Adult Swim’s history of odd, risky shows is now more than two decades old. But to this point, they’ve never had a Spanish-language series. Women Wearing Shoulder Pads is the first AS show to be presented in Spanish, but it’s no less odd and risky than any of the shows that came before it.
Opening Shot: A girl picks up a cuy (a guinea pig) from a barn and brings it home, making the cuy’s companion tear up.
The Gist: We then flash forward to Quito, Ecuador in the 1980s. Marioneta (Pepa Pallarés) is greeted at the airport by her assistant Coquita Patines (Gabriela Cartol). Marioneta was visiting her family in Spain; she doesn’t get along with them, but they fund her use of “those filthy beasts;” she markets cuys as cuddly pets everyone would want.
As Marionets directs a commercial promoting cuys as furry family members, while discouraging Ecuadorians from cooking the rodents, a young actress asks her to find someone to deflower her virgin mother, who had her via artificial insemination.
The cuys Marioneta have been getting lately have been shaggy at best. When she asks about it, Coquita tells her that cuy breeders have cut her off, at the behest of Doña Quispe (Laura Torres), a cuy butcher who is the CEO of the country’s most successful restaurant. On a talk show, Doña Quispe decries the new trend of having miniature cuys as pets, and blames “that Spaniard” for the trend.
Marioneta tries to find a way to get the flow of cuys going again, so she goes to a cuy-fighting arena to seduce Espada (Kerygma Flores), a cuy fighter who appreciates the history of cuys in Ecuador, where they’re bred for battle or food. But when she gets back to her apartment, she’s greeted by an unwelcome visitor
Photo: Adult Swim
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The stop-action animation of Women Wearing Shoulder Pads evokes similarities between this show and other Adult Swim series like Robot Chicken and Moral Orel.
Our Take: Gonzalo Cordova, who created Women Wearing Shoulder Pads, has created a version of 1980s Ecuador that is funny, a bit creepy, and most definitely female-centric. The entire cast is female, and any male characters in this series are merely background actors or, in the case of one man who seems to be spying on Marioneta, people who seem to want to do harm.
But the show itself is more about this weird world where Marioneta and Doña Quispe are fighting over who gets to rule the country’s cuy empire, which in this world seems to be extremely lucrative. Marioneta believes that if she can convince the country that the little rodents can be pets, she’d make oodles of cash. Doña Quispe, on the other hand, has already created an empire by doing what people have been doing with cuys for decades, which is eat them for dinner.
Yes, like we said this show can be a bit weird, but no more so than most Adult Swim shows. It definitely likes to throw in gags among the weirdness, like Marioneta telling her assistant to get that actress’ virgin mother both a man and a woman to bed, just in case. So there’s a story there, and traditional ways to get us to laugh in among some of the show’s strangeness.
Photo: Adult Swim
Sex and Skin: There’s stop-motion action, but the puppets are either clothed or have black bars over their naughty bits.
Parting Shot: The intruder at Marioneta’s apartment shoves her in a closet and blocks the door with her statue of two people making love. As the credits roll, Marioneta knocks on the inside of the door to get someone’s attention.
Sleeper Star: Gabriela Cartol’s character Coquita is funny because she seems to be on the ball and much smarter than Marioneta despite listening to tunes on her Walkman 24/7.
Most Pilot-y Line: The loving between Marioneta and Espada is so hot that they literally set Espada’s bedroom on fire.
Our Call: STREAM IT. Women Wearing Shoulder Pads gives us a weird, somewhat creepy, but ultimately funny story about women and cuys in 1980s Ecuador.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
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