story. Instead of a magical transformation complicating the heroine’s romance, Leni’s love story must navigate politics. Meanwhile, Molina’s avoidance of a moment he dislikes in the film highlights that version of the story is not the most objective portrayal of the characters or events.
Active
Themes
Leni’s friend, another showgirl in love with a German man, is run over by a car driven by two men, one with a clubfoot and the other with crossed eyes. The police question Leni, and afterward the soldier takes her out to dinner as an apology. The soldier promises Leni the German invasion will only help France. They return to his entirely white apartment and listen to German music. Leni is moved by the music and by the soldier’s emotional response to it.
The portrayal of the Nazi invasion of France as a noble cause makes clear that this movie is Nazi propaganda. This is also reflected the fact that the two villains in the car have physical disabilities: a clubfoot and crossed eyes. The Nazis targeted disabled people in their regime of violence, declaring them unworthy of life, and the movie’s depiction of its villains as disabled demonizes disability and implies that disabled people are inherently threatening.
Active
Themes
Valentin interrupts the story to ask why Molina is so invested in an obvious piece of Nazi propaganda, and Molina is so offended he starts to cry. He insists he loves the film because it is a work of art. Molina admits that he misses his friend, a waiter, and wishes he could be talking to him about these movies instead of Valentin. Molina is in love with this waiter, but the waiter is married and has never visited Molina in prison. Valentin tries to understand homosexuality better, and a long footnote interjects to explain that there are three main theories about the cause of homosexuality––hormone imbalance, intersexuality or hermaphroditism, and genetics––and that all three have been disproven.
Active
Themes
Molina refuses to share the waiter’s name, but he recounts meeting him with two other “queens” in the restaurant where the waiter works. Molina tells this story in the third person, referring to himself as a woman. He describes falling in love with the waiter’s elegant masculinity. When Valentin argues with Molina’s definition of masculinity, Molina asks what Valentin considers manhood. Valentin replies that masculinity means not being degraded or degrading anyone else. Molina continues to recount visiting the waiter’s restaurant for weeks until the waiter overcame his discomfort with Molina being gay. Valentin assumes the two had an affair, but Molina insists they were only friends, though he did confess his love to the waiter.
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As the waiter and Molina become friends, the waiter reveals his financial hardships, and Molina wants to help him. The waiter, though, doesn’t want Molina’s help, and Molina loses hope of inviting the waiter to leave his wife and move in with Molina and his mother. Valentin argues that working as a waiter is not inherently humiliating, and the waiter should just join the union movement. Valentin and Molina begin to fall asleep, and Molina accidentally reveals the waiter’s name is Gabriel.
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Themes
