As the protagonists in the
film, Iván
& Hadoum (2026), neither Iván nor Hadoum, who fall in love, are
heterosexuals even though by all appearances, save the long surgical scares
under Iván’s former breasts, the couple is a man and a woman, and indeed Iván
psychologically identifies himself as a man and Hadoum is a woman both biologically
and in how she sees herself. To claim that Hadoum is heterosexual simply because
Iván views himself as being a man, even though Hadoum is sexually attracted to
Iván’s vagina, would be utter ideological nonsense. Besides being gay or
bisexual, and thus easy targets for discrimination by agriculturalists in
southern Spain, the two people are of different national origins, for Iván was
born in Spain whereas Hadoum’s family hails from Morocco. Additionally, Iván is
Caucasian whereas Hadoum is an Arab, and Iván is Christian whereas Hadoum is
Islamic. Even in terms of labor-management relations, the couple is ripe for
division by other people, for Iván is on a management tract—the warehouse being
still owned by his uncle Manuel—whereas Hadoum is a greenhouse/warehouse worker,
and a disgruntled one at that. It would seem that Ian de la Rosa has written
and directed a film in which many ethical tropes are in play; which one is subject
to the most unethical harm goes unanswered. Even so, by including unethical
conduct on all of them, the film takes a step in the direction wherein
audiences can think philosophically in weighing the ethical harms
relative to each other.
Iván is a fork-lift driver in
the warehouse when the film begins, and Manuel promotes him to being a line
supervisor with an eye to possibly making him the warehouse manager. Iván wants
the position because he needs it in order to get a loan. Meanwhile, Hadoum
sorts vegetables on a line alongside other non-supervisory employees. Manuel’s
attitude and labor practices incur resentment, and even resistance, from the
line-employees, including Hadoum even after she has fallen in love with Iván. Perceiving
that the two are “thick as thieves,” Manuel becomes suspicious of Iván and even
uses him to manipulate Hadoum into stopping the workers from undermining Manuel’s
efforts to sell the warehouse to an interested buyer. Iván reluctantly agrees,
on condition that Manuel not fire Hadoum, but Manuel does not keep his side of
the bargain and Iván confronts Manuel in front of the buyer at the warehouse.
Hadoum, already fired by that point, learns of Iván’s valiant act in defense of
her and the trust requisite for genuine emotional intimacy is achieved in spite
of the efforts of other people to separate the pair.
Besides being on opposite
sides of a tense labor-management situation, Iván is a “female-to-male” transsexual
who has been taking estrogen and is breastless, though still a woman in having
retained the reproductive organs. Regardless, Hadoum and Iván have a lesbian sexual
relationship because both have vaginas, even if the denial ensuing from a
contemporary ideological agenda fights like hell against such a claim,
even labeling it as incorrect. Even though a person’s psychological
stance towards one’s gender need not be in sync with one’s genitalia, two
people who are sexually attracted to the other’s vagina are not heterosexuals. That
the homosexual relationship (or Iván being a transsexual) faces prejudice in
the film is evident when Iván’s mother says that that Hadoum’s parents would
never accept Iván. Also, Manuel’s son threatens Iván with violence if
Iván were “a real man.”
The film also contains
allusions to the fact that Hadoum’s family is Moroccan rather than European.
Again, Manuel’s son is an antagonist, referring to Hadoum’s family as “different,”
rather than one of us here in Spain. To be sure, Hadoum feels no emotional
attachment at least to the region, for she wants to move on even though she has
fallen for Iván by the end of the film. She is indeed a nomad, and in this
regard she may reflect the indigenous culture of her native land in Northern
Africa.
Over all, the most ethical
deed in the film is Iván’s standing up to Manuel for having fired Hadoum. Even
if the firing were justified, for she had deliberately removed the required cap
while the interested buyer was present with Manuel, Iván’s self-sacrificial act
out of love for Hadoum is laudable. Another worker informs Hadoum of Iván’s
unexpected heroic act, and Hadoum goes from only having fallen in love to
something even deeper.
As for the most unethical act
(or comment) by any of the many antagonists in the film, this question is much
more difficult to answer, and arguably the film does not go far enough in this
regard even though providing an answer as a fait accompli would be counter-productive
to fostering philosophical thinking in viewers during and after viewing. Of
course, the particular controversies—labor-management, nationality, sexual
orientation (which is tied to genital-attraction even if “gender”-“identity”
is not), and transsexuality—were in the West so steeped in ideology in the West
by 2026 that ideological hubris could also be expected to be triggered by the
film. So perhaps in addition to going a step further in providing some stepping
stones to comparative ethical analysis, Rosa could have included dialogue
wherein ideological prejudices or biases are made transparent so viewers could
exculpate them from thinking philosophically in assessing which unethical
statement is “worst” ethically speaking. A character, whether a protagonist or
antagonist, could be made to state an opinion and then insist that it is a
fact, and thus that anyone who disagrees is incorrect rather than just wrong. “How
arrogant! My opinion is just as valid as yours!” The spreading category
mistake wherein some ideologically-soaked opinions are misconstrued (and
misproclaimed) as fact could thus be taken on, head-on.
As for comparing the unethical,
prejudiced “slaps in the face” waged by antagonists in the film, one argument,
for example, could be in favor of the anti-transexual statements being the most
unethical. It could be argued, for example, that whereas nationality and union-sympathy
are de-personalized, Iván’s breast-removal operation and treatment of female hormone
is intensely personal as both pertain to Iván’s body. In other words, being said
not to be a whole man could hurt Iván more deeply than Manuel’s anti-labor
comments to Hadoum and other comments that she is a foreigner (which is only
vaguely hinted at in the film). Generalizing, even disparate unethical statements
can be compared along the axis of how deep the resulting emotional hurt is
felt. Perhaps a utilitarian argument would come to the opposite conclusion,
with aspersions against a nationality doing the most harm to the most people, even
if only as generalized to a population from comments made to one person such as
Hadoum. Manuel’s firing her could be found to be most unethical from Kant’s
principle wherein rational beings should be treated not just as means, but also
as ends in themselves. Manuel is far from treating his workers as ends in
themselves, which is why Iván is advised to remember as a line supervisor that
the workers on the line are human beings. At a well-managed workplace, such a
reminder would not be necessary. In short, different ethical theories or
principles can lead to different answers. So it is important that a filmmaker
not impose one, for that would be dogmatic in the sense of arbitrariness.
The objective should instead be to prompt audiences to think. To the
extent that ideology has tended to override rational thought in the world,
stimuli to rational, philosophical thinking are of particularly great value.
