Raising Voices has landed on Netflix and the case exploded on social networks, with many people projecting Alma and Alberto together: why?
Sometimes, the plot and meaning of a series need to be explained: we do this often, and Raising Voices is no exception. The 2024 Netflix series is based on Ni una más, a book written by the Spanish author Miguel Sáez Carral in 2021, and follows the evolution of Alma, a teenage girl surrounded by many different cases of sexual abuse and harassment, trying to raise awareness about the problem.
The TV series triggered a small case on social networks after more and more users started shipping for Alma and Alberto. Alma is the protagonist, a girl who’s growing and starts seeing things differently. She knows sexual assaults have many forms: it can be a person who knows you and has sex with you while you are drunk and on drugs, unable to see things clearly; it can be an unsolicited pic received on your phone; of course, it can also be what we immediately associate with criminal behavior, such as an adult having sex with a minor.
On the other hand, Alberto is the typical symbol of a guy who has disrespectful, abusive behavior but can still be forgiven by society. It’s precisely what we see in Raising Voices when Nata decides to break up with him, and her mother manages to convince her that one lesson we need to learn in life is to “forget our partners’ mistakes,” implying that the role of a woman is to do everything she can to keep the man she chose, regardless for the gravity of what he does. The series and the novel clearly point the finger at Alberto as an example of an aggressive, abusive person who needs to be recognized as such. Nevertheless, this didn’t prevent someone from hoping Alberto and Alma could ultimately get together in Raising Voices.
It is obvious: if you correctly understood the message conveyed by Raising Voices, you would never root for Alberto and Alma together. The series has a solid feminist meaning, and the whole point of its story is to raise awareness that the behavior of people like Alberto is as violent and abusive as what we traditionally recognize under this perspective. Just the contrary, people watching Raising Voices should hope someone would finally expose Alberto’s misbehavior, which is precisely what happens in the ending, with Nata deciding to report and accuse him in front of everyone.
We are used to watching series in which characters are initially presented as “bad guys” and then slowly evolve into more acceptable people, somehow supporting the stereotype of the hot, rough guy whose behavior can be adjusted by the right woman. People watching Raising Voices inattentively could develop the expectation that this story can finally end up in a romantic relationship with a guy initially depicted as abusive, but this is precisely what the series intends to fight: a case of sexual abuse, whatever form it assumes, needs to be recognized, exposed, and isolated. Forgiving or forgetting must not be an option, especially in a world where women still struggle to be recognized as victims of these behaviors. One thing is anticipating a plot twist, another is completely misinterpreting a series’ meaning, right?
