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ABSTRACT
This article scrutinizes the recurrent presence of two 1992 media images in the Spanish social imaginary until the present day. On the one hand, it addresses how these images are in a process of constant resignification, establishing a dialogue with evolving social and cultural phenomena. On the other, it traces how a variety of media – from music to cinema, from television to newspapers – have deployed these images to perform a series of aesthetic and ideological interventions. Specifically, I first explore the presence of Spanish national symbols at FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou during the Olympic Games’ soccer final between Spain and Poland. I relate the utilization of these symbols to the current so-called procés of Catalan independence and the volatile political and social climate in present-day Spain. Second, I analyze the rape and murder of three young women from Alcàsser in the context of contemporary television crime coverage and the beginnings of such programming in the early 1990s. In this respect, I specifically examine the 2019 documentary series El caso Alcàsser in relation to the media’s representation of crimes against women in contemporary Spain.
Acknowledgments
I’d like to thank my colleagues at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid Sonia García López and Manuel Palacio for giving me feedback and ideas during the writing of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Note on contributor
Vicente Rodríguez Ortega is Senior Lecturer at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and a member of the research group TECMERIN. He has published articles in Television & New Media, New Media & Society and Soccer & Society, among others. He has also contributed to books such as A Companion to Spanish Cinema, A Companion to Pedro Almodóvar and Sampling Media. He is the editor of Tecmerin: Journal of Audiovisual Media and coeditor of Contemporary Spanish Cinema & Genre. He likes weird movies and eating in idiosyncratic restaurants and loves walking around in cities he doesn’t know well. Email: [email protected]
Notes
2 In the last twenty-five years the development of Barcelona as a tourist destination is almost unprecedented. It has gone from 1.5 million tourists in 1990 to 8 million in 2016 (Solanellas, Camps, and Ferrand Citation2017). Arguably, this explosion of tourism has backfired, making certain neighborhoods in Barcelona’s center such as El Born or El Gòtic inhospitable for full-time residents due to the extreme concentration of tourists all year around and the rising prices of housing. See: http://oti.turismo-sostenible.net/project/masificacion-turistica-en-barcelona/; https://elpais.com/economia/2017/12/15/actualidad/1513351840_600440.html; https://www.elperiodico.com/es/barcelona/20180123/-cnn-pone-a-barcelona-en-la-lista-de-ciudades-a-evitar-este-2018-por-su-masificacion-6571088.
3 Public investment in the Games reached 430,000 million pesetas – that is almost, 2,600 million euros. 48.43 percent came from the Spanish state, 20.05 percent from the Barcelona town hall, 18.57 percent from the Generalitat and 7.54 percent from the Comité Olímpico Organizador de Barcelona (COOB ’92) (García Citation1992, 165).
4 See https://elpais.com/deportes/2016/09/12/actualidad/1473703201_254462.html; https://www.lavanguardia.com/deportes/futbol/20161201/412317604105/barcelona-real-madrid-esteladas-camp-nou.html; https://www.libertaddigital.com/deportes/liga/2015-03-21/la-asamblea-nacional-catalana-pide-acudir-al-camp-nou-con-la-estelada-1276543704/.
5 See https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/pitos-himno-final-copa-rey-6774962; https://www.eldiario.es/politica/Copa-Rey-polemica-trasciende-deporte_0_762923996.html; https://www.marca.com/2015/05/30/futbol/copa_rey/1433015301.html.
6 See, for example, El País’s dossier here: https://elpais.com/tag/juegos_olimpicos_1992/a; TVE’s documentary on the Games here: http://www.rtve.es/deportes/xxv-aniversario-barcelona-92/; or TVE’s documentary about the Barcelona Olympics and the Seville Expo here: http://www.rtve.es/television/20170720/especial-espana-92-25-anos-jjoo-barcelona-expo-sevilla/1584547.shtml.
7 For contrasting views on the 1 October referendum, see: https://elpais.com/tag/referendum_autodeterminacion_cataluna_2017/a; https://www.eldiario.es/temas/1_de_octubre/; https://www.lavanguardia.com/vida/20170930/431677602865/portada-la-vanguardia-uno-octubre-2017.html; https://www.ara.cat/etiquetes/referendum_1-o.html.
8 In the opening text of this special issue, Manuel Palacio analyzes the political confrontations between the Generalitat and the Barcelona town hall in relation to the Olympic Games.
9 Òmnium Cultural is particularly significant since, along with ANC, it is one of the key cultural organizations that has supported el procés.
10 See information about this act here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCrJ4kC5mTY; https://www.sport.es/es/noticias/barca/camp-nou-volvio-llenarse-con-otras-30000-esteladas-5574903.
11 See the Spanish flag at Camp Nou here: https://www.abc.es/deportes/futbol/abci-bandera-espana-camp-vuelta-mundo-201801121400_noticia.html.
