I cannot describe the changes that Spain underwent between 1991 and 1993 better than Beatriz Navas did in her teenage diary (published by Caballo de Troya under the title And now… the important thing). In those years we went from seeing ourselves as a triumphant, fun and modern country, to facing the dim reflection of a mirror that I wish had been distorting. We were promised that we were going to be modern, rich, fun. We weren’t. The fact that Freddie Mercury died in 1991, a year before the Barcelona Olympics, must have given us a clue.
The summer of 1991 was, for children, more than fun. Freddie Mercury was still alive, perhaps watching over us in some way. On Telecinco, the channel that championed the kitschbroadcast in the month of July things like the following: The fifth gear and their bakalas of cake. Erikothe idol in trouble. Battersthe love triangle that created so many otakus. Repositions of Holidays at sea.
As summer programs, From Palma with love, The nights of such and such either Long live the bride and groom. What was different about them? Not much. The presenter, and little else. Everything was, as almost all of you will remember, a hodgepodge of stale humour, singers who were famous twenty years ago, men in suits, and women in bikinis. And a female presenter laughing at the man’s jokes. Thank goodness there was a Mari Carmen, a Concha Velasco, a Laura Valenzuela to add some dignity. In the dead time, films by Bud Spencer and Terence Hill.
On Antena 3 they bet on Chábeli Iglesias to present something called In the sun. There were still a couple of years left until Ricardo Bofill’s wedding and official video. From Miami – what a necessity – Chábeli tried his luck in the medium that he would later disown (for a few years).
On TVE they bet on Ana Obregón, Fofito and Rody to do Hota container of variety and glamour in which two clowns strict sense They counterpointed the woman with the baton. The commitment to modernity and elegance was completed with 3D scenes that could only be seen with those two-tone glasses made in Plastica, with blue and red cellophane.
Modernity is in the streets. It is in some books, in comics. In music groups. All modernity suffers from insular isolation until it reaches television to become the opposite. To think that films like Delicatessen, Europe either The Naked Lunch were released in the same year as the programs mentioned above is as shocking as seeing that Macromassa was a year away from releasing The facts Perez while Sergio Dalma triumphed with Dancing close together. Modernity has never been, nor will it be, on the small screen. In fact, in 1991, culture on television was still alive, although not very much. But culture was already wielded by some characters who had more to do with the rap of so-and-so than with any professor of Philosophy and Letters. And, in fact, if we could travel in time, we would see on television the faces we have in 2024 on the covers of the newspaper Soon and the Week.
By the time the summer of 1992 arrived, the summer of Barcelona, Mercury was no longer with us, and the television no longer shone as brightly. We had had so much anticipation with the Olympics, that something in between had to tell us that the Spanish winter was coming. And winter in Spain is as fearsome as winter in the West. If between 1990 and 1992 turning on the television had been like swallowing a box of popcorn, after the end of the Olympics, everything was indigestion. Not only Barcelona was transformed, but the entire country. We were already modern, and now what? Now it was time to pay the bills, uncover big hits, demand responsibility and change the sequins for the two-piece.
92 brought us Goals are loves, Innocent innocent, The Truth Machine, Hello, Raffaella!, Beauties in the Water and the mythical Who knows where. The latter was not broadcast in the summer, but in 1992 it left us the echo of the famous child painter from Malaga. That year also changed the anime broadcast on our television of the innocence they might have had Little Lord, The Flower of Seven Colors, The Magic of Emi either Kiss me Licia for series with a more evident spicy touch, such as Ranma ½ either Hunter. Did they issue them because of the post-Olympics hangover? No. They probably bought them without stopping to see what they were about.
From sequins to two-pieces. From two-pieces to the shocking chronicle. From this, to the heart, and from the heart, to trash TV.
Felipe González’s third term still had a year left, although the departure of Alfonso Guerra from the Government and the Filesa scandal had already impacted the PSOE’s waterline. Between the optimistic summer of 1991 and the autumnal air of the following year, many things happened, but those of us who were children then did not see them. We only noticed, without knowing, how the television changed. And we, without realizing it, changed too. Summer would soon cease to consist of games, reading, and cartoons. I went from being a happy person to not being happy at all. And that is what it means to become aware of things as they are. Once you see the trompe l’oeil, you can no longer ignore it.
You can follow EL PAÍS Television on X or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
#summer #turning #point #Spain #television #optimism