We have not been bored in 2021 in the Culture section of Vozpópuli. There have been practically no weeks without controversy and some have lasted several months. We select those that go beyond the mere exchange of insults to focus on those that say something about our cultural model. These are the ten biggest fights of the year that ends:
one. Nacho Cano’s musical against the Black Legend
Nacho Cano he finished the most ambitious Spanish musical in history, but the controversy did not come from its contents, but from its location on a public plot in Hortaleza (Madrid). He was accused, above all, of having obtained the space without a competition, but the reality is that he did so following all the usual legal procedures. “If there is another businessman who has a better project than mine, put the pasta and give him the place, let it go cabbage roll“Cano said in a video full of dignity. In reality, what was disputed was not only the plot, nor Cano’s friendship with Isabel Diaz Ayuso, but the fact that the musical is a story of brotherhood between Spain and Mexico that challenges the persistent Black Legend (he was accused of “wanting to change History”, as if it were decided on the stage of a musical). Finally, to get away from the controversy and facilitate the project, Cano decided to move it to neighboring Ifema.
2. The cultural mamandurrias of Iceta
Pedro Sanchez it has a sixth sense for the ministers of Culture. When they are not tax fraudsters (the fleeting Màxim Huerta) They seem to own an infinite ability to create rejection in each gesture or press conference (José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes). Miquel Iceta was quick to mess it up by announcing grants of ten thousand euros to promote “personal growth” and “mobility” of a hundred Spanish writers. “I have not met a single author who, having received a traveling grant to write, has written something. Many confessed to me that the project they presented was a book that they had already finished, so they went to Rome (I say Rome because there the stay is well known and desired, in the Spanish Academy) to really see Rome ”, wrote the novelist and essayist Alberto Olmos on the matter. The famous list, not yet published, is now known as the “one hundred montaditos”.
3. Progressivism against Ana Iris Simón
At the end of 2020, the journalist and editor Ana Iris Simón published a book titled fair (Chalk Circle). It was about, among other things, her abandonment of the hipster and adolescent life in the center of Madrid to undertake the project of being a mother outside the capital. Thousands of readers immediately connected with their experience, forging a publishing phenomenon that has already reached 50,000 books sold. The dark side of this success was a battalion of professional haters who reject the family, communitarian and anti-consumer values that the book embodies. The debate could have been much more interesting if the rejects had presented more than insults. In the Culture section of Vozpópuli We tried to cover amabas visiones with the articles “Hibai and Ana Iris Simón, the two faces of the dominant ideology” and also with “The waning left against Daniel Bernabé and Ana Iris Simón”.
4. Planet Award for three men named Carmen
The Planet was announced and the Bethlehem was assembled. This is how we told him live: “He won Carmen Mola (surprise in Las Gaunas), the pseudonym over the pseudonym, the transfer of Alfaguara to Planeta, Figo leaving Barça to sign for Real Madrid. But it turns out there are three men. One of the great mysteries of national literature is revealed ”, he wrote Carlos H. Vazquez. One million euros to distribute, but the controversy had only just begun: what happened to all those entities that had recommended reading it to maintain gender balance and become aware of equality? Would you applaud that three men explore the feminine gaze Or would they call it an unacceptable scam? Is it usurpation or experimentation? The fact is that the Planeta award, once again, knew how to transform political morbidity into economic benefit.
The dominant progressivism, the so-called ‘woke’ culture, permeated all of 2021, from the Nobel Prize to Tanzanian Abdulrazak Gurnah to the palmarás of San Sebastián
5. C. Tangana and the cathedral of Toledo
Brilliantly explained our Vidal Arranz. “Probably without intending it, C. Tangana it has once again exposed the disorientation of the Catholic Church with respect to contemporary culture. The ecclesial scandal unleashed by the recording of the video “Atheist” in the Cathedral of Toledo has already claimed the resignation of the dean who authorized it, Juan Miguel Ferrer, but, above all, he has risen the sense of bewilderment caused by other old controversies that we thought had been overcome ”. Spoke of Madonna, Jesus Cristo Superstar, Monty phyton… In any case, Tangana’s song did not convey absolutely any negative message, drawing a beautiful story of love and redemption, far above the controversies of the Internet. “Couldn’t the circus (of social networks) be a cover, a shield, to be able to say some moderately serious things, but against the current, protecting itself from mockery and without risking losing fame? On his disk The Madrilenian Without a doubt, the artist manages and combines pre-existing cultural and artistic references with self-confidence, but there is no cynicism or mockery in his gesture of cultural collage. Why should we interpret the video in a different way? “
6. The Nobel, San Sebastián and the cultural fever ‘woke’
The dominant progressivism in the United States, the so-called ‘woke’ culture, permeated everything in 2021, from the Nobel Prize to the Tanzanian writer Abdulrazak Gurnah even the record of our San Sebastián festival, so politically correct that it made the critic desert his office Carlos Boyero. This is a curious phenomenon: many consider it a moral imperative reward women, ‘racialized’ subjects and sexual dissidents, but the vast majority of judges deciding are still white men over fifty years old (it seems that the wokism applies to everyone but them). Our section published an article by the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj zizek against this cultural perspective, entitled “No a la cultura woke: it’s time to really wake up ”. I’d say it’s worth reading.
