Over the years a number of movie musicals won Best Picture at the Oscars, and this season has a few contenders to continue that tradition, Wicked: For Good and Kiss of the Spider Woman. The latter is a book to screen adaptation of the novel of the same name, which was then made into an Award-winning stage musical. The movie tells a moving queer love story, and director Bill Condon and star Tonatiuh spoke to CinemaBlend about protagonist Molina’s identity in this particular version.
Kiss of the Spider Woman addresses people who hate musicals, while also telling a moving story about acceptance and queer love within an Argentine prison in the 1980s. The movie version heavily implied that Molina was in fact trans, and as you can see in the video above I asked the movie’s star and director about that characterization. Condon shared his take on the character’s identity, saying:
I would say almost proto-Trans because he didn’t, if we think of trans as an internal journey toward transitioning he’s not on that path. He would like to be, but doesn’t have the tools necessarily. But it’s because it’s in the novel, you know? That dialogue is lifted straight from the novel.
Indeed, the word “transgender” is never uttered during Kiss of the Spider Woman. Instead, Molina talks and sings about the wonders being a woman… especially in the song “She’s a Woman.” It’s heavily hinted that he might have identified as a trans woman… if that vocabulary was readily available in the setting of the film.
So while Kiss of the Spider Woman director Bill Condon was reticent to use the word trans to describe Molina, the way that the character self-identifies in the original book, and how that translates to modern sensibilities, is a big reason why he decided to make this film adaptation. As the Dreamgirls filmmaker continued:
That answered the question for me the question of like why? Why obviously doing a musical version was important. Doing another movie musical I love. But it really is being true to what Manuel Puig wrote 49 years ago and hasn’t yet been captured in any of these iterations.
As he mentions, the way Molina’s gender and sexual identity is addressed varies among the different adaptations of Kiss of the Spider Woman. And while audiences like me might see the character as transgender when seeing the movie with contemporary sensibilities, Bill Condon took dialogue directly from the original novel.
Of course, the actor portraying Molina obviously had his own opinions about this subject. I asked Tonatiuh about the idea that the movie’s protagonist is a trans woman, and he engaged in a thoughtful dialogue, telling me:
I feel like this is such a nuanced conversation. So I want to start with our 2025 vocabulary language, understanding of gender and sexuality is so much more apt. Which is a wonderful thing. So the conversations Bill and I had were how do we take our 2025 understanding of it also honor the 1980s Argentina lived experience at the same time?
On top of filming dance numbers with Jennifer Lopez, Tonatiuh clearly worked closely with Condon regarding Molina’s story in the new Kiss of the Spider Woman. Given the background behind this collaboration, it’s clear that the pair were expecting this type of discourse to accompany the movie’s release.
Later in our same conversation, the Vida actor explained his perspective on Molina’s identity in the movie musical. In his words:
I don’t believe that Molina has gender dysphoria or body dysmorphia. I think that they are very comfortable in their body. But they refuse to be belittled in a world that makes them feel wrong, right? So maybe in 2025 they would have identified as gender non-conforming, gender queer, or maybe possibly even trans. But at the time there I think they just wanted the opportunity to fall in love and to be respected.
Fair point. While the power of LGBTQ+ representation makes us see Molina through a 2025 lens, Tonatiuh couldn’t lean on that when filming Kiss of the Spider Woman. Instead he had to play a person who was fighting for love and dignity while imprisoned by an authoritarian government. Still, queer audiences will likely see a trans or genderqueer story
Kiss of the Spider Woman is in theaters now as part of the 2025 movie release list. There are some gorgeous performances, especially from JLo herself. Hopefully the movie musical gets its flowers come Awards Season.