In the age of technology, the fine line that separates intimacy from the public sphere is getting thinner. Networks make life easier, but they also make us more exposed to leaks of private images, as shown ‘Privacy’, the new spanish series Netflixreleased on the platform on Friday, June 10, and which has been propelled to number 1 of the most viewed on the platform as a result of the Santi Millán scandal.
The fiction poses an interesting and necessary reflection on the subject (and on sexism, sisterhood and female empowerment) through the story of several women who see how their existence turns upside down when they spread sexual videos of you without your consent. Their careers will be affected and their families will be collateral victims.
One of the successes of ‘Intimacy’ (and it has several) is to make it clear to us from the beginning that anyone can suffer a situation similar to that of the protagonists. Because one of those affected is a public figure, a politician with a promising career (Malen, played by the actress from ‘La casa de papel’ Itziar Ituno), but another is Ane (Veronica Echegui), employee of a factory. The violation of privacy is thus suffered by various characters in different ways, and they deal with the case in very different ways.
“It’s not just the big scandal. Sometimes it also happens in a more common relationship. You have to see how what you show, what you don’t show or what people may know about you affects you,” he explains. Laura Sarmiento (‘Matadero’, ‘La zona’), creator of the series together with veronica fernandez (‘Hache’, ‘Charon’). Both were looking for “a story of women facing difficulties together despite their differences” when developing ‘Intimacy’.
guilt and shame
guilt and shame They hover over the protagonists since their videos are broadcast. And those feelings, as the fiction shows, “can lead you to inaction or to judge yourself worse than the person who has hurt you,” stresses Sarmiento, who does not consider ‘Intimacy’ “a feminist manifesto”, although he is written from a female perspective and “from the idea of equal rights”.
Because, as the protagonist, Itziar Ituño, recalls, “attacks on privacy on women’s networks are much more bloody. And who else, who least of us has ever suffered them.” The data supports it. According to the latest figures from the Ministry of the Interior for 2019, 86% of victims of sexual harassment due to cybercrime are women.
Other powerful characters of ‘Intimacy’ interpret them Patricia Lopez Arnaiz, Anne Wager, Emma Suarez Y Yune Nogueiras. The first, as Ane’s sister, who ends up committing suicide as a result of her video being leaked. “My role is based a bit on real experiences. The issue of guilt is something that appears a lot in the relatives of people who have committed suicide,” recalls the actress, for whom the most interesting thing about this series “is not pointing to the uncle who has started all this, but that the rest of us see how we participate and generate that violence from our small trials. Not clicking when the video arrives can change things a lot”.
The role of Bilbao
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Wagener, meanwhile, plays a police officer who deals with cases of violation of privacy; Suárez is Mamen’s mentor, and Nogueiras, the teenage daughter of the leading politician, who aspires to the mayor’s office in Bilbaoa city that becomes omnipresent in the series, where some dialogues in Basque.
“Bilbao is the perfect size for a story that talks about the spread of a rumour. Because it is a cosmopolitan city, at the forefront. But at the same time it allows a character to feel more confined by the rumors than in a huge city, where it is easier to go unnoticed”, justifies the creator and screenwriter.