You can now see 'Susana and sex', the documentary about the nude that changed Spain

Rtve Play

If you ask us about the most famous public figures in Spain, now we think of Rosalía, Rafael Nadal, Belén Esteban or Penélope Cruz, perhaps. But, at the end of the 70s, one name crowned the podium of popularity: Susana Estrada. An adored character but highly criticized at the same time, because it represented a transgression unthinkable until now. At the end of 1976, she dared with the first female full nude on stage, a striptease that turned her overnight into the most distinguished person in the country and that, for the first time, can be seen on the small screen.

Susana and sex, the first original documentary on RTVE Play, recovers this historical image and explores the woman who dared to star in it in a Spain where such transgressions were still severely punished, a pioneer of nudes that They are still censored on networks like Instagram. A woman who became an icon of women's sexual liberation who was ahead of her time and, with a gesture, changed it.

“I was light years away from what was happening in this Spanish society,” she says in the documentary, where she takes the lead and various experts help reconstruct the context of her fascinating story. "I saw that the change was going to take place and I said here you have to do things well and be the first."

Susana Estrada, the pioneer of uncovering

The show in which Susana Estrada took off her clothes was performed in Madrid and was called Historias de Strip-Tease. Susana's nude only lasted a few minutes in more than an hour of show, but her expectation to see her was maximum. Buses were chartered that filled their three daily functions on weekends day in and day out. What had not been seen after almost 40 years of Franco's repression was a great success. And it brought with it a tremendous scandal.

Susana Estrada became the most in-demand media figure of the moment. Spain was beginning to uncover itself and La Estrada shamelessly championed the movement. Erotic reviews and movies arrived, to which other actresses would join, in what was called the uncover cinema. Although she, realizing the enormous economic potential of her shows, made very little cinema, it always remained in the hands of men. He preferred to manage his own career from the theater.

Forerunner of sex clinics

The actress wasn't just a pretty body. Somehow, perhaps as a result of that fame, Susana began to write in some of those magazines about sexuality and became a pioneer in sexology clinics in a country where sexual education did not exist. She was a staunch defender of a free, healthy and empowered sexuality, especially for women. “Women also have the right to enjoy their sexuality without being questioned,” it said.

His basic answers about sexuality, which today would seem almost childish to us, were seen by some reactionary, political and judicial sectors as an offense. The actress defended freedom in sex, as well as women's rights. She was convicted of the crime of public scandal 14 times and would lose the right to vote, her passport, and her right to continue writing. Something that he did not recover until the mid-80s.

A lively debate today

Susana Estrada also generated rejection within the feminist movement itself, which was then beginning in Spain to raise its voice strongly in defense of women's rights and freedoms. They considered that the uncovering was incompatible and even detrimental to women's liberation and their political demands. What Susana was doing was, for feminists, a commodification of the female body at the service of male pleasure. To this day, the controversy continues with the censorship of the female breast on social networks.

And now that many singers like Naty Peluso, Bad Gyal, La Zowie or Sara Socas sing and claim in their lyrics an empowered and free female sexuality, Susana Estrada also dared to break with the prevailing music and sing to the most explicit sex, without ambiguity. And she did it in the early 80s, ten years before Madonna broke the mold with her Sex. The main theme of the documentary is a version of Susana's most popular song, "Gózame ya", which is performed by Chica Surprise, one of the most promising voices in independent music today.

A documentary full of historical images

History has remained the mythical photo where, with a bare chest, she received the award in 1978 for the most popular person of the year and that so well condenses a story of break with moral conventions. In addition, it is the first time that it is possible to access the historical images of the first full nude of him during the show that ignited the Spain of the Transition.

Susana and sex is the first original content produced by RTVE Play, directed by César Vallejo (We are, La 2 noticias), with a script by Valeria Vegas (Veneno), Ángela Gallardo and César Vallejo, directed by Rodrigo J Simón and production by Diego Díaz Cano. With the help of the RTVE Archive and original interviews, and with the participation of Susana Estrada herself, she reviews in first person the experiences of an artist as unconventional and necessary as her, and places them in the context of a time full of political transformations. and social as was the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s in Spain.

Experts and artists explain the phenomenon Susana Estrada

In addition to Susana Estrada herself, the documentary features the participation of Gracia Trujillo (Sociologist and LGTBI activist), Natalia Ardanaz (Historian and expert in cinema ), Federico Jiménez Losantos (Journalist), Fernando Castedo (Lawyer and Former Director of RTVE), Marisa Florez (Photojournalist), Celia Blanco (Journalist), Lucia Avilés (Magistra), Mauro Canut (Composer and music expert), Pepe Álvarez (Actor ), Sara Martínez (Psychologist), María Ángeles Durán (CSIC Researcher) and Carmen Sáez Buenaventura (Psychiatrist). You already have it available on RTVE Play.