By Jada Yuan
Jennifer Lopez has spoken out in support of trans and non-binary people at a screening of her latest film at the Sundance Film Festival, just weeks after US President Donald Trump decreed in his inauguration address that there are now “only two genders” under official US government policy.
Lopez, who stars in Kiss of the Spider Woman, got two standing ovations at the post-screening Q&A at Sundance, a festival where movies rarely receive them.
Jennifer Lopez with her Kiss of the Spider Woman director Bill Condon, right, and co-star Tonatiuh at Sundance.Credit: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP
“I think the thing about the movie that I love the most is that it tells … the importance of love and just seeing each other as human beings and how love can shorten the gap of any divide between people,” Lopez said. “We could just look at each other as individuals, as people, as human beings, and not worry about who you like, who you don’t like, what your political beliefs are. It doesn’t matter.”
As he introduced the film, the second screen adaptation of Manuel Puig’s 1976 novel (this one is also adapted from the musical, first staged in 1992), director Bill Condon read from Trump’s inaugural address.
“‘As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female’,” Condon read, adding: “That’s a sentiment, I think you’ll see, that the movie has a different point of view on.”
Lopez had previously discussed her “nibling” (a gender-neutral term for “niece” and “nephew”) Brendon, who is transgender, while sharing a short film made in collaboration with the Trevor Project based on Brendon’s coming out story in 2020. “It’s a story that’s very close to my heart, because it was a family affair,” she said in an Instagram video at the time.
William Hurt won an Oscar for his performance in the 1985 film.
Despite sharing a Latin trans narrative, Kiss of the Spider Woman is nothing like Emilia Pérez, which has amassed 13 Oscar nominations and much criticism. It is in English and, strangely, both more flashy and more subtle in its messaging.
William Hurt won an Oscar for best actor in the 1985 version of the story, playing “a homosexual window dresser”, as a Washington Post article described the character at the time.
A rather jarring mashup between a grim prison drama and a big, Bob Fosse-style extravaganza, it is at its core a love story between two men – one a proud fem queer (mononymous newcomer Tonatiuh as Luis Molina) and the other identifying as straight (Diego Luna as Valentin Arregui) – who find protection, safety and intimacy with one another as political prisoners and cellmates during Brazil’s brutal military dictatorship.
Lopez’s character exists only in the prisoners’ imaginations, belting and dancing her heart out and wearing fabulous costumes in big, Technicolor set pieces (the role was played by Sonia Braga in the 1985 film) as the prisoners try to escape their brutal reality through Molina’s retelling of his favourite movie. Like the diva Molina worships, Lopez plays three roles: film star Ingrid Luna, the film character Aurora, and the Spider Woman with a deadly kiss.
Donald Trump and Jennifer Lopez have very different views on gender.
Lopez has 11 musical numbers in which she flies across the stage in highly choreographed routines that Condon often shot as a single take. Condon was looking for, he said, “a true diva”, and cast the 55-year-old singer and actor after hearing rumours she wanted to do a traditional musical.
During the Sundance Q&A, Lopez teared up when festival director Eugene Hernandez told her she was made for this part.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life,” she said. “The reason I even wanted to be in this business was because my mom would sit me in front of the TV to watch West Side Story every year on Thanksgiving. I was just mesmerised, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do’. And that was always my goal. And this is the first time I actually got to do it.”
Washington Post