In folklore, theatrical performance was historically the medium for satire. European culture provides ample evidence of the role played by satire from the days of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome to present times. It has remained a constant, a broadening of media in more recent times having made it ever more popular in the sense of it having both a strong public following and also of it being for the people. Satire, with its strain of social comment, has down the centuries provided the people with a voice, one of criticism and of attempts to affect attitudes and legislation.
Different societies are littered with examples. In England, for example, Geoffrey Chaucer used "The Canterbury Tales" to attack fourteenth-century church corruption. Miguel Cervantes' "Don Quixote" was in effect a satire on the whole notion of chivalry. His contemporary, William Shakespeare, used satire in various plays. "Love's Labour's Lost" devoted itself to an assault on the pedantry of the educated classes.
The performance was more important than written works in appealing to largely illiterate societies and expressing what the common people might be feeling. In Mallorca, illiteracy was more the norm than the exception at the end of the nineteenth century and into the early decades of the last century. It was within this societal context that purveyors of satire could gain the ears of the people. The glosadors were a principal medium for this.
Mallorcan and Catalan culture has a theatrical tradition that dates back to at least the middle of the twelfth century. The dances of demons were first noted at a banquet for the Count of Barcelona in 1150. Over time, this mediaeval theatre was to develop a format, with the conclusion of demons' performances being characterised by satirical verses aimed at political and public life. The format, depending on the demons' gang, is still intact. Last year at Muro's Sant Antoni event, for instance, the Grand Demon of the Sa Pedrera gang issued his annual warnings and his reflections on Catalonian independence and the trial of Princess Cristina. In terms of attacks on corruption, Mallorca's demons, it might be said, are following in the long-ago footsteps of Geoffrey Chaucer.
Carnival is one of the most obvious excuses for satirical expression. The parades, theatre in their own right, are occasions for donning attire and masks that point fun at politicians and others. This subversive aspect was just one reason why the Franco regime attempted, by no means always successfully, to outlaw Carnival.
The glosadors, who feature all-year round but who are key players in this month's Sant Antoni fiestas, have invoked the saint in emphasising their historical role in demanding justice, attacking authority and strengthening values. One "glosa" which was certainly being used in Franco's time calls on the saint to "liberate us" from the language of the glosador, whose role is that of a painter, using the same colour for a saint and for a demon. It is a satire on religious reverence accorded to saints combined with barbs against an unspecified demon. Given the context of the times, it might be possible to guess who the demon was.
There is a further satire, one which has just been acted out, as it is each year. The performance of Llorenç Moyà's "Adoration of the Three Kings" on 6 January in Palma's Ses Voltes park is an occasion, similar in a way to the demons, to issue warnings while also poking fun. Corruption was a target, and the local police force wasn't spared. The possible return of José Ramón Bauzá as leader of the Partido Popular was another. If he dares to bring back TIL (trilingual teaching), there'll be a missile heading his way. Other subjects were school bullying and housing: the dogs at the Son Reus pound have better lives than people who live in cold conditions at this time of the year in Palma's worst neighbourhoods.
There were invited amateurs, as there always are. One was the former tourism minister and potential rival to Bauzá as PP leader, Jaime Martínez, who uttered the words: "The government tells you 'no' ... what part of the 'no' do you not understand?" At least and for once, a politician wasn't taking himself too seriously.
This is a time of the year, because of the Adoration, the demons and glosadors of Sant Antoni, and Carnival in a few weeks time, when satire is at its height. And it isn't only apparent with the performances. Look out as well for the bonfires for Sant Antoni and Sant Sebastià. In Pollensa, where Sant Antoni has additional meaning because of its pine climb, political parties make a habit of using their bonfires to convey a message. There was one a few years ago that was a pyramid of 500 euro notes which represented the auditorium project that finally was never pursued, perhaps proving that satire and its criticism can sometimes be effective.
Showing posts with label Satire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Satire. Show all posts
Monday, January 09, 2017
Friday, January 18, 2013
MALLORCA TODAY - Pollensa's satirical Sant Antoni bonfire
The Alternativa has been up to its usual tricks. Taking the chance of having a pop at the dysfunctional town hall administration in Pollensa, its own Sant Antoni bonfire shows the splits in the coalition between mayor Tomeu Cifre and ex-La Lliga's Malena Estrany plus the splits between the former members of La Lliga, presided over, on the purple pine of the El Pi party, by Jaume Font and Josep Melia, the leaders of the merged El Pi.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
The Broken: Spain's greatest cartoonist
Andrés Rábago. Who he?
