From the Archive

 [1]Infantilización y sexualización en la representación mediática: Emma Cohen y la recuperación del archivo televisivo

Eva Vaca Carrión

Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

Emma Cohen (Barcelona, 1946 – Madrid, 2016) was a multifaceted artist with a wide-ranging career: actress, director, screenwriter, writer, playwright, illustrator, poet and columnist, among many other roles. She was a recognisable figure associated with the Barcelona School, the comedia del destape, fantaterror and Tercera Vía cinema. She directed her first short film, La primera historia de Bartio, in 1969, followed by five more between 1976 and 1980 [1], as well as the collective feature film Cuentos eróticos (1980) and the also collective television series Delirios de amor (TVE, 1989

However, her recognition as an artist and creator has been overshadowed by media coverage of her relationship with Fernando Fernán Gómez, her “life partner” for over forty years; by political matters, such as her early affiliation with the anarchist CNT and her support for the 15M movement; and by personal and professional decisions, including her withdrawal from the screen from the 1990s onwards, shaving her head and deliberately gaining weight, becoming “sufficiently ‘chubby’ not to make films” (Bugallal, 2012).

Earlier, Cohen had already rebelled against the abuses of power that permeated destape productions. Having posed nude for the covers of Fotogramas and appeared nude in several films, in 1973 she walked off the set of Ignacio Iquino’s film Aborto criminal when he attempted to shoot a nude scene that was not included in the script. Others were not so fortunate, as documented in the documentary Mujeres sin censura (Vizcarra, 2021) and the series El enigma de Nadiuska (Vegas, 2023).

However, a number of actresses of this period, like Emma Cohen, sought new creative challenges through what Jeanine Basinger (2009) terms “hyphenated status”, that is, the dual positioning of those who are actress-directors, actress-writers, and so forth. In this respect, Cohen was joined by contemporaries such as Inma de Santis, Ada Tauler, May Heatherly and Rosa María Almirall (Gil Vázquez, 2024), all of whom were both short film directors and actresses. For this reason, Cohen’s career and public image bear witness to the evolution of Spanish women’s presence in the cultural industries and to the agency they progressively acquired during the final years of the Franco dictatorship, the Transition, and the early years of democracy.

Moreover, since her death in 2016 there has been a shift in her recognition as an author, resulting in the restoration and programming of her work as a director, the publication of monographs on actresses and women directors, and biographies of Fernando Fernán Gómez in which, albeit briefly, space is reserved to discuss Cohen, as well as the acquisition by the Filmoteca Española of the couple’s personal archive in 2023 (cultura.gob, 2023).

This has led to a qualification of the auteurist vision of creativity as individualised and almost exclusively attributed to Fernán Gómez, instead foregrounding a creative synergy between him and Cohen that resulted in joint projects and through which both enriched their professional careers. Above all, Emma Cohen is reclaimed as a heterodox creator, politically committed and a key figure in Spanish cinema.

With these ideas in mind, this article recovers the archives of two interviews with Emma Cohen, broadcast on TVE in the 1970s and 1980s, when her authorial output was at its most prolific. Both archives reflect her multidisciplinary creative personality, but also the irony and infantilisation with which the media treated her throughout her life. In addition, both interviews were recovered in 2021 for RTVE productions that analyse the Spanish audiovisual archive through the lens of fourth-wave feminism.

RTVE que analizan el archivo audiovisual español bajo el prisma de la cuarta ola del feminismo.

Vídeo 1. Emma Cohen en Vostè pregunta…, TVE, 1979

The first of the videos corresponds to the TVE Catalunya programme Vostè pregunta…, broadcast between 1977 and 1984. Hosted by Joaquim Maria Puyal, the programme featured an interview with a figure of relevance in Catalan culture, politics or society, to whom viewers could address questions live by telephone. In Cohen’s case, her interview was broadcast on 31 August 1979.

The programme opens with a clip from Barrio Sésamo (TVE, 1979–2000), in which the character of Gallina Caponata—a giant red-and-yellow hen portrayed by Emma Cohen for one year—learns how to use the telephone. Joaquim Maria Puyal then explains that this clip serves as a tribute to the telephone and its importance for communication between Vostè pregunta… and its viewers. In this way, the programme begins by foregrounding Cohen’s work, in contrast with the subsequent development of the interview. Puyal goes on to describe her through excerpts from magazines and the press that refer to her “green gaze”, the “fragility of her gaze” and a “strange ambiguity”: “she is Lady Europe, but how can she at the same time be a muse of the underground?”, the presenter asks.

