Why is it important to watch ‘Intimacy’, the new Netflix series?

Below are spoilers for the series ‘Intimacy’.

Malen (Itziar Ituno) is a candidate for mayor of Bilbao with a promising future. Anne (Veronica Echegui) has a quiet life and a stable job in a factory. They have nothing in common until a sexual video of each, recorded without her consent, becomes public and spreads like wildfire in the media in the case of the first, or between groups of WhatsApp of companions in the second.

They are two very different personalities, although they have a lot to do from a gender perspective. If Malen and Ane were men, the video would be somewhat anecdotal, perhaps a little annoying, but it would still be an event that would close in a few weeks. Their lives would return to their respective channels. However, everything changes in the series ‘Intimacy’, because its characters are two women. The lives of both fall apart when that private moment becomes public. Malen’s will make a turnaround that will not leave her family or her job position the same. Unfortunately, Ane will decide to end hers.

The latest series to arrive on Netlix starts off strong: with the discovery of a body and the leaking of the political video. Parallel stories that at the end of the first episode the link between the two is discovered: an attack on private life and the criminalization of two victims.

The series created by Laura Sarmiento Y veronica fernandez does not enter to judge its characters, except for those who have to be punished for the crime of disclosure that is denounced at the beginning. The resolution of the case goes into the background, the social complaint that is launched from this fiction is what prevails.

The characters, played with a sublime cast led by Ituño and Echegui, represent the fronts that are faced in these cases.

Malen symbolizes resilience, the person who stands up and refuses the injustice that is being imposed on him. He will go ahead, continue his political career (despite the fact that he is not amused by his party). He is not going to allow that intrusion into his privacy to end everything. Alicia (Anne Wagener), the inspector in charge of investigating the case and Begoña (Patricia Lopez Arnaiz), Ane’s sister, are justice, those who fight against the system and submerge themselves in the quagmire of patriarchy to extract some clue and be able to bring the guilty to the bench. Ane embodies surrender, submission to the established ideas of our society, the one that ends these debates with phrases such as “well, not having recorded you”, “having been careful with what you were doing”, etc. Because her superiors think they are powerful when they receive that photo of her and that video, they call her a “slut” and even want to harm her colleagues, who find themselves -like her- before the abyss of an ERE. Malen goes through the same thing, that after the broadcast of her video, her enemies use it as a sign that she is not trustworthy. All because in her political plan is to look closely at the great fortunes of her city.

As it is said in the series, what has happened to the girl is not a suicide, but a social murder. The framework of legality and psychological support is there, but sometimes, you know, it is not necessary.

‘Intimacy’ goes beyond the mere entertainment that the mystery of the series can offer. It is a message to the public, especially to those who consider themselves the new victims because their behavior is judged. Those who define themselves as feminists because they have daughters, who conceive of women as the most beautiful thing that God has created. Or those who think that intimate photos and videos shared on their mobiles are not such a big deal. They come out immune. They, as will be revealed throughout the plot, will suffer or suffered some abuse of power.

Who are the culprits? That is the least. The abuse of power is rampant, regardless of social status. The important thing is that the series reaches those who really have to see it.