Cast: Blanca Suárez, Maggie Civantos, Nadia de Santiago, Ana Fernández, Yon González, Martiño Rivas
Genre: Drama
Cable girls is the first Spanish original series produced by Netflix. It aired its first season in April 2017. The series, set in 1928, centers on the lives of four young women working as telephone operators at Madrid’s largest telecommunications company.
Originally titled Las Chicas Del Cable, the series is narrated by and told through the eyes of main protagonist, the mysterious Alba Romero (played by Blanca Suarez, probably best known for her role in acclaimed director Pedro Almodóvar’s film The Skin I Live In.)— who must later hide her true identity and change her name to Lidia Aguilar.
Each of the main characters has her own unique story: there’s Alba, the lady with a shady past who goes by the assumed name of Lidia; Marga (Nadia de Santiago), the modest, small-town girl who’s all alone in the big city; Carlota (Ana Fernández), a spoiled, upper-class socialite who wants to break free from her controlling family; and Ángeles (Maggie Civantos), the working mother and supervisor of the girls, whose husband disapproves of her job.
The cast is full of vibrant, magnetic actresses who have a real chemistry, which keeps you rooting for their characters from one episode to the next.
All of the stories are hugely compelling and alarmingly relevant. This is an era where women were daughters, wives and mothers, and nothing else. They were struggling for liberation. They loved working and being independent. But it was a man’s world.
If a woman’s husband cheated on her and beat her until she miscarried as Ángeles husband did, she had no options. The law was on his side. A woman couldn’t make a withdrawal from a bank without her husband’s permission, or even could be arrested for attending a feminist meeting.
Las Chicas Del Cable‘s main focus is on the struggles women faced during the early twentieth century, with universal themes centered around love, sacrifice, pain, betrayal, and the fight for freedom in a patriarchal society. Many of these themes are still relevant today , such as discrimination in the workforce, spousal abuse, and LGBTQ rights.
The male characters in this series are also faced with difficult decisions and caught between the dynamics of power and love. The men must learn to shed the machismo that society has cultivated in them in order to better appreciate and make space for the women in their lives. And while some men are disrespectful, controlling and misogynistic, others are supportive and kind.
While the dialogue is in Spanish, the music that accompanies the series is usually in the English language. The songs add a modern twist to the show and the soundtrack of each season is available on Spotify.
Cable Girls is the perfect show to binge on. With each episode you just get more and more involved in the characters and their plights. The second season of the Spanish drama premiered on Christmas day and it has already been renewed for Season 3.
> Mar Martínez
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