The “Social Danger Act,” Public Space and Transvestism in Late 1970s Spain The repeal of the “Social Danger Act” became one of the main political demands in Spain in the 1970s. A symbol of the struggle for civil liberties, this issue was visible in numerous demonstrations, many of which gave rise to considerable polemics due to the transgressive spirit of the protest actions taking place in the streets.
The “Week against the Social Danger Act” held in Madrid, the “International Libertarian Conference” in Barcelona’s Park Güell, and the first gay rights demonstration, which was organised by FAGC (Gay Liberation Front of Catalonia) and took place on 26 June 1977 in the Ramblas of Barcelona, are among these pioneering events. At them the Transition’s prominent political and cultural figures assembled, side by side with figures from the underground movement and the countercultural scene to which characters such as Nazario (1944) and Ocaña (1947-1983) belonged. These two figures were often at the fore of such protests, thus bringing some of the more contradictory and dissident positions to the official political stances. José Pérez Ocaña was a controversial artist and activist who would play a leading role in films such as Ocaña retrato intermitente, by the director Ventura Pons, or Ocaña, der Engel der in der Qual singt, a short film made by Gérard Courant in 1979 with the Berlin Wall as the backdrop. His appearances in public space – parades, processions, pilgrimages, carnival performances – can be viewed as profane rereadings of different popular celebrations, made from iconoclastic positions. In these actions the “theatralisation of gender” played a fundamental role in the problematization and deconstruction of the spaces considered at the time to be hubs of “social danger.” Among Ocaña’s street interventions is the parade he organised in the Ramblas of Barcelona on the occasion of his show in Capella de l’Antic Hospital (1982), during which he moved his images from his studio-home to the exhibition site. An irreverent, satirical and carnivalesque iconography that transgressed even the most progressive left-wing thinking, and that is also present in publications such as Anarcoma and Tentación, martirio y triunfo de San Reprimonio virgen y mártir (Temptation, Martyrdom and Triumph of Saint Reprimonio, Virgin and Martyr, 1971-1972), the essential “chronicals” created by Nazario.
Another emblematic publication from those years is Ajoblanco, a magazine founded by José Ribas in 1974 that became a platform for critical reflection by movements such as anti-militarism, ecology, feminism, libertarianism and antipsychiatry. In its pages other recurring themes included the recovery of different manifestations of popular culture, the implementation of alternative education systems, the occupation movement and the establishment of communes throughout the country. These debates would be addressed with biting humour in other publishing adventures as well, such as the seven issues of Euskadi Sioux that appeared in 1979 . This journal, defined by its “anarcho-layabout” attitude, had among its promoters Juan Carlos Eguillor, Vicente Amestoy and Iván Zulueta.
New acquisitions Colita. Manifestación Gay, Barcelona, 1977, 1977 / 2011 Gérard Courant. Ocaña, der Engel der in der Qual singt, 1979 Joaquín de Molina. Por una sexualidad libre!, 1977 Manuel Quejido. Cartel “Semana contra la Ley de Peligrosidad Social”, 1977 Nazario. Tentación, martirio y triunfo de San Reprimonio virgen y mártir, 1971-1972
Bibliography Angulo, Javier. “Euskadi Sioux. Nuevo periódico de humor vasco”. El País. Viernes, 16 de febrero, 1979. AA. VV. Ocaña. 1973-1983: acciones, actuaciones, activismo [cat.]. Barcelona: La Virreina Centre de la Imatge y Vitoria-Gasteiz: Centro Montehermoso Kulturunea, 2011. Eguillor, Juan Carlos. “Euskadi Sioux”, en Disidencias otras. Poéticas y acciones artísticas en la transición política vasca, 1972-1982 [cat.]. Donostia-San Sebastián: Koldo Mitxelena Kulturunea, Diputación Foral de Guipúzcoa, 2004. Golvano, Fernando. “Una tribu heterodoxa en una Euskadi convulsa” visto en http://www.euskadisioux.org Nazario. Anarcoma. Barcelona: La Cúpula, Artefact, 1983. Petit, Jordi. Una perspectiva sobre el pasado, el presente y el futuro del movimiento de gays, lesbianas, bisexuales y transexuales. Barcelona: Icaria, 2003. Ribas, José. Los 70 a destajo: Ajoblanco y libertad. Barcelona: RBA, 2007. Vilarós, Teres. El mono del desencanto: Una crítica cultural de la transición española (1973 - 1993). Madrid: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1998.