12 See https://www.larazon.es/historico/7429-el-dolor-en-alc-sser-no-va-a-caducar-FLLA_RAZON_501038.
13 It is believed that Anglés died jumping from a ship off the coast of Ireland while trying to escape, but there is no actual evidence that proves this fact.
14 That night, both De tú a tú and competing show Paco Lobatón’s Quién sabe dónde, obtained significant ratings, gathering over seventeen million people in front of the TV set (Oleaque Citation2014).
15 There was also a paid channel, subscription-based Canal +.
16 However, it is necessary to point out that aside from Quién sabe dónde, most of these shows were not necessarily among the most watched programs on Spanish television (Palacio Citation2007, 61–62) except on specific occasions such as De tú a tú’s Alcàsser broadcast.
17 See Informe semanal’s Puerto Hurraco reportage here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySbvYGeddho.
18 A second autopsy revealed hair of multiple individuals on the corpses, besides Anglés’s and Ricart’s.
19 Information about how Esta noche cruzamos el Mississippi covered the case is available here: http://lahemerotecadelbuitre.com/piezas/pepe-navarro-programa-esta-noche-cruzamos-el-mississippi-vincula-sin-pruebas-a-figuras-publicas-en-el-triple-asesinato-de-las-ninas-de-alcasser/.
20 Information about the “Bar España case” can be found at the following links: https://latribunadeespana.com/espana/caso-bar-espana-3-los-41-nombres; https://latribunadeespana.com/espana/caso-bar-espana-1-la-impunidad-de-los-pederastas; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRpoeBkJE-Q.
22 For example: https://lascloacasdelsistema.wordpress.com/2017/07/01/la-relacion-entre-el-crimen-de-alcasser-y-el-caso-bar-espana/ or https://vimeo.com/276431441.
23 Listen to the audio of Jiménez’s statement on Cuarto milenio here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yK8wUFrfM8I.
24 Information about the documentary La Manada here: https://www.ara.cat/cultura/Bar-Espana-Massa-atroc-creible_0_1837016314.html. Information about “La Manada’s” rape case at the following links: https://elpais.com/tag/caso_la_manada/a; https://www.eldiario.es/sociedad/Cronologia-denuncia-violacion-sentencia-provisional_0_832916986.html.
25 See trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LzhPia01Q8.
26 Video of the “making of” 75 días here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhXhbuFLy3A.
27 See, for example, the following articles: https://elpais.com/politica/2017/11/12/actualidad/1510512163_244463.html; https://www.elespanol.com/reportajes/grandes-historias/20171112/261474386_0.html; https://www.abc.es/espana/comunidad-valenciana/abci-ninas-alcasser-25-anos-triple-crimen-tuvo-vilo-espana-201711121204_noticia.html; https://valenciaplaza.com/caso-alcasser.
28 A few examples of recent true crime series are: The Jinx (HBO, 2013), Making a Murderer (Netflix, 2015), Muerte en León (Justin Webster, 2016) and Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (Netflix, 2018).
29 Information about the Laura Luelmo case here: https://elpais.com/sociedad/2018/12/26/actualidad/1545820102_840732.html.
30 Information about Julen Roselló’s case here: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rescate_de_Julen_Rosell%C3%B3.
31 See article here: https://sevilla.abc.es/andalucia/huelva/sevi-laura-luelmo-otras-jovenes-salieron-casa-solas-y-nunca-mas-volvieron-201812190722_noticia.html.
32 Barjola (Citation2019) explains the limitations of the Netflix series here.
33 Information about Marta del Castillo’s murder here: https://elpais.com/tag/caso_marta_del_castillo/a. Interview with “El Cuco” here: https://www.telecinco.es/elprogramadeanarosa/entrevista-cuco-marta-castillo-asesinato_0_2692200025.html.
34 See reports on Miguel Carcaño here: https://www.cope.es/actualidad/espana/noticias/asi-vida-del-asesino-marta-del-castillo-miguel-carcano-tras-diez-anos-prision-20181223_262922; https://www.antena3.com/noticias/sociedad/asi-es-la-vida-ahora-de-carcano-asesino-confeso-de-marta-del-castillo-de-el-cuco-y-de-samuel_20161129583cc66a0cf264101b1c82ba.html.
35 Álex de la Iglesia would explicitly address the latent racism in mid-1990s Spain with his second film, El día de la bestia (1995). This cinematic effort metaphorically connects a racist vigilante group, “Limpia Madrid”, with the devil. Furthermore, the film extensively explores what lies underneath the consideration of Spain as a “European” country through the juxtaposition of political corruption – by foregrounding the Kio Towers, so-called Gateway to Europe, and their connection with urban speculation – and racist behaviors under the veneer of institutional accounts of Spain’s transnational Europeanism.