You are here:

Salomé

Name: Salomé
Director: Carmelo Bene
Released: 1972
Duration: 80 min

Representation Score

5.3/10

Fair

1972

Director

Carmelo Bene

Runtime

80 minutes

Average Rating

No ratings yet

New Showbiz Analysis

Carmelo Bene’s Salomé is a radical deconstruction of sacred and gendered narratives. It succeeds by using postmodernism and camp to disrupt conventional storytelling, favoring sensory experience and identity fluidity over traditional moral frameworks. The film's strength lies in its sophisticated subversion of authority and gender. By treating gender as performative and religious dogma as something to be critiqued, it creates a progressive, deconstructive cinematic experience. However, the film is limited by a lack of racial diversity. The homogeneous European cast prevents the work from achieving true multi-layered breadth, despite its high marks in queer and cultural subversion.

Watch this, not that →

Category Breakdown

Does Salomé have LGBTQ+ representation?

Excellent

The film uses queer aesthetics and camp to challenge assumptions about straight relationships. It emphasizes gender ambiguity and androgyny, presenting identity as something that can change rather than a fixed trait.

How does Salomé portray gender?

Excellent

The film dismantles traditional gender roles through highly stylized, theatrical performances. It avoids clichés of submissive femininity, instead showing fluid power dynamics through a lens of decadence.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Salomé?

Minimal

The production features a predominantly white, European cast. While not traditional whitewashing, the homogeneous demographic lacks diversity and fails to represent different racial backgrounds.

How does Salomé represent religion and culture?

Excellent

The narrative offers a profound critique of organized religion by stripping sanctity from figures like John the Baptist. It replaces religious dogma with moral relativism and aestheticized transgression.

Does Salomé include disability representation?

Minimal

There is no significant evidence regarding the portrayal of visible or invisible disabilities. No characters are used as subjects of mockery or plot devices related to disability.

Present on Screen

Sophisticated use of queer aesthetics and androgyny to challenge assumptions about gender.
Effective dismantling of traditional gender roles and power dynamics.
Profound critique of Western religious institutions and moral dogma.

Limited or Absent

Lack of racial and ethnic diversity within the cast.
Homogeneous demographic presentation that lacks multi-layered breadth.

Official Synopsis

Salome is the daughter of the second wife of King Herod. The King is infatuated with her and, after she fails to seduce the prophet John The Baptist, she dances for the King in order to ask for his execution.

How are these scores produced? →