Assignment on Role of Troubled

Running head: ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’ IN MADAME SATA (2002)
ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’
IN MADAME SATA (2002)
Name of the student:
Name of the university:
Author Note:

1ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’ IN MADAME SATA (2002)
Introduction
Karim Aïnouz’s biopic Madame Sata present before us the story of an individual
whose gender identity neither masculinised nor feminised intersecting with his race and
religion. Through the life of Joao, Karim enacts the vision of gender and its role within the
context of Lapa town combining the ancestral African religious beliefs. The paper focuses on
the process of transformation from the perspective of a gender role reversal from Joao
Francisco to Madame Sata. The paper aims to discuss how a protagonist rebel against the
patriarchal norms using his body and religious beliefs to counter the male patriarchy
engraved within Brazilian society for ages.
Discussion
Joao has been raised in Lapa as an adult who is in Rio’s red-light district, a
community primarily marginalised in Brazil. It was a big dream for Joao to become a cabaret
dancer which explore his wildly creative personality (Butler 1988 p.520-521).
Gender: A religious perspective
The film shows in the first how Joao imitates femininity on mounting the stage in
Lapa performing mulatta that links to African religious heritage. He seeks pleasure getting
dressed into a mythical figure which makes him desire that both masculinity and femininity
go hand in hand. The aggressive masculinity, as well as sensual femininity, are
simultaneously portrayed in Joao without the manipulation of his six feet tall physique.
Religion plays a role in the identity of gender which can be seen through his performance.
Orishala, who is a manifestation of the Yemaya to play importance in his life who is a spirit
of motherhood and sea (Addy 2019).
Gender: A rebel against societal norms
In the first stage performance as the mulatta - Jamacy, he is costumed in a skirt
wearing makeup but the audience will be able to see his masculine facial features like bare
chest appearing slightly softened and feminised. His dance is not concerned with hiding his
masculinity to allow the feminism characteristics to emerge, somewhat he manipulated his
masculinity to bring out afro-feminism attributes besides the scripted mulatta which was
restricted in the hetero-patriarchal environment of Brazil society. In the movie, the
protagonist uses his body as a medium to create a space and having a world that allows him
to re-create other lives lead by another gender (Bezerra 2013 p. 79-83). He poses a threat to
the societal values by occupying a dual position- being a male turning the males into his

2ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’ IN MADAME SATA (2002)
victim while also being the female needing the male “hero” for physical affection. This raise
voices against male patriarchal values with a man gaining the power to refuse what he is
offered without getting his sexuality tested.
Gender: The choice of portraying two sexes
Joao when cross-dresses into Jamacy lose his violent nature but he becomes the João
Francisco dos Santos who guns down his offenders after wiping out his makeup. According
to Ainouz, Joao creates a figure in his performance which is no portrayal of a drag queen but
a mixture between man and feminine gender through African rituals (Addy 2019). The
director discovered too showed that he beside good in martial arts, cook, sew and do
laundering in brothels of Rio, where he also experimented sexually and discovered his
attraction to men. Joao as a violent and aggressive man on one side and performing as a
sensual Afro-Brazilian mulatta suggest gender fluidity in the movie. In the words of Simone
de Beauvoir "one is not born, but, rather, becomes a woman,” meaning gender is not a stable
identity instead it is an identity constituted in time through the evolutionary changes of the
body (Silva, 2014 p.73). Joao has become a revolutionary icon representing the community of
prostitutes, drug addicts and transgender black citizens who are considered an outcast to the
marginalized Brazilian society. The movie showcases a gay couple of a lower class society
with Joao romancing a guy who is a petty thief.
Gender: More than a body form
The body gestures and movements create the illusion of self which the society name
as the gender. Simone cites in her work “The Second Sex” that the female gender is not a
natural phenomenon but a periodical occurrence (Silva, 2014 p. 10-17). Through his drag
queen performances, he embodies the role of Madam Satan popularly named after a movie
character in which a woman disguises herself as a temptress to seduce and gain her husband
back. The body is a set of possibilities that often appears to be societal perception bounded by
its inner biological limits. The gender as an identity in the movie is not constituted in social
code of conduct disguising the interior self which is masculine as per public regulations. The
gender act as a symbol in society, but Joao performs portrayal of gender wrong with no fear
of getting punished. Joao neither wish for feminism nor want to hide his masculinity.
Gender: Creating one’s own identity
The presentation of body form in the film is not just a mere portrayal of a character
preferably a catalyst of energy triggering internal passions and desires. The movie

3ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’ IN MADAME SATA (2002)
romanticised the image of the malandro and homosexuality (Santos and Issa 2017). Madame
Sata reaches to us the message of constructing one’s own identity. It shows Joao loved to
choose professions belonging to the female universe being a male. The body as the main
subject performs hybrid function here creating a link between other bodies. The political
forces and religious beliefs of Brazil shape the sex of an individual with the values of keeping
the body subjected to the pre-determined societal construct of gender. The movie gives the
morale that the gender through his natural and fantasised body form although restricted by
discrimination and nuances, but build itself an instrument to project its true cultural nature.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Madame Sata does not portray Joao in the form of a feminine soul
trapped in a man’s body but presents the male protagonist as a subject whose masculinity is
not questioned. He refuses any labels attached with gender thus playing with different
identities not connected to his biological body. Sometimes he cares for her daughter like a
mother, loves his boyfriend like a husband, fights like an avenger on streets, and sometimes
he becomes the sensual dancer in the clubs. Finally, it tells how gender is not defined as per
body, nature, or language.

4ROLE OF TROUBLED ‘GENDER’ IN MADAME SATA (2002)
References
Addy, S. and Mongor-Lizarrabengoa, D., 2019. Gender Fluidity and Yoruba Religion in the
Construction of an Afro-Brazilian Identity: Karim Aïnouz's Madame Satã. Middle Atlantic
Review of Latin American Studies, 3(1).
Bezerra, J., 2013. The Body As Cogito: A Certain Contemporary Film In The Light of
Merleau-Ponty. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 3(1), pp.75-92.
Butler, J. (1988) ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology
and Feminist Theory’, Theatre Journal, Vol. 40, No. 4 (Dec.), p. 519-531.
Santos, M.S.D. and Issa, Y., 2017. Madame Satã and the jails of Ilha Grande: an analysis of
gender constructs and sexuality in the prison system. Vibrant: Virtual Brazilian
Anthropology, 14(2).
Silva, A. M. da, 2014. ‘Introduction’ The "Femme" Fatale in Brazilian Cinema Challenging
Hollywood Norms, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p. 1-19.
Silva, A. M. da, 2014. ‘The Femme" Fatale’s “Troubled” Gender in Madame Satã, The
"Femme" Fatale in Brazilian Cinema Challenging Hollywood Norms, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan, p. 73