Scrambled Thoughts on ‘Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!’ and the Intersection of Queer and Crip Theory

This week, I have been researching Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! for an NC-17 documentary I am working on. The film is by Pedro Almodovar, a prominent queer director who inadvertently helped create the NC-17 rating with this very film. What I find interesting about him and the film is there is not explicit queerness. The primary couple is straight and cisgendered. However, Almodovar questions the ethics of normativity through exploring BDSM and cultural obsession with sanism. The film follows a mental patient who escapes a mental hospital (Ricky, portrayed by Antonio Banderas) and kidnaps a former B-movie actress/porn star (Marina, portrayed by Victoria Abril). Eventually she develops stockholm syndrome and begins a sexual and romantic relationship with him. Clearly, this stirred up controversy as feminist critics feared that it romanticized abusive relationships. There is fair criticism of that aspect and I often question the ethics of Almodovar’s usage of questionable consent. That being said, there is still something worthwhile in how Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! questions the accepted rules of heterosexuality and ‘sanity’, in a way which clearly connects queer and crip theory.

There is never an explicit rape scene in the film. In fact, Ricky refuses to touch Marina until given express consent, with the film putting emphasis on his contrasting abuse and boundaries. He continues to tell her his express goal of having her fall in love with him, showcasing an emphasis on love over physical pleasure. She does not have sex with him until after he is physically beaten by a robber. It is once she sees vulnerability, she engages in his romantic attraction. They have sex, which emphasizes the emotions of the two rather than the physical attributes of the actors, again emphasizing love over physical pleasure. Then she declares her love, which is nearly saved by a friend but informs her of her new romantic attachment. The friend eventually gives in, providing a romantic opportunity and a new life for Ricky and Marina, showcasing the multiple opportunities of life for those considered insane.

This is all complicated, of course, by the questionable consent. Marina’s love sprouts from a captive situation, meaning the possibility of an enthusiastic consensual connection is impossible to determine. But perhaps this is what Almodovar means to make us question, not only in cinematic terms but in larger society. Why is it that the audience does not accept a loving relationship sprouting from questionable consent when a mentally ill person is the instigator versus with other dynamics. In an interview, Antonio Banderas points out that Beauty and the Beast has a similar textual usage of stockholm syndrome, but is still a film for children. The difference, he and Almodovar argue (in a filmed conversation as a DVD extra), is that Almodovar’s characters live outside the confines of heterosexuality. They discuss a previous film where Banderas played a gay man who commits murders, but the critics took no moral issue with the murders, only his sexuality. Then they made comparisons to Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!’s critical success, with Almodovar arguing that the hatred for it is a hatred for expression of true emotions rather than heterosexual expectations of love. With Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, Ricky’s mental illness is shown as more complicated than society wishes. He is capable of his own actions, but still sees the world in an unhealthy way. But it is once a mentally ill character tries to find love through that unhealthy action that the critical reaction turns moralistic. Again, Ricky and Marina’s relationship is problematic, though I would argue that is the point. But there are other uses of stockholm syndrome for a romantic plot which have not received the same ire. Again we must question why the film with the mentally disabled character is the one to receive moral criticism.