María Bas never thought she could win Benidorm Festival. Even in his wildest dreams, he never had the option of representing Spain at Eurovision. He introduced himself to the meeting like someone tossing a coin. And the heads came out. Your. The story of a star who dared to say this at the age of 56 They always called her a bitch. Without shame, without fear. Because he knew that there were people like him who still felt that the fact of existence was missed. With the poise of a diva, she licked her wounds across the stage and, amidst cheers and applause, began a struggle to redefine a word that has become less painful today. “This song was born because I felt left out, belittled, humiliated… It’s a feeling I always carry inside me. “This has become my private therapy,” says the group’s leader nebula. Together with Mark Dasousa, he lifted the Bronze Microphone that opened the gates of Malmö. There, in May, he will shout again for those who still do not dare.
“Age helped me clarify everything and, above all, eliminate prejudices. discrimination against women This has been allowed and maintained since our ancestors. The artist, who couldn’t hold back her tears after being crowned last Saturday, says there should be no inequality. This is the biggest turning point in his personal career as well as his professional career. Singing unapologetically to yourself was the most important lesson of her life. And perhaps a definitive slap in the face to many unwanted questions: “Music has the power to change injustices. Being a perfect slut gave me freedom. “Now I can shout out what I feel from the four winds.” A mission that Las Vulpes initiated in 1983 and joined step by step Rigoberta Bandini, Zahara, Mala Rodríguez And Zowi. They are the tip of the iceberg of a movement that wants to recapture the bitch, the whore, the witch and the slut.
His courage became a symbol of empowerment. The shield to which those who try to stand against fear cling. “Zorra is a sexist insult that excludes and belittles only women for the truth of being. When Nebulossa adopts this term, it immediately becomes a provocation against patriarchy. If we can’t avoid being called this way, let’s proudly turn it around,” explains Candelaria Sánchez. For the professor of Semiotics at the University of Alicante, this song is a great success. Especially since its success was developed in such a popular arena as Benidorm Fest: “Music is a tool that strengthens feminism in broadcasts aimed at a mass audience “The fact that it emerged within the context of Eurovision, a safe place for diversity, demonstrates the capacity of art to be transformative and mediator of identity.”
The way María and Mark spread their message across the Old Continent is revolutionary, to say the least. In the face of the rise of the far right, they will sing zorra in Slovak, zorra in Italian, zorra in Finnish, zorra in Latvian, zorra in French… They are facing a crisis in Spain. antifeminist backlash trying to belittle his success. Moreover, the Madrid Feminist Movement requested a retraction on the grounds that the song insulted them in a sexist way. “We should congratulate ourselves on the existence of a growing wave of sisterhood in the industry that unites women in activism,” Sánchez continues. Even so, in the midst of a wave of protests, there are few singers who dare to do so. He speaks clearly in his compositions. “Reason? It hurts on a social level. “What can happen to them in terms of criticism, misunderstandings and image is huge,” says Sara Morales, music journalist and co-director of the magazine. Efe Eme.
politically incorrect
That’s why many people think hard before sharing their confessions, testimonies and opinions. Therefore, when dared to do so, as in the case of Nebulossa, the reaction is very extreme. “Hardly anyone raises their hand anymore when a woman talks about sex, eroticism, or lust in a friendly or sincere way. But there are certain social classes. There are still people who are angry and therefore censorship,” Morales continues, citing the hunting incident Las Vulpes suffered after appearing on the show as an example beatboxing Somehow the market and the public have pushed artists to be politically correct. They were neither disturbed nor hindered. From here any rebellious attitude was vetoed: “That was the case until suddenly other Vulpes came along and put the issue back on the table, and the mental progress (or lack thereof) of our society came into focus.”
It’s a step forward from independent projects that often don’t have to be responsible for labels or promoters. Only when freedom is real does the truth come to the surface. The biggest disadvantage is that they will have to work twice as hard to achieve similar results to their peers. If the fox wanted to run, it had to have autonomy. Previous step to any step reallocation process. It will be slow but necessary. “It is extremely difficult to reinterpret an insult. It is bad words and bad expressions that are stigmatized. And the effort to lose that nuance is monumental. Adding to the slut thing are sexual taboos and gender stereotypes that degrade them in a patriarchal society. For example, the following has not been achieved yet: public woman can be used equivalently man of the people Ángeles Calero, professor of Spanish at the University of Lleida and expert on linguistic sexism, explains:
This is because we are used to hearing derogatory statements towards some people from the moment we are born. And we don’t question them: “The danger is that when we use them, we tend to think badly of them and feel uncomfortable around them. In tacos dedicated to sexual relations, we encounter terms that express violence and indicate a masculine perspective: the man as an aggressive actor and the woman as the victim (stabbing her, stabbing with a rifle, piercing with weapons…).” Although language is a cultural product that reflects authority over others, there is room to break down this barrier that hinders the attainment of equality. Calero continues: “We can stop tolerating compliments anyone Build a vocabulary that includes feminine expressions. Grammar may change. “If I hadn’t, we’d still be speaking Latin.”
An unfair system
In order to be a bitch, Nebulossa had to defend the things that legitimized, denied, and disqualified her. Inverting the meaning as shown set it free. A gesture that practically turned him into an enemy for many. “When someone tends to feel aggrieved by the victories of equality, his response is: presenting women as supremacist and aggressive”, points out Luisa Martín, sociolinguist and discourse analyst at the Autonomous University of Madrid. Therefore, it is the development of society that will definitely contribute to the redefinition of this word: But if it changes, the language also changes. However, past memories still persist within her, which could halt social progress and thus ruin the efforts of María and her friends.
“The resistance of certain sectors acts as a brake,” Martín underlines, “like teachers who penalize the use of new forms of feminism, or the Spanish Royal Academy, which rejects certain linguistic changes.” New generations play a very important role in this sense. If they can manage to break through archaic understanding of gender relations and if he can likewise communicate this to his predecessors, the reallocation can be combined. That’s why its success Bitch The Benidorm Festival, which attracts the attention of a handful of young people, is very important. He put it on the table that songs like this could be a song field and why not raise awareness. Something that hasn’t been seen often on the charts to date. Because? Feminist cultural studies scholar Laura Martínez provides the key.
“On the one hand, in the heat of Margot Robbie not being nominated for the Oscars, the cultural industries, the arts community, the media and the canon remain Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House. No matter how much they paint it pink, purple and green, The socioeconomic system is unfair. On the other hand, women who express their anger in art are also kept separate. extreme and off in a kind of velvet ghetto where ideologized voices are imprisoned. “This punishment is even greater for those who also break the normative stereotypes of femininity because of their origin, ethnicity, class, age, appearance…” she states. At the end of this article, Bitch It accumulates nine million views between Spotify and YouTube. A triumph that goes beyond the purely musical. “I’m in a good moment,” María sings. Quite true.
However, as Martínez emphasizes, we should not make the mistake of placing all responsibility on the song. Otherwise, she risks having the opposite effect: “It can be a speaker, even an anthem, it can represent the experiences of different women, it can move us… But be careful representation overload. We are so thirsty to know ourselves within culture that we pour our desires, hopes, and claims into a few visible bodies, voices, and non-normative identities…casting them in the role of superheroes who sometimes are not even those. They claimed.” Therefore, it is important to take his claim seriously. We chose Nebulossa not to have fun in Eurovision, but to ignite a fuse. unforgivable change. He’s already made it clear: “Changing for you makes me lazy.”