The Netflix mini-series Someone Has to Die is a 2020 production. Being three episodes is its best part. Short and concise. A period series within suspense, crime, and detective genres. A good production to understand the madness of the period and how people degenerated. Of course, the main subject is a homosexual individual being exposed to the violence of not only his family but also the state. The state and laws must be protective and supportive. A society where everyone lives equally and without being marginalized carries itself into the future. But in this series, it is not like that. The state and politics “hunt” homosexual individuals in line with their own ideology. A family can easily sacrifice their family members for their own interests and power, and declare them as the other. Now let’s return to the series, which is a dark family tragedy.
Harsh themes such as murder, secrets, social status, and the devaluation of human life make the series special. Especially the grandmother being able to sacrifice even her grandson for the sake of covering up a secret is one of the most dramatic points of the series.
I mentioned that the series of course has an LGBT theme and the main event is grounded on the axis of homosexuality. In addition, queer themes in the mini-series are also very good for you. There cannot be an inhuman behavior as much as a human imposing their own life on another. Such societies clash constantly, and only those who create these clashes feed on this clash. The series offers a good experience. Especially with the message it wants to convey, its period, and historical subject, it was among the good series I watched.
Someone Has to Die (2020)
Alguien tiene que morir begins with the return of a young man named Gabino to Spain, which he left ten years ago, together with his close friend Lazaro. However, a dark murder lies in his family’s past. This murder is related to the death of the household’s grandfather. This death, which was said to have fallen victim to an accident at the time, actually took place before Gabino’s eyes. Gabino, who knows the murder, is sent to Mexico to make him forget the event. When he returns years later, another reckoning begins.
He is expected to marry the daughter of a businessman who wants to establish a commercial partnership with his father. However, rumors that Gabino is gay begin to spread. A young woman named Cayetana, who thinks she is his lover, ignites the fuse of the rumors. Gabino’s father is the deputy police chief and at the same time a quite authoritarian and ruthless man.
In that period, homosexuality is seen as a crime, and its treatment is provided through torture and confinement. While Gabino tries to escape together with his friend Lazaro, he is reported by his grandmother. Because Gabino is about to reveal the real perpetrator of the murder committed and hidden years ago. His grandmother, wanting to protect the family secret, sacrifices her grandson without thinking at all.
Series Review and Commentary
Homosexuality, Homophobia, and Racism in the Someone Has to Die Series
There are many scenes in the series not only about homosexuality, but also about racism. Lazaro being a dancer and therefore being seen as “feminine” and directly labeled with homosexuality reveals society’s prejudices and ruthlessness. This is not a matter remaining only in the past. Today, homosexuality still being seen as a crime in many countries (such as Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Afghanistan) and the continuation of torture and punishments makes the message of the series even more up-to-date and universal. In our country as well, pressures are increasing gradually and it is not a good situation for the sake of our social peace.
Critique of the capitalist system also finds a place in the series: while the lower classes work day and night, the upper-class bourgeoisie lives in pleasure. The bourgeoisie has no ethics or rules either. The bourgeoisie being homosexual is also unimportant; they are the owners of money and therefore power. If there is money, there is power. If there is power, you are untouchable. Everything is for the poor.
Family secrets, individuals’ sexuality, society’s pressure, and hypocrisy reveal a structure that fits into three episodes but tells a lot. The production is a period series, but us experiencing the same problems today shows that we as humanity are still stuck in the past.
If you like political drama, you should watch the series. It is necessary not to approach the event only through LGBT and homosexuality. The important thing must be to construct a livable world for everyone.
The Franco Era and the Pressure on LGBT (1939-1954)
The series perhaps also has an overlooked political side. No country has advanced itself through oppression and by putting another under pressure and declaring them an enemy. Governments that see fights and another as a threat and impose their own life based solely on religion have always been buried in history in an instant. One of these is the Franco era.
In the Franco era, a construct called “traditional family” structure was fabricated. Homosexuality was declared as a deviance that is “contrary to nature” and an “enemy of the regime”. It does not end with this either. Homosexuals are seen as a “social danger” and thrown into concentration camps and prisons under the name of “rehabilitation”. While there is so much evil in the world, those who have rusty and diseased thinking attack LGBT individuals, whom they see as the weakest first when they seize power. This is actually very pathetic.
In this order established by the church and state hand in hand, while the bourgeoisie, which is the class of superiors as I wrote in the series, did whatever they wanted and recognized no ethical rules, pressures were put on families to report their homosexual children.
What happened with Franco’s death? This oppression ended. Those so many killed, tortured people became nameless victims of oppression and violence. As they say “no one prospers through cruelty,” this is very true. Today, no one deals with topics like LGBT in Spain and Europe. Because homosexuality is not a condition encouraged or acquired later. Instead, a shared culture and a shared living space are established, and value is given to the essence of human. Your sexual identity, your belief is not important; what is important is the value you add to life, what is important is your being human. The rest is just electric-chemical processes, chemical reactions in the human brain…
I hope social peace is achieved in all countries and no one sees another as the other. The state’s main purpose must be to keep everyone living in peace in a strong country with a good economy. Being born into economic hardships, living under oppression, continuing to live in fights and dying does not suit 21st-century humans. In the age of artificial intelligence, beliefs have changed now, and our view of humans and human memory has changed too. We must have a new understanding of mind and life; otherwise, we will not be able to carry ourselves into the future.
Laws and Statutes Banning LGBT in History
In 1979, that famous “Social Danger” law targeting homosexuals was repealed and homosexuality ceased to be a crime. In history, there are many laws enacted by psychopath politicians that are useless like this and used only to slaughter people.
For example, as I wrote in the movie Blue Jean (2022) as well, in 1988 England, there was the homophobic “Section 28” law enacted by Margaret Thatcher’s government. What happened, years later it was thrown into the trash.
In the series Fellow Travelers (2023), the main subject was McCarthy targeting communists and homosexuals in the period called the “Lavender Scare”. In England at an earlier date, Alan Turing was also “destroyed” by the British government because he was gay. He is considered the beginning of the computer age and the father of machine learning. In the face of all the benefit he provided to humanity, there was his being gay. Another example:
Edwardian England (around 1901–1910) where the Maurice novel takes place, and homosexual murders in this period… Actually, the world is like a big simulation. In our country, LGBT has never been a problem since the Ottoman era. Now we seem to be doing the exact opposite.
In the movie Great Freedom as well, Paragraph 175, which came into effect in the 1940s and caused homosexuals or LGBT individuals to be imprisoned, is addressed. When we look, today countries that end these debates, make peace with their citizens, and take no side with any ideology carry themselves into the future. A country can remain as a nation, a society, a culture.
In Poland, between 1985 and 1987, thousands of LGBT individuals were imprisoned under the name of Operation Hyacinth, their lives were taken from their hands. History is truly full of darkness. But developing and changing is in our hands.
More Information
Available on the IMDb page. I wanted to write the reflections of thoughts this series had on me. We turn life into an unlivable state with our own hands. When series, movies, and novels emerge from within life and tell us something, they become worth watching/reading. And humans must be able to change themselves.
I generally focus on watching series/movies that have a “character”, cinematic value, and contain truths with multi-layered meanings beneath the text. As a result of all these experiences, my view of life changes. I discover brand new ways of life. This causes me both personally to have a serene mind and to emphasize the importance of mental serenity.
