Eva Amaral hace un Susana Estrada
Hoy en la Newsletter de nuestro podcast de español y música comentamos una noticia reciente sobre el dúo zaragozano Amaral.
Querid@ oyente… ¡He vuelto!
He estado impartiendo clases presenciales en Londres durante los últimos dos meses, y ahora puedo por fin continuar con la enseñanza online y, por supuesto, con mi podcast. Podrás escuchar nuevos episodios muy pronto. ¡Vengo cargado de nuevas ideas!
Ahora quiero contarte una noticia muy reciente. Continúo en inglés (ya sabes que en el podcast alterno el inglés y el español):
Earlier this month, Spanish singer Eva Amaral, member of the Amaral rock duo alongside Juan Aguirre, became news when she took off her top during her concert at Sonorama music festival. The duo were celebrating their 25th anniversary as one of Spain’s most successful pop-rock bands of this century. Amaral’s gesture was in protest for singer Rocío Sáiz having recently been made, by local authorities, to cover her breasts during an event on día del Orgullo (Pride day) in Murcia.
“Esto es por Rocío”, dijo Amaral, dirigiéndose a su público de Aranda de Duero (Burgos). “Porque no nos pueden arrebatar la dignidad de nuestra desnudez”.
Like everywhere else, in Spain we do like a bit of controversy; so no surprise that the news and social media were all over Amaral during the few following days. Also predictably, every Spaniard quickly developed our own ‘for’ or ‘against’ view on Amaral’s symbolic act. While some cynically saw it as a yet-another-attention-seeking-empty-gesture from a mainstream artist desperately trying to stay relevant, many others applauded it as a brave instance of freedom of expression in action, by someone who would have been only too aware of the backlash to come her way, and yet still decided to make her point, in courageous defence of women’s right to use their own bodies as they please.
Las diferentes reacciones de los españoles hacia el gesto de Amaral podrían resumirse en los siguientes emojis:
👍 👏 ✊ 🙄 🤦♀️ 🥱
¿Cuál es el tuyo?😁
This wasn’t, of course, the first time that a Spanish performer has claimed nudity as a way to express women’s right for self-expression, empowerment and control over their bodies. It happened in the mid-to-late 70’s, during the era known as la transición, and within a new cultural environment - dubbed el destape, the ‘uncovering’ -preoccupied with sexual liberty and higher permissiveness around nudity in films (if, for the most part, from a decisively male point of view).
La actriz y cantante Susana Estrada se convirtió en un símbolo de libertad sexual en esta nueva era de la historia reciente de España, tras cuatro largas décadas de dictadura franquista. Su canción-rap de 1981 Quítate el sostén (Take off your bra, musicalmente inspirada en el tema Rapture de la banda americana Blondie) dejaba bastante clara su posición al respecto.
De hecho, Estrada, hoy una veterana de 74 años, tampoco se ha callado su opinión sobre el semidesnudo de Eva Amaral: “Amaral (…) y el resto son de mantequilla… al horno. Reivindican batallas que fueron ganadas hace mucho tiempo”, declaraba hace unos días al periódico El Mundo.
Uy uy uy uy… Beef! Beef!!
🎧 Listen to the story of Quítate el sostén and its (rather explicit) lyrics in our episode 24:
👉 Click here to listen to other episodes from Qué Pasa Raúl on Spotify.
☕ Remember that you can support this podcast by buying me a virtual coffee. Your one-off donation will encourage me to keep creating many new episodes.
✨ You can also rate and follow the show on Spotify or whichever other platform you might listen from. Feel free to share this Newsletter with others who could be interested, too. Your support is highly appreciated.