By: Sandro Mairata
Just a few months ago, Toribio Bardelli's The Erection, a Peruvian film directed by Adrián Saba, was announced as the one chosen to represent us at the Oscars. An advertising campaign was then started that in a very short time ran into an insurmountable obstacle: the word erection in the title.
“It was a nightmare,” remembers Mario Bacigalupo, general manager of the distributor V&R Films –specializing in Peruvian cinema–. On the one hand, there were the municipal restrictions – sensitive to the complaints of the neighbors –, there were the possible sponsors – who did not dare to associate themselves with a title of this type – and the cinema chains themselves, which were nervous about placing the film poster. Billboard warning became complex. Bacigalupo and his team thus confirmed that in Peru at the end of 2023, a word like erection caused embarrassment and problems in society.
What had happened?
In recent years there has been a marked decline in the content of nudity and sex scenes in Peruvian cinema. Once governed by maxims like “sex sells”, if we look at the highest-grossing titles of our recent commercial cinema and other auteur cinema that brings us awards, it turns out that sex and nudity are scarce to the point of almost disappearing. We are thus very far from the times when the box office hits were Don't tell anyone (1998), Pantaleón and the visitors (2000), Django: the other side (2002), Tomorrow I'll tell you or A day without sex (both 2005), and a long list of productions that incorporated these resources as part of their narrative.
This in the same country in whose capital, at the beginning of the eighties, porn films were shown in late-night showings (1 to 3 in the morning) and then gave rise to continued showings in cinemas such as Orrantia, Rome, Le Paris, Lido , Country or Colón. The society that previously tolerated the huge advertisements on public roads of Seka the Erotica or The Ruler of Pleasure today resents sexual references and the graphic exploitation of the female body.
The recurrent presence of sex and nudity in mainstream Peruvian cinema is becoming a thing of the past. Photo: compositionLR
Meaningful sex
“The public changed,” explains Gustavo Sánchez, our busiest film producer and who, with more than fifty titles under his belt, was behind several films such as Pantaleón, the three of Django or Don't tell anyone. At the head of La Soga Producciones, Sánchez produced the successful Single, married, widowed, divorced (2023) which, like several other similar ones, does not resort to nudity or the picaresque situations of other times to attract an audience. “In life, as in so many other things, things evolve, change, and are modified,” says Sánchez. “Before, in the 90s, movies with sex scenes had enormous acceptance among the public, and at that time good things and bad things were done. Sex scenes are not bad, it depends on how they are used, how they are done.”
The recent list is short and jumps from year to year: from some nudity in Atacada: the theory of pain (2015), we move on to some subtle homosexual moment in the celebrated Retablo (2017), and then one can point to scenes of suggested sex in recent productions but without the daring or casualness of yesteryear (titles like Autoerótica or the short La vulvalaxia –both from 2021– are almost exotic examples).
Vanessa Saba did nudes in movies: she claims not to have felt forced to do them. Photo: diffusion
Nowadays, the entertainment press does not make new actresses go through the embarrassment of having to answer the rusty question of “would you do a nude?” which was almost a rite of passage for Peruvian actresses. “Before, you had to go through that to be an actress; They made you feel like exhibiting your body guaranteed advancement in your acting career,” says Ina Mayushin, teacher and film director, who will release the feature film Iceland this May 9. Mayushin did a theatrical semi-nude at the age of 21 and she remembers that, although the director always asked her to show her bust, she managed not to show more than necessary. “We have made a lot of progress because now in cinema more care is taken of the female image and nudity is not abused just for the sake of it. The scripts look for other things.”
It happens that, in addition, scripts with sex and nudity today find it more difficult to obtain funds, stoning genres such as the erotic thriller: state funds will not support them and there will be no commercial brands supporting them, “something understandable because each brand is free to take care of who he associates with,” says Sánchez. A recent film produced by him, Amelia's Decision (also from 2023), includes a nude of Mayella Lloclla alongside Gustavo Bueno, but this film came from the hand of Francisco Lombardi, a busy director who has given us extensive titles since ancient times. in which nudity and sex were common currency in our productions.
“Sex has moved to the series,” explains teacher and researcher José Carlos Cabrejo. Quick examples are Sex Education, Euphoria, Elite and following signatures. “We have even moved on to a Hollywood of chaste heroes, this is seen in Marvel movies,” says Cabrejo. “Even James Bond, who was a conqueror, today no longer has that sexual component.”
Ina Mayushin directs Iceland, which opens May 9. She performed semi-nude in theater at age 21. Photo: diffusion
Vanessa Saba, who did a nude in A Day Without Sex, agrees with Cabrejo in indicating that the emergence of Tondero and its system of commercial alliances to finance films – mostly comedies – is a starting point for the current moment of a cinema desexualized Peruvian. But for her “it is implicit that at some point you may have to undress. Cinema is like that, and there are times when the story you want to tell needs it.”
Data
- Recent. The animated short Vulvalaxia and Autoerótica, the story of a teenager who begins her sexual life, are 2021 titles that address eroticism.
- 2005. It was the year in which two national films with nude scenes were released: Tomorrow I'll tell you and A day without sex.
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