Reviews: Cable Girls (Las Chicas del Cable)

Language: Spanish (Spanish dialect)

Type: Period Drama

Plot:

Fate brings four girls, with different backgrounds together as an instance of luck turns into a tumultuous yet strong friendship.

The show is also about a feminist dystopia that details the struggle of Spanish women in the early years of the 20th century, while exploring other themes including: sexuality, morality, psychology and star crossed lovers.

Why this show?

This show is set in the 1920s, back when our current ongoing state of patriarchy was far more disparaging toward women. In fact, the laws in Spain were men made and men serving. Women had no right to divorce, to ask for the custody of their children if marriage annulment was obtained, their wage gap equaled half men’s salaries and they weren’t able to extract money from banks without their husbands’ written and signed consent. And the list goes on and on…

Perhaps, researching  the term « Herstory » would be necessary in order to understand the true depth of this show. It sets focus on women whose merits get cut short solely for the sake of being women.

This is particularly discussed on the second season as Lidia’s character rises to power yet lingers in the background, overshadowed by her male coworker who gets the praise for presenting the work she actually accomplished.

It also answers the question I, myself, have thought about as a child « Why are most inventors and creators men and not women? »

Why is Einstein universally acclaimed but not his first wife Mileva, who was equally genius and one of the greatest scientific minds of her generation? To make it worse, she remains practically unknown and uncredited for both her intellectual abilitities in the scientific field and her collaborative work with Einstein, that ended up cheating on her and remarrying later.

There’s also Mary Shelley, the author of the infamous Frankenstein. To this day, her memory still suffers from the unwarranted insistence of skeptics who question her authorship of the book, mainly because her husband, Percy Shelly, was a famous writer and poet himself.

Speaking of the second season, we will get to see a scene straight out of a Susan Glaspell’s « Trifles » (shout out to Miss Aycha!) which combines both my serial killer inclination and my inner feminism together, and that probably unleashed a debate over violence and justice, somewhere.

That’s it, I shall spoil no more.

That being said, I’m not here to carry out a feminist agenda nor to use revolutionary subliminal manipulation techniques so let’s move on to a different point.

Beyond the boundaries and limitations set by the canons of decades-long oppression, and silent obedience come the other aspects of « Cable Girls ».

Each episode is followed or initiated with a morality and is centered around an emotion or a concept including loneliness, fear, love, death, luck, vengeance, regret etc..

Besides that, it also focuses on several other taboo subjects and issues Spain dealt with in that period of time, such as the unconventional treatment (more like « torture methods »)  of what was deemed as « behavioral deviancy » and the characters’ concerted efforts to change those practices.  To put it in simpler wording, « the queer community suffered a lot. »

It is, as well, a tale of friendship with an interesting character arc. For example, we will witness the switch of Carlos’s character from a nonchalant and irresponsible guy squandering his family’s wealth to a far more mature yet damaged person.Or Angeles who will upgrade from her initial downtrodden and submissive state to an independent self-sufficient woman who’s brave enough to regain control over her life on her own.

Finally, and to prove there are exceptions to every rule, Carlos & Miguel’s characters were feminists themselves, especially Miguel, whose tolerance, open mindedness and respect for women proved that not all men back then were inherently « bad », and that their actions weren’t necessarily the product of social constructions enforced on them they had to abide by but rather their own free will and chauvinism.

Favorite Character:
Francisco is every woman’s  dream guy, basically. (And I’m not just talking about his physical looks) (or am I?) (I’m not, but I should)
In this extremely volatile love triangle, I feel like he wasn’t given his due for all the sacrifices he’s made -and he possibly never will.
Imagine running away with the love of your life, losing them that same day then discovering they fell in love with your best friend around the time you reunite with them again, 10 years later.

Although, I’m not particularly bitter about Carlos’s character (the other end of the love triangle) I still feel like Francisco deserves Lidia. He’s the embodiment and the prime example of unconditional love and selflessness. His inner struggle to do the right thing by his loved ones incessantly pushes him to repress his own desires and longings by constantly prioritizing theirs over his, hence adjusting his own life around those he cares about -not the other way around.

What I didn’t like about this show:

Though no major event was left unexplained, some details were ignored or left to interpretation, creating a minor plot hole in the storyline that could’ve been easily avoided.
Something else I felt the need to comment about was the choice of music. Contemporary American pop music shouldn’t be the kind of music used on a historical Spanish drama. It even makes you uncomfortable and slightly out of place, at times.

Lastly, though I love me some Francisco, his character was way too sugarcoated and unrealistically painted. No one can possibly -nor should- be that loving and self sacrificial. It even gets annoying at times.

Critics:

Rotten Tomatoes: 90%

IMDb: 7.8/10

Common Sense Media: 4/5