Throughout the interview, Cohen’s sense of humour stands out as she responds to questions and statements that seek to discredit and infantilise her, including those referring to her complicated family relationships. Puyal refers to her as the “black sheep of the family”, something that Emma confirms, stating that “it is not so unusual nowadays to find a black sheep; in every family there is one or two”. The presenter then continues to define her as a “little girl from a good Catalan family”. Emma makes a sound of complaint, to which Puyal responds, “is this not true?”, and Emma protests: “Yes, but that thing about being a little girl… one is already of a certain age. (…) I think it is said with a bit of irony.”

The disparity between her recognition as an artist and her discrediting is maintained during the viewers’ phone calls, while clips are shown from the films in which Cohen had worked as an actress up to that point and from her short film La primera historia de Bartio (1969). On the one hand, among the issues addressed are those concerning the state of Spanish cinema, which, Cohen argues, is unable to withstand box-office domination by the United States due to its limited public funding. She also speaks of the scarcity of job opportunities in Catalan culture in 1969, which led her to move to Madrid; the normalisation of nudity on screen when it is related to the story told by the script; and her interest in undertaking more projects as a director and in Catalonia—something she explains she has been unable to do “for financial reasons” and because she is not called by either theatre or television in Catalonia.

It is when the questions turn to personal matters that the questioning of Cohen’s personal and professional decisions becomes particularly evident. It is striking that the questions asking for her views on the cinematic and cultural context and on her experience as an artist with ten years of professional experience at that time are posed by men, while the only three women who call the programme ask about Fernando Fernán Gómez and about her relationship with her parents.

Indeed, in the final call a woman asks what Cohen sees in Fernán Gómez, given that, as a young woman, she could be with someone else more attractive. It is precisely this fragment (1:13:48–1:15:23) that is shown in the documentary Viaje a alguna parte (2021), directed by Helena de Llanos, Fernando Fernán Gómez’s granddaughter, in order to address her media representation.

Vídeo 2. Emma Cohen en Estudio abierto, TVE, 1983. Interview from  00:59:42 – 01:10:15

The second video belongs to the programme Estudio Abierto, broadcast between 1970 and 1985. Hosted by José María Íñigo, the programme featured a series of interviews with prominent and striking figures from national and international culture and society of the time, interspersed with musical performances.

In the episode broadcast on 27 July 1983, Íñigo interviews Emma Cohen on the occasion of the publication of her first novel, Toda la casa era una ventana. The presenter begins by discussing her early career, the origin of her stage surname as a tribute to an ancestor, and her experiences in Paris during May 1968, acknowledging her work as an actress and as the director of seven short films. In this respect, and in a manner very similar to the previous video, Cohen responds to the question of the financial difficulty of “making the leap to feature-length” as a director, clarifying that “the leap involves a great deal of money. I cannot make it. The leap would be one of confidence, of some male or female producer deciding that I am now fit to direct features. What I cannot do is finance a feature film myself”. Three years earlier, what would become her only work as a feature-film director had been released, directing one of the Cuentos eróticos that made up the 1980 collective film.

References to the press treatment of Cohen are also particularly revealing. On the one hand, Íñigo refers to her early career, when she was labelled a “muse of intellectuals” — in 1971, shortly after beginning her career, she received the “Lady Europe” award in Italy, which placed her in the spotlight of those who sought “muses” rather than promising artists in young and attractive women — to which she responds by defining herself instead as a “muse of anger” and of the underground. The presenter then asks what has been the worst and the best that have been said about Toda la casa era una ventana. To the former, Cohen replies that “the worst thing, in my view, for writing, is to be an actress, because they decide that actresses cannot write. That must be the worst: convincing certain people that one can do several things, and do them well, if one takes them seriously”. For the latter, she turns to the words of the essayist and literary critic Andrés Amorós to legitimise her work, who described it as a novel “between Delibes and Boris Vian”.

The way in which Íñigo continues the interview with regard to the character of Gallina Caponata is particularly revealing. At this point, Cohen is about to turn 37 and has a consolidated 15-year career in film, television and theatre, while also beginning to establish herself in the literary field. However, the presenter refers to her career as follows: “you really zigzag terribly. One moment you direct, then you do theatre or cinema, then you write, and then suddenly you become Gallina Caponata or whatever she’s called”. She corrects him: “Caponata, Caponata”. Cohen goes on to explain the casting process to play the Barrio Sésamo character, her preparation for the role and her experience as Caponata, while Íñigo steers the questions with irony: 

Emma: “There was a competition of hens on television…” 

Íñigo: “Well then, that’s all we needed”.

