Maternal Melodrama, Domesticity and Female Liberation in Dekada ‘70

Authors

• Laurence Marvin S. Castillo, University of the Philippines Los BañosFollow

Abstract

The critically-acclaimed Dekada ‘70 represents one of the most prominent efforts in post-EDSA commercial cinema to narrate the experiences of revolutionary involvement in the context of the Martial Law era. The film is remarkable as an example of mainstream Philippine cinema’s mobilization of popular generic conventions to depict a politically charged narrative that touches upon the question of socio-political and personal liberation. In this essay, I revisit the film to examine how it deploys the subgenre of maternal melodrama in exploring gender and domestic relations as the springboard for the politico-subjective transformation of its middle-class protagonist under the violent milieu of the Marcos dictatorship. Given focus in my analysis is the constraining emplacement of maternal domesticity in the middle-class family home, a contested realm where the repressive workings of patriarchy and authoritarian rule are enacted and subverted.

Recommended Citation

Castillo, Laurence Marvin S. (2025) "Maternal Melodrama, Domesticity and Female Liberation in Dekada ‘70," Social Transformations Journal of the Global South: Vol. 14: Iss. 1, Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13185/2799-015X.1248
Available at: https://archium.ateneo.edu/socialtransformations/vol14/iss1/4