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| Castle of Monte Boi (Monterreal), Baiona |
Spain this trip was terrific: great food and people as always. But even with all the January sunshine, there were shades of grey; the "crisis" seemed to be on everyone's mind. The dish on reduced salaries and a helping of frightening statistics came alongside each glass of beer, wine, or cup of coffee. I started to wonder if I should be worried. I wonder now if I should really be worried.
Back in Brooklyn, I'm feeling homesick for Madrid, my city for six years. And by my city, I mean you better not go there. It is mine. So, feeling sorry for myself, I got online recently and stumbled across Spain's version of
Big Brother, Gran Hermano. Good for me!
In the midst of when learning Spanish was my top priority,
GH became not only a useful educational tool for listening comprehension, slang, and pop culture. Most importantly, it allowed me to make a connection with Spanish people. Wherever I went, I packed an instant topic of conversation; though granted, not everyone was a fan of reality TV. But even if someone had never heard of cheatin' Juan, potty-mouthed Bea, or Nicky the she-male, he or she was sure to have an opinion about the implications of the show itself. Plus, it was great entertainment. On Thursdays my roommates, friends, and I would all crowd together in front of the TV, drink beer, smoke cigarettes, and laugh our heads off.
It's one of the best shows ever.
In its 12th edition,
GH appears to be digging in its heels. There's nothing new about the show's format: people in a house; many of the people I've spoken with have expressed that idea as a reason not to watch (bummer). Therefore the new set for the elimination galas, which blows anything coming out of the US
out of the water, must be a defensive strategy. It is all bells and whistles three stories high with no stops. All the stops are pulled out. It's the size of a football stadium. The floor is a gigantic television screen emitting video of the contestants inside the
Big Brother house, while people walk over them and talk over them during the course of the show. It's totally distracting.
And that's not the only distracting thing about
Gran Hermano 12+1. For example, I don't really know what the
+1 is for; maybe it is for
+1 more confusing thing?
The classic format is still the same and familiar to anyone who's ever watched
Big Brother. There's the house and its occupants, locked within for a period of several months, totally isolated from the outside world. Once a week, they each nominate someone to leave. The two people with the most noms are put on the chopping block, with the at-home audience filling the role of judge, jury and executioner. So interactive, right? The person who is eliminated gets an exit interview with the host, and is shown clips of footage from the house, including every little thing anyone has ever said about them. And from the studio audience, they get to see how the public perceives them. At some point, things usually start to get nasty.
Yes,
Big Brother is the same the world over, from Argentina to Germany. And I'm sure that everywhere you go, it's a great opportunity for comparing cultural notes. Spain has many, many cultural norms, down to the proper order for the ingestion of breakfast liquids (fyi, orange juice first, otherwise the acidity on top of milk in your coffee will give you bad digestion). So it's fun to watch a group of Spanish people interacting and slowly losing their minds.
In Spain, giving someone the silent treatment is one of the rudest things you can do. I learned this when I stopped talking to a roommate of mine who had stolen my identity, used my bank card for a shopping spree, graffitied our living room, and started a fight in our kitchen with her cocaine dealer, all in one day. Close friends of mine admonished me, "You mean you don't greet her? Even when you enter the house? Not good morning? Or good night?" You could tell they really disapproved. People in Spain love greeting each other; they do it in elevators and coffee shops. So when things get really bad on GH, and people stop talking to each other, that's major.
And greetings are just one tiny example in how we differ. Table manners. Food. Everybody knows where the forks and knives go in Spain. Growing up in my family, we were just thrown a bundle of silverware wrapped in a paper towel. Most eating was done away from the pack, like scavengers. If you wanted dessert, you hunted through the fridge, and you never shared your prey by offering to scoop someone a bowl of ice cream. "Fend for yourself!," we'd snarl. In addition, my mom wants everyone to know that this is not true.
So the contestants on Gran Hermano quibble over how many eggs go into a Spanish omelette for 14 people. And everybody has an informed opinion! Believe me, if a contestant were to serve herself before serving her companions at the table, forget it, she'd have her passport revoked and then get voted off. I love it.
