Without notices and without reading anything about it. So you can get to the series ‘Self defense’nominated for Best Writing for a Series and Best Comedy Series at the Feroz Awards, after her writing and acting co-creators, Berta Prieto and Belén Barenyshave delivered to the public two parts of five chapters each available for viewing at filming.
It is a bet that causes, specifically, the spectators who approach it to love her or hate hersince the series moves in a territory where gray scales do not exist and everything, in terms of tone and narrative, is tinged with black or white.
Throughout 10 chapters, these two friends, in real life and in fiction, share a flat before our eyes so that we can witness the type of life they lead: their aspirations, decadence, bad times, surreal experiences, shots of drugs, sexual relations, mantras and, above allthose conversations that you only have in the deepest intimacy with someone you trustto whom you do dare to tell the intrusive thoughts that often come to your mind.
In this way, Prieto y Barenys, also known for Being Rigoberta Bandini’s showgirl cousin (although the truth is that in ‘Self-Defense’ she completely distances herself from that shadow and claims to be an artist, actress and singer) they have written and performed a series that does not fit into the current corset and neither does it on the margins. It is something beyond.
Despite the fact that fiction is based on pure everyday life, ‘Self-defense’ is already different from the beginning because of be sold as individual storiessmall context stories that do not cover a long-term plot of the protagonists in time beyond anecdotes from their own lives.
This proposal is also supported by a very specific aesthetic, which not only ends in making different credits for each episode of the series. The shabby montages and the memes shared, above all, by generation Z (also the “late millennials”) on social networks are the aesthetic base of the series, with a bubble underground which, although it is true, is more shared than one might think in certain internet circles.
Berta and Belén convey in the series that aesthetic of the peculiar and the alternative, without losing a special sense for beauty that fits with their counterculture. And, furthermore, they provide a window for a generation (without fully exercising their voice) that He has already overcome, for example, the obligation of having to shave his armpits (yes, not armpits) to please society. It seems unbelievable that in the audiovisual industry, in contrast to these current groups, so few characters like these are shown, who also often live their nudity in a natural way and without it being something taboo or causing shame.
“Anxiety. Eat. Sleep. Fuck. FOMO [“Fear of Missing Out”, miedo a perderse algo, según su traducción al castellano]. Orphidal. Fear. bitches. em. Keta. Die. shimmer shimmer autofiction”, are, as the trailer for ‘Self-Defense’ shows, some of the themes that arise in the series, an autobiographical story by Berta and Belén that is disconcerting in many moments to be built selfish charactersbut which is shown in other wide scenes brutally smart when dealing with topics like cancel culturethe productivity loop within the capitalist system, the impostor syndrome, feminism, toxic relationships or the lack of emotional responsibility with friends.
In the end, it is about transferring, with all its uncomfortable splendor, the same debates that, for example, take place on Twitter regarding very current issues that concern the youngest. Directed by Miguel Ángel Blanca, ‘Self-Defense’ exposes small personal battles on somewhat invisible issues that, ultimately, ooze an attempt to escape from adulthood during 10 self-defense exercises to face the world.
The last episode of the first part, entitled ‘Being a concept’, is the best example of this desire to escape to a less demanding reality in which one does not feel judged all the time by oneself and by others. The series is also presented with a format of constant satirical criticism of the personality of each of the protagonists, exposed almost like a sketch.
Although it has nothing to do with the dynamics of the couple, the themes and the environment in which ‘Self-Defense’ moves, it is inevitable that it is somewhat reminiscent of the Full Pantomime videos, with great comic successes in scenes like the one seen in the trailer, in which Berta Prieto “interrogates” a boy about what worries him the most: that they cut down the trees of the Amazon or feminism, while the other person racks his brains to see how he gets out of that situation.
During those conversations that would never be recorded when one says them out loud in conversation with another person and shared by Berta Prieto and Belén Barenysthe chapters are as unconnected as life, with some installments that can get more into the viewers and others that feel further away due to the self-destruction loop of the characters or the surreal situation that is sold. Connected as the protagonists are to a certain cultural and audiovisual scene in Barcelona, the episode of ‘Collective Acts’, the third of the second part and the eighth of the series, stands out with the most powerful and accurate feminist message in fiction.
In any case, ‘Self-Defense’ revolves around many more things than launching feminist positions to the public, although it does show some characters totally liberated from what is imposed by society in what refers, above all, to appearances. In fact, in one chapter the series also makes visible, in a completely ironic way, some conversations with the past in which it is clear that Berta Prieto and Belén Barenys, to a certain extent, They are forced to face many moments of vital crisis due to their personality and philosophy.
That is why it gives a certain pleasure, just like it happened when ‘fleabag‘ showed in a veiled way why she hated herself, counting on a series in which the characters are not made up and do not create fake personal confrontational situations, those that you know will be very easily resolved on the brink of the end of that chapter you see or in the next one.
Throughout the episodes, which run as impassive as life itself with many moments in which what is being done does not matter, certain common points related to the wildest and most intimate of each one, the most politically incorrect. Part of that magic that ‘Self-Defense’ has also resides in how the fiction is shot and edited, with many ellipses and a lack of continuity.ad in part of the chapters that really show the self-awareness of the protagonists and the production itself of making a series based on their own.
It is pertinent in this sense, for example, to be alerted visually with changes in light in the photograph, different framing, voices in off unexpected or stories on camera to break the fourth wall.
The controversies of ‘Self-defense’
Not everything is perfect in ‘Self Defense’. It costs a lot to get into the series because in the end some characters are represented that, although real because they exist in tangible life, are quite foreign and uncomfortable due to their privileges, their easy talk and their way of behaving with the rest, as happens for example in the episode of ‘Back to home’. Even so, that is part of his appeal and if you think about the logic that one always tries to show the best side of his personality in public and hide what is despicable, the series does not lose its truthfulness.
The portrait that is also made around Berta and Belén in the series on drugs and sex, no matter how accurate their reading about the anesthetic effect that many resort to with alcohol and other substances and about sexual relations that often arise in a generation from existential emptiness and affective deficiencies, has also been widely criticized for the fact that it can intentionally pretend to give itself a generic image of circles of friends that collapse due to the people who make it up be self-destructive. Not all the messages that the series gives work and some grate, although this point of fiction is not the most problematic at all.
Likewise, despite being a series that offers alternative content and with plots that deviate from the norm, on the social network Twitter it has also been possible to read these days after the premiere of ‘Self-Defense’ on November 29 against the fact that that, after all, these two privileged characters and with a certain power granted in society They also have thin bodies and, therefore, normative with the current beauty canons. This added to the discomfort of the great revelation of the chapter ‘Hating men’ of the series has also given rise to criticism for fatophobia.
In short, like everything in life, there is nothing better than seeing something with your own eyes and avoiding being told about it, especially if it is about an imperfect bet and with a speech as marked as ‘Self-defense’. But at the same time, however, I would not forget that ‘Self-Defense’ strains broken lyrics and loose melodies from those songs that serve as an igloo, as is also explained in the series. It would be great if a large majority were away from the selfishness and hypocrisy of these two girls, it does not seem to be the case in society.