Marta Loza addresses inequality in parenting in ‘I always sometimes’: “They applaud parents for changing a diaper”

This Thursday, April 23, it premieres on Movistar Plus+ ‘I always sometimes’series created by Marta Loza and Marta Bassols that will compete in the official section of the Canneseries. Ana Boga makes her on-screen debut playing Laura, a young mother who faces the vicissitudes of parenting in a context marked by precariousness and unequal expectations that hang over her and her partner.

“Simply because you are a father, they applaud you for changing a diaper.“, says Loza in an interview with Europa Press. “If a father goes down to the park with his daughter, people applaud him: ‘How well this boy does it.’ On the other hand, if, for whatever reason, the mother has not been able to go to the park that day, she is directly branded as a bad mother.“continues the filmmaker.

“There is a lot of talk about ‘he’s a great dad’ about someone who does very basic things: he’s bathed the baby, he’s changed his diaper, he’s given him dinner, he’s picked him up from school… They’ll tell him he’s a great dad. To be told that you are a madrassa, I don’t know what you have to do“, denounces Bassols who, in addition to serving as co-creator, also gives life to one of the protagonist’s friends in the series.

“A mother who does not meet the expectations that society has of her is judged much more harshly than a father who decides to go away for a few years to work on his professional career.“says Boga, star of ‘I Always Sometimes’. “Much more is expected of women and, at the same time, they are not recognized or thanked,” says the actress, explaining that women are not only required to do more than men in this sense, but that “it is taken for granted that you have to do it.”

“Even when parents bond, in most cases they don’t bond completely equitably. And as for professional careers, without a doubt it almost always affects women more.“Bassols insists.

Despite living in the same city as her son’s father, the protagonist of ‘I Always Sometimes’ faces parenting practically alone as she has “a poor support network,” as Boga points out about her character. In this sense, Bassols points out the importance of family models beyond that formed by a mother and a father having representation “on screen and in all places”ensuring that “what is not represented does not exist.”

“THEY HAVE SOLD US THE DREAM OF THE MIDDLE CLASS”

“We are normalizing a new form of precariousness,” denounces Loza. “They have sold us the dream of the middle class as a deconstruction of the Francoist working class and what we are seeing are salaries that do not cover basic needs that we all have to live on, which in the end are a roof and food, health and education,” he explains. “We are quite deactivated when it comes to claiming our right to live with dignity“, adds Bassols.

David Menéndez, who in ‘I always sometimes’ plays the protagonist’s partner, denounces that precariousness “lasts for years.” “Now in Barcelona or Madrid, even if you study, you can still be precarious until you are 30, 35 or 40, and it is something that had not been contemplated. Our parents didn’t have that story,” says the actor from ‘The Fantastic Case of the Golem’ or ‘Cardo’.

‘I always sometimes’ will compete, along with ‘Many people have to die’, in the official Canneseries section. These two Spanish productions, added to the three films that are also competing in Cannes (‘Bitter Christmas’ by Pedro Almodóvar, ‘El ser loved’ by Rodrigo Sorogoyen and ‘La bola negra’ by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi), make up what Claudia Costafreda, one of the directors of the series, describes as “a luminous moment.” “Spanish fiction has been at a high level for a long time, it is cult“says Menéndez, ensuring that “he is where he deserves.”