Finally, we can also observe a shift in the perception of Cohen’s body that contrasts with the sexualisation of her early career and connects with the tendency of Spanish cinema to portray ageing women or those who move away from dominant beauty standards with humour, under the typology of the “ageing funny women” (Gil Vázquez, 2020). During the interview, Emma Cohen repeatedly adjusts her low-cut blouse, which tends to slip down due to the weight of the lapel microphone. Íñigo points out this gesture midway through the programme, interrupting one of Cohen’s answers about Gallina Caponata. At the end of the interview, she pulls her blouse up one last time, letting out a joking scream that startles Íñigo and closes the conversation: “I would have screamed myself if it had been the last time the blouse went down”.

Once again, RTVE recovered a fragment (1:06:22–1:08:10) of this programme in an article published on its website in 2021, in order to reclaim the feminist perspective that Cohen brought to the character of Gallina Caponata and its value for the generation of children who grew up with Barrio Sésamo.

In the context of both interviews, it was not yet “possible to detach the female body, undressed and publicised, from the sociocultural positioning of women” (Codesido-Linares, Fuentefría Rodríguez, & García García, 2025). If we add to this the delegitimisation of Cohen as an author on political and sentimental grounds, we arrive at the infantilisation, objectification and mockery that can be observed in both examples, despite the fact that her work as a creator is indeed acknowledged.

This treatment is not limited to these two examples alone. Many others can be found in the press archives of the period and even in obituaries published several decades later following her death. However, we also find, particularly from 2021 onwards, different forms of recovery of her figure and her work. In this respect, the TVE archive plays a fundamental role, thus demonstrating the importance of audiovisual heritage and its accessibility in establishing a dialogue between past, present and future that enables us to reconstruct memory and to grant figures such as Emma Cohen the place that was denied to them.

NOTES

[1] La plaza (1976), Quería dormir en paz (1978), La Chari se casa (1978), ¡Yo qué sé! (1980), El séptimo día del Sol (1980).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basinger, J. (2009). The Star Machine. New York: Vintage.   

Bugallal, I. (22 de febrero, 2012). «Me pasé quince años gorda para no hacer cine y cuidar a Fernando». La Nueva España. Retrieved from https://www.lne.es/asturias/2012/02/22/pase-quince-anos-gorda-cine-20939657.html

Codesido Linares, V., Fuentefría Rodríguez, D., & García García, F. (2025). Liberación y reapropiación corporal en el cine de la Transición: insurgencias desnudas de Amparo Soler Leal entre 1975 y 1979. L’Atalante. Revista De Estudios cinematográficos, (40), 37–50. https://doi.org/10.63700/1288

El Ministerio de Cultura y Deporte adquiere el archivo de Emma Cohen y Fernando Fernán Gómez (11 de agosto, 2023). www.cultura.gob.es. Retrieved from https://www.cultura.gob.es/actualidad/2023/08/23-08-11-archivo-emma-cohen-fernan gomez.html 

Emma Cohen hizo de Caponata una gallina feminista. (26 de noviembre, 2021).  www.rtve.es. Retrieved from https://www.rtve.es/television/20211126/emma-cohen-gallina-caponata-barrio-sesamo/2231700.shtml

Gil Vázquez, A. (2020). Cine popular español y feminidades envejecientes: una aproximación a la tipología de la «graciosa madura». [PhD Thesis, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid]. https://e-archivo.uc3m.es/entities/publication/ad8ebd4e-9eb0-4883-879c-2beb0fee5abb 

Gil Vázquez, A. (2024). Inma de Santis y el cine de terror: los dos lados del Espejo. DESDE EL ARCHIVO 13 | Grupo de Investigación Televisión-Cine: Memoria, Representación en Industria. Tecmerin, (13). https://tecmerin.uc3m.es/inma-de-santis-y-el-cine-de-terror-los-dos lados-del-espejo/ 

Llanos, H. (Directora). (2021). Viaje a alguna parte [Película]. Alguna parte AIE, Estela Films, Estela Producciones Cinematográficas, Enrique Cerezo Producciones Cinematográficas, Pólvora Films, Lacoproductora & A Contracorriente Films

Vegas, V. (Directora). (2023). El enigma de Nadiuska [Película]. Lavinia Audiovisual

Vizcarra, E. (Directora). (2021). Mujeres sin censura [Película]. Nadie Es Perfecto Pc S.L & Unicorn Content