‘Life is Real’: sexual freedom and sex for pleasure in La vida ‘era’ en serio (Mónica Borda, 2011)

This working paper addresses Mónica Borda’s 2011 La vida ‘era’ en serio [Life ‘Was’ Real], one of the first contemporary Colombian films directed by a woman. The film brings to the fore how sexual freedom and sexual experiences can destroy a traditional feminine mask: that of the ideal, maternal, and sexually passive woman in patriarchy. Usually, this mask not only serves to hide the female sex drive, but also alludes to representations of heterosexual women who have sex exclusively within the sanctity of marriage. To investigate female sexuality and desire, Joan Rivière’s work on understanding womanliness as a masquerade will serve as a lens to analyse the selected film. The evaluation of heteronormative female behaviours within a (patriarchal) context reveals alternative ways in which women’s femininities are constituted, thereby challenging patriarchal expectations of womanhood. Accordingly, this working paper analyses how transgressive female desires trigger the redefinition of female subjectivity within patriarchy and the free expressions of sexual life through the representation of the film’s main female character. Ultimately, this work suggests how all this contributes to a nascent discourse of female visibility and ownership through early twenty-first century Colombian cinema.