So forgive me for going on. Like I said, I'm feeling a little geographical separation anxiety. I mean, just get a load of this place:
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| La Muralla (Baiona) |
Twelve seasons in, we can expect to see a few twists and turns within the classic format. The show's producers have to do something to jazz up the scenery until people start eating each other's brains. In the first twist of tonight's elimination gala, not just one but two contestant are eliminated ( but are they?). Together they arrive at the set, where Host-queen Mercedes Milá greets them with videos of this week's nominations. David and Zulema watch as all of their former housemates opt for either one or the other of them to leave. David nominates Zulema for "not fitting in;" Zulema nominates David for the same reason. Milá leans in, eyes flashing. |
Known for her long career as a fearless reporter, Milá is also the daughter of Barcelona's Count of Montseny and sister to Spain's version of Brian Williams (pictured below).
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| El tío de Gran Hermano, newscaster Lorenzo Milá |
There's something brilliantly birdlike about Mercedes Milá's kind and craggy features, her feathered hair and expressive style, and she's kooky and adamant, right down to her ever-present cleavage.
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| Mercedes Milá |
Cool shoes, too, right? She marches to the uplifting, snazzy beat of her own snare drum.
But even with Milá's awesome outlandishness, tonight's fireworks fizzle. Despite the rare early double-elimination, both contestants manage to maintain their composure. After prodding them a bit, Milá gives up and reveals the second twist of the evening: David is headed back to the Big Brother house! Zulema really is eliminated though, and has to stay behind.
Milá still can't muster much of a reaction, since Zulema has already confessed that she wanted to go home anyway. Well, a week into the show nobody's sunk to verbally cannibalizing each other yet. The real BB drama only comes with prolonged isolation from the outside world and betrayal, and this new group is still just a loose tangle of fledgling bonds. No, the true repercussions of this horrible twist will be felt later, when we see what David does with the information he brings back with him to the house. It builds, you know?
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The parador of the Count of Gondomar (Baiona)
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BUT for having foiled Milá twice in their failure to collapse under pressure, Zulema and David must be punished (although unbeknownst to them), and they are locked in a room alone together. There they wait to be taken away, David back to the house, and Zulema to find an agent to guide her through reality-star celebrity, probably.
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| Lots of captives once held here, in a surviving turret of the Castle of Monte Boi |
What happens next is another reason why I love Spanish Big Brother and it's the real reason that diehards like me come back for more: it's ruthless.
Anyone would guess that these two would be kept in the holding bay for half a minute, tops. Who wants to watch two people waiting to leave a room? Nothing's even happening! D&Z fall for the same logic and settle in by staring off into space. About 30 seconds later, it starts to get weird. Nervous laughter suddenly fills the room for too long, followed by repeated stabs at awkward conversation. They even talk about the door itself, in a desperate subconscious plea for it to open. But no. Their final halting exchange trails off; a transparent mutual longing to be anywhere else fills the room like something embarrassing.
This prolonged torture, to both the viewer and the participant, occupies something like four minutes of airtime. It's just one of the most hilarious, least entertaining things you can think of to put on television. I like to think that the show's producers are psychos.
Whether Spanish or American, the social incentive to make nice is too strong to bear. D&Z have to interact, but they kind of hate each other now and they're tired and they just want to leave. It's excruciating, pins and needles anti-entertainment.
The difference between Spanish and American TV is that this is it on a Thursday night in Spain (unless you're also a Cuéntame fan, hands up in the air!). They've got like three hours of programming to fill, and the network has bet everything on the fancy new set and the reality format that won't die. So, with no regard for editing out "the boring stuff,"we get to see it all. And anyway, the fans want it. This was perennial Friday chitchat at the office, the best chitchat of the week (big wink and a thumbs up to you, Virginia and Cat!).
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| Within the wall's perimeter a forest has overgrown the ruined castle. |
On this particular Thursday night though, I wasn't glued to the boob tube. I was riding shotgun on the way back to Madrid from a few days in Galicia, on the northwest coast of Spain.
The images here are from Baiona/Bayona (in Gallego/Spanish), a small coastal town in Galicia dating back to around 140 BC. Point of contention between Romans and Carthaginians, Romans and Celts, Moors and Christians, and the kingdoms of Portugal and Castilla, it's a city (pop. 12,000) bound by mountains and sea, and the walls of a long-destroyed fortress.
