Explore the representation of Gender in Pan’s Labyrinth [20]

The representation of gender in the opening of del Toro’s ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ sets up female stereotypes of women being weak so that the film can break down these stereotypes later on in the film. For example, Ofelia’s mum (Carmen), is heavily pregnant with Ofelia’s brother, and she is experiencing severe pregnancy issues. This causes Carmen to need help and all the people who come to help her are men suggesting that women need help from men to the audience, therefore representing women as weaker than men. This then changes as the film progresses with characters like Mercedes whose performance shows that she can stand up for herself, specifically against Vidal, an evil fascist character who believes himself to be better than everyone else. Vidal being fascist links to the fact that the film was set shortly after the Spanish civil war, Vidal is often associated with blue lighting because it has connotations of coldness like his character. Vidal explicitly says that he doesn’t need help when he has captured Mercedes because she is a woman, but she approves him wrong. Her performance shows that women are not weaker than men (Mercedes escapes from Vidal), and therefore the gender stereotypes that were built at the beginning of the film with Carmen have now been broken down.

The stereotypes also get broken down by the girl and the protagonist Ofelia, who also defies the stereotypes of her age (she is a child). Throughout the movie she shows courage. For example, during the paleman sequence the parallel action of Ofelia and the timer counting down the time that she has left before she is trapped causes tension in the audience. As does the action reaction shots of Ofelia and the paleman running after her. The audience is scared for her and therefore it is a dangerous situation in which Ofelia shows much bravery as she doesn’t choose to overpower the paleman with her new dagger. The audience is shown that the paleman is scary but weak through his appearance which is very skinny, and through this the audience learns that Ofelia could over power him, especially with her sharp and dangerous dagger, the sharpness is empathised by the non-diegetic and heavily exaggerated noise attached to it when Ofelia runs her finger along the side. But Ofelia runs, showing her bravery, which is a good representation of women contrasting to the initial stereotypes that were set up. She also shows the ability to make up her own mind and not be passive, this links to the theme of disobedience and obeying and how disobeying is what makes Ofelia succeed in her final task; this links to political context and how del Toro is saying that it’s important not to obey dangerous leaders like Vidal, and how people shouldn’t react passively to fascism. It’s also a way of representing how children are the future and will help fix the long-lasting effects that the Spanish Civil war had on Spain. Ofelia making her own decisions is a good representation of women as it shows them as independent and non-passive. It also links to the bildungsroman genre and how Ofelia is growing up and she is developing ideas, opinions and ideologies to live by. This is all represented by the fact that before the paleman task, in the book that the faun gave Ofelia, she can be seen using her left hand (symbolising left-wing politics contrasting to Vidal who favours his right hand symbolising right-wing politics and his fascism) covering the middle key hole. Ofelia, when faced with the key holes, uses her left hand linking her to left wing politics but instinctively opens the left lock despite the book and the fairies telling her to open the middle one. This shows her good disobedience, how she isn’t passive and follows the correct political path (left lock represents left wing and not fascism). Linking this back to gender, the film is representing women as non-passive with strong ideological opinions.

The presentation of men includes the criticism toxic masculinity which is shown in the opening of the film with the metonym of Vidal’s watch which was given to him by his father. The very first time we see Vidal his performance shows his leader like attributes such as punctuality, the first thing we hear him say is “15 minutes late”. This has links to him being a captain during the time shortly after the Spanish Civil War which the film was set shortly after, therefore representing men as authority figures. He’s shown holding his watch which has a foley ticking sound that is also sound bridged to emphasise its meaning to the audience which is that it is a metonym for Vidal. This means that the prop of the watch represents Vidal as a person. For example, the watch has a broken face meaning that Vidal is an emotionally broken man. This is probably because of his father and how he passed down toxic masculinity to him. This does not excuse the horrific things that Vidal’s character did, but it does possibly suggest one of the reasons as to why Vidal was the way that he was. The story behind the watch is that Vidal’s father smashed the watch at the time that he died so that Vidal would know the exact time that he died, this presents the toxic idea of “dying like a man”. Throughout the film Vidal frequently glances down at his watch such as when he is about to die, shown through a close up, which reminds him of the toxic masculinity that his father passed down to him; as an audience, we can assume that wasn’t the only toxic masculinity related idea that was given to Vidal through his father. The ending of the film puts an end to this toxic masculinity because Mercedes tells Vidal before he dies that his new born son won’t even know his name, instead of telling him the time that his father died like Vidal wanted her to. This representation of age links to the representation of age with Ofelia because it also shows that children are key to the future, del Toro might be trying to say that during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War the children will help to make things right again. This is also links to the presentation of war and children, and how del Toro often used the theme of how war effects children in his films such as in ‘The Devils Backbone’ which he describes as the sister film to Pan’s Labyrinth.