The image used to identify El cuerpo en llamas in the Netflix menu is that of Úrsula Corberó in the role of Rosa Peral recreating the most iconic photo of the case, the one she took with Albert López in the famous marisada with other agents of the Guard Urbana when his partner, Pedro Rodríguez, had already disappeared. In it, Peral looks at the camera and sticks out her tongue more sullenly than lasciviously. In fact, Corberó’s version is much more disturbing than the original. This photo was fundamental to the popular condemnation of the agent. It served to establish her as someone who laughs at everything, someone who takes the moisture between her teeth for a walk.
In Las Cintes de Rosa Peral, the documentary, also from Netflix, which performs the opposite function of the series, that of presenting the convict as a victim of the system, a black widow unfairly covered by the media, this photo and this gesture are also important. The footage includes home videos, supposedly provided by Peral’s family, in which she is seen making this same gesture almost every time a camera was put in front of her, since she was a teenager, or perhaps a child, as a kind of reflex act Someone even bothered to make a video montage of all these moments: Peral sticking out her tongue at a birthday party, in a car, at a wedding. It is assumed that behind the camera is a father, a family member, there is no evidence of sexual provocation. Put like that, it almost seems like exculpatory evidence.
Women’s tongues are a problematic subject that has been in and out of pop culture. Sometimes there are those who see them even when they are not there. Does Sue Lyon stick her tongue out in Kubrick’s original Lolita poster? Not really, Lyon licks the lollipop with her lips tightly closed, but I’m sure in a poll almost everyone would say yes, Lyon licks the candy with her tongue out.
In 2013, published opinion was so concerned about the ubiquitous tongue of Miley Cyrus, then transitioning from Disney princess to adult twerking star, that The Atlantic magazine published a debate between two of its columnists, pro and against. One said it was a “satirical version of the non-threatening female sexuality staged by her predecessors like Britney Spears”. The other, that “this persona he has adopted is a kind of gonzo idiot who can’t even keep his tongue in his mouth”.
“Does a woman sticking out her tongue mean she’s going to sleep with you?” asks more than one user on the Reddit forums, and also on Quora, where someone offers this definitive answer: women stick out their tongues to to check how many male pheromones are in the air, so that they can hunt and kill their lovers.
The internet being the internet, there are, of course, multiple corners for tongue fetishists, and almost 20 years ago, in 2005, tongue models were already being paid around $500 for a half-day’s work taking pictures on the Rosa Peral or Miley Cyrus style, according to an article in The New York Times that asked why this gesture was so ubiquitous in advertising at the time. Women’s bodies never behave the way you expect them to: some things come out when they should go in, others move too much. Like Rínçols d’Or soup, they are never cold enough, nor hot enough. And the only sure thing is that, whatever they do, there will be someone watching over them.