7. James Rhodes (and Santiago Auserón) against reggaeton
Incredible, but true: seventy years after the rock n’roll explosion, and half a century after the fever disk, we still have to justify the value of popular sounds intended for dance, hedonism, and social relationships. Sometimes, strangely, against such important figures for Spanish music as Santiago Auserón, gender detractor Although he was one of the first to appreciate the precedents of the perreo, let us remember the song “Negril” where he praisingly mentions the Panamanian pioneer The general. Then there are lesser figures like James rhodes, trying to degrade Bad bunny without understanding it and causing only his own ridicule. From our section we answer both the former Radio Futura and the British pianist. It is always honorable to question and resist the mainstream fashions, but honestly as we approach 2022 some should be assuming that the wave of Caribbean happiness and sexuality that exploded in 2004 with “Gasolina” is quite difficult to discredit.
8. The fiasco of the Catalan festivals
If we can boast of an exclusive in 2021, it was to uncover the massive botch of antigen tests in Catalan festivals, described in half a dozen articles by the veteran music journalist from Barcelona Nando Cruz. The rush to make cash led to three Catalan festivals (Canet, Crüilla and Vida) to a dubious movement, authorized by the Generalitat, which would later publicly regret having authorized the celebrations. The worst thing is that the problem will remain open in the coming months, as the author warned: “The current slogan in the lobby festivalero is to guarantee that 2022 will be the year of the definitive reactivation. And a definitive reactivation implies returning at full speed and with maximum capacity. For some festivals, such as Primavera Sound, it is no longer worth filling their premises: they need twice the audience and that is why they propose a mammoth edition of ten days (and two weekends) with the intention of adding 500 concerts and 400,000 spectators. A full-fledged double or nothing, although right now no one can guarantee that in just eight months there will be a foreign public landing like the one before the pandemic. “
9. Miguel Bosé and Evaristo, united against vaccines
They are not just two icons of our popular music, but those that represent the extremes of the ideological spectrum. Bosé He was always in the showcase of the industry, a darling of the golden years of the PSOE and a sexual myth for half of Spain. Evaristo Y La Polla Records, instead, they represent the excluded country and underground, that of squatters, popular festivals and raves illegal. Miraculously, this complicated year united them in the trench of militant anti-vaccination. Bosé tried to justify his position in a Saved historical where it did not come out well. Perhaps the best moment was showing a sense of humor when facing the lyrics of “El negationista”, which they wrote for him. The planets. Evaristo a few days ago invited the anti-vaccine group to the stage of one of his concerts, while he held a crossed out WHO logo. Wouldn’t it be nice if you shared a duet this Christmas?
Andy & Lucas’s speech meets De Prada
We close with what may be one of the great cultural debates of 2022. At the time of the greatest popularity of Podemos, Pablo Iglesias He used phrases like this: “The left-right political debate is one of trileros.” Today he is already singing another tune, but the controversy is more alive than ever, from angles as unexpected as a video of the pop etsrelals Andy & Lucas position themselves with the metal workers in Cádiz. The speech came to say this: “I am from Cádiz, we need work and decent wages, that does not make me progress or look. Cádiz, like Andalusia, or like Spain itself, we are the fools of Europe.” He received applause from across the political spectrum.
Interestingly, it coincides with something the novelist told us Juan Manuel de Prada when we interviewed him a few days ago: “The confrontation between leftists and rightists is posed as a cosmic struggle, like the great battle, when it is still a pathetic internal fight, one of drunks leaving the brothel at five in the morning and they dispute the merit of having benefited the whore before. As they are both drunk, neither knows who fucked her at eleven o’clock and who at twelve, ”he explained. Something similar also told us this year the Italian philosopher Diego Fusaro: “The right and the left are two political and cultural wings that serve those above, that is, the ruling class. Those from below, that is to say the precarious class of the middle classes and the workers, lack representation. There is a lack of intellectuals and political forces that represent those below, ”he lamented. New axes appear such as sovereignty / globalism, traditionalism / cosmopolitanism or simply fools / clever, among others.
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The cultural controversies that marked 2021