From Pombagiras to Bizet’s Carmen: Undoing Patriarchal (Mis)Representations of ‘Wicked Women’
Preprints.org June 10, 2026 preprint DOI: 10.20944/preprints202606.0836.v1 via OpenAlex
Summary
The essay argues that the Afro-Brazilian spirit Pombagira—a female enchantress associated with healing and sex, often cast as evil in patriarchal narratives—functions as a decolonial emblem that queers rigid binary categories of womanhood. Drawing on occulture and decolonial theory, the author shows how this figure appears in opera, musical theatre, and film, including Verdi's La forza del destino, Bizet's Carmen, and cinematic Lola characters. The analysis connects Gloria Anzaldúa's queer feminist spiritual mestizaje to Pombagira as an anti-patriarchal force, challenging Western gendered impositions and the epistemicide of Afro-Brazilian traditions.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The Pombagira episteme serves as an underlying emblem queering essential binary categories of womanhood across art and scholarship. |
Abstract
This essay discusses feminist ideas in connection to the occulture present in opera, musical theatre, and film, focusing on femme fatales, tricksters and ‘wicked women’ in a transcultural approach to religion, (Western) esotericism, and the performing arts. A culturally critic debate is facilitated here via the spiritual-scientific embodiment of Afro-Brazilian traditions, as seen through the figure of Pombagira — a Brazilian occultural creation of a female enchantress with mystical powers connected to healing and sex, often placed in patriarchal opposition to her male counterpart, Exu. Drawing on Christopher Partridge’s notions of occulture and Walter Mignolo’s understanding of decoloniality, the Western gendering imposed on Pombagira as a purveyor of Evil is discussed as both mythology and potential epistemicide. The thesis statement presented here is that the Pombagira episteme is an underlying emblem throughout art and scholarship invested in queering essential binary categories of womanhood, as seen in staged adaptations of Verdi’s La forza del destino (1862), Bizet’s Carmen (1875), and numerous cinematic Lola incarnations — Marlene Dietrich’s in Der blaue Engel (1930), Gwen Verdon’s in Damn Yankees (1958), Almodóvar’s in Todo sobre mi madre (1999). This indisciplinary reading connects Gloria Anzaldúa's queer feminist practice of spiritual mestizaje with the Pombagira as an occultural anti-patriarchal force.