From 1939 until 1975 Spain existed under the fascist dictatorship of Francisco Franco, general of the Nationalist forces during the preceding Spanish Civil War. For close to four decades Spanish citizens lived under an oppressive, authoritarian regime that governed in cooperation with the National Catholic Church to promote and enforce a conservative Roman Catholic society and to censor or suppress anything deemed transgressive and deviant. Absolute state control extended into artistic endeavors such as film production and release. However, by the early 1970s an aging ruling system and Franco’s waning health emboldened voices and action of dissent and resistance, including filmmakers who were able to start pushing against the limitations of state censors, at least in cuts of films produced in Spain for release in foreign markets (national cuts for release in Spain remained heavily censored.) Upon Franco’s death in 1975 the floodgates of suppressed societal emotion opened, relaxing censorship more as the nation tried to find political footing in a post-Franco reality. Depictions of violence and sex in films increased, both for their own transgressive sake under new freedoms and to use for exploration/reckoning with atrocities going back to the Spanish Civil War and past, events that were all but ‘erased’ from mention under the fascist state. By 1977 in this Transition period, the political powers in control decide to create an “S” classification rating system to label films being released that might offend public sensibilities. After decades of suppression, most of the Spanish public seemed to crave all the “S” classified films they could get. A label meant to be stigma quickly became a badge of honor and guaranteed commercial success whether simple titillation or provocative artistic works. Eroticism and horror flourished in particular. Plots could now include criticism of Catholicism or the State, painful historical memories avoided could now be confronted. Characters outside ‘traditional’ family structure or heterosexuality could be included.