Interesting fact: On the 10th of March 1493, Captain Martín Alonso Pinzón sailed past the walled peninsula of Baiona and parked the Pinta here in the harbor, thus making Baiona's inhabitants the first to hear that Columbus was right, after all. You can tour a replica of the Pinta for 1 euro. It is a pint-sized floating wax museum that enjoys little supervision.
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| Polverones |
Coffee in the parador came with polvorones, Spanish pastries made with crushed almonds. My boyfriend Alvaro figures they must have been left over from Christmas, since they're a treat popular in Navidad but ignored the rest of the year. They were freaking delicious....just over the top, holiday-style indulgence. No crumbs wasted.
Back on the set of
Gran Hermano, poor Zulema perches uncomfortably on the spindly metallic stool designed to maximize her feelings of exposure and vulnerability during the exit interview. Legs dangling from its cold seat, she blinks, just a few inches away from the jutting beak and flashing eyes of Milá. There's not a cushion to sink into or the arm of a chair to take comfort behind.
She bears up pretty well, though, telling Milá, "This has been a dream of mine for years. But now that I'm 27, maybe I've outgrown it just a little." Milá, as always, listens transfixedly and probes with thoughtful questions like the total pro she is. Very entertaining.
See the transcript below. I figure anyone who's read this far has got to be at least as obsessed with the Spanish language as I am.
Mercedes Milá: "Tus compañeros te han nominado por aislarte de los demás..." Zulema: "Soy una persona muy independiente. Yo tengo mi carma y voy a mi bola" Milá: "Bueno tienes tu carma pero relativamente porque te hemos oído decir que estabas con el 'chip malo'o sea, que la casa ha podido contigo. Zulema: "Me ha podido el hecho de no tener ventanas por eso estaba todo el rato saliendo fuera. También es cierto que a lo mejor no me he integrado más porque yo me levantaba muy pronto, una hora antes de los demás y me acostaba antes mientras todos se quedaban en el salón". Milá: "Te has reído al ver que Juan te ha nominado, ¿por qué?" Zulema: "Porque sigo pensando que es un lobo con piel de cordero" Milá: "¿Siempre has tenido esta manera naturista de ver la vida?" Zulema: "Sí, desde siempre, desde pequeña ya iba descalza. Nací así" Milá: "¿Qué has aprendido en 'Gran Hermano?" Zulema: " No mucho porque no me ha dado tiempo pero me llevo una buena sensación" Milá: "¿Por qué crees que Juan es un manipulador?" |
Zulema: "Es un manipulador, manipula al grupo y lo hace muy bien. Es la mano que va moviendo los hilos del grupo y lo hace tan bien que todo el mundo le consulta, todo el mundo va con él...Está haciendo cosas para llamar la atención: busca las cámaras, se pone cresta, se hace el simpático...Yo le he visto así".
from http://www.telecinco.es/granhermano/
And you have to see Milá's reaction shot. She's full of sage approval, and you can tell she agrees that Juan is, in fact, a wolf in sheep's clothing. Or maybe she's just happy to finally have something she can use. Ay, Mercedes, ¿qué es lo que piensas, de verdad?
Another twist to this season is that an at-home viewer bid 69,100 euros to be a contestant on the show. They actually had an auction, and this guy was the winner. Sounds weird, right? But I guess if someone is willing to fork over that kind of money, then the show must still be what people are talking about. ¡Viva Gran Hermano! You may be shooting from the trenches, but you've still got it, that je ne sais quoi, that thing we were once all instructed to call the X Factor...and on top of that you are clever and inventive, and I think you've got quite a few more seasons left in you!
As for my bout of melancholia, yes, even with the Internet, Spain seems far away. The Spanish economy is in the toilet; 33 engineers
(engineers!) are being laid off a day, according to a new statistic. But my friends are industrious, and dream big, and are making those dreams come true in a true guts-and-glory, hell-or-highwater fashion.
Lola's about to travel the world with a book deal. Alvaro is starting up an e-commerce business. Isabel finds herself running the biggest hip hop online news source in Spain.
So I take heart, knowing that as long as there is industry and optimism, and leftover polvorones for coffee, and Mercedes Milá on TV, Spain will still be there when I get back. ¡Óle!
