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“Una tercera lectura”: the cinematic reader and the cult of virility in Manuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña (1976)

In El beso de la mujer araña, Manuel Puig encourages a “tercera lectura,” informed by both cinema and literature. He creates a cinematic language reinforced by the spirit of “synthesis” and then incorporates a conceptual discourse which is beyond cinema because of the “límites de atención” of a “lector cinematográfico.” Puig expects readers to draw their own conclusions about the themes which emerge. I argue here that both the themes and aesthetic of the novel can be read as a challenge to the form and content of a literary and filmic “cult of virility.”