Rábago is a cartoonist. Spain's most famous cartoonist. He is not a creator of cartoon strips, but of the usually one-off satirical, social commentary or otherwise pointed cartoon. He has gone under different pseudonyms, changing one well-known nom de plume for another well-known one and simultaneously changing the style of his message. He is now 65 years old and his oeuvre is being celebrated in an exhibition at Madrid's Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
65 years old is telling. Rábago was still a young man when Franco died, but he was active in the later years of the dictator. For a cartoonist with a satirical streak, this might have represented a dangerous occupation, but Rábago forged a reputation in the late '60s and into the 1970s nevertheless.
In truth, his satire began to emerge later. During Franco's time and for some years after, he traded in a style of cartoon that had echoes perhaps of Gerald Scarfe and of The Scream paintings of Edvard Munch. It was a style that dealt with the human condition, human fears and terrors, the subconscious and panic in particular; hence the possible link to Munch. It was one that also owed something to the surrealism of Dalí and Miró but much more to the later work of Goya, the Spanish painter more commonly thought of as a romantic but who created frightening imagery, such as in his oil on tin called the "Yard with Lunatics". Ken Russell, the film director, one would have to guess, was probably also influenced by Goya's hellish imagination and subliminal attacks on the reign of the then Spanish king.
References to artists of fame might seem strange when talking about a cartoonist, but Rábago was not and isn't a cartoonist in the way that one immediately understands the term to mean. It is only right that the Academy should honour him with a showing and only right that the art-world establishment, often haughty when it comes to cartoon works and even comic strips, should recognise the intrinsic artistic value of his contributions.
Rábago's first pseudonym was OPS. I have tried to find out the derivation of this pseudonym but without success, and Rábago himself seems to have been evasive in supplying an explanation. It might not have had anything to do with it, but put a "u" into OPS and what do you get? Opus. Rábago as OPS appears to have got away with a great deal during the final years of Franco's rule, partly because he didn't attempt to be a humorous cartoonist and so therefore didn't obviously expose himself as a critic of the regime, partly because he seemed to work in an artistic style reminiscent of Dalí who was generally sympathetic to Franco, and partly because Franco and his cronies simply didn't understand what he was doing. And among those who seemed not to have would have been fundamentalists within the church, such as Opus Dei.
OPS was killed off in the early 1980s, as the messages and style were no longer suited to a changing society. The underlying theme of allegorical repression that OPS displayed and the fears that this repression induced had given way to the more open, democratic society, but it was one that demanded a more direct political style, and so was born El Roto.
Literally meaning "the broken", El Roto is still at work, appropriately enough for an observer of the current rightist tendencies in Spain, in the left-leaning "El País". It is a time when sharp commentary, be it through cartoon, the written word or other means, is needed more than ever, especially in Spain. A desperate economy; an inadequate government; a clueless, ineffectual and anonymous prime minister; a church on the move that is seeking to regain its power; a monarchy plagued with controversy and gaffes; a banking sector in a partial state of collapse; unemployment the highest in Europe; poverty the worst in Europe with the exception of Romania and Bulgaria.
And later this year, in the Catalonian town of Hospitalet de Llobregat, there is to be a further exhibition that features Rábago's work. It will be called "a journey of a thousand demons", a nod in the direction of the OPS era. But the demons are as alive now as they were when they were symbolic of the torment of the Franco regime. Only they are different demons.
El Roto, the broken. How apt.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Rábago is a cartoonist. Spain's most famous cartoonist. He is not a creator of cartoon strips, but of the usually one-off satirical, social commentary or otherwise pointed cartoon. He has gone under different pseudonyms, changing one well-known nom de plume for another well-known one and simultaneously changing the style of his message. He is now 65 years old and his oeuvre is being celebrated in an exhibition at Madrid's Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
65 years old is telling. Rábago was still a young man when Franco died, but he was active in the later years of the dictator. For a cartoonist with a satirical streak, this might have represented a dangerous occupation, but Rábago forged a reputation in the late '60s and into the 1970s nevertheless.
In truth, his satire began to emerge later. During Franco's time and for some years after, he traded in a style of cartoon that had echoes perhaps of Gerald Scarfe and of The Scream paintings of Edvard Munch. It was a style that dealt with the human condition, human fears and terrors, the subconscious and panic in particular; hence the possible link to Munch. It was one that also owed something to the surrealism of Dalí and Miró but much more to the later work of Goya, the Spanish painter more commonly thought of as a romantic but who created frightening imagery, such as in his oil on tin called the "Yard with Lunatics". Ken Russell, the film director, one would have to guess, was probably also influenced by Goya's hellish imagination and subliminal attacks on the reign of the then Spanish king.
References to artists of fame might seem strange when talking about a cartoonist, but Rábago was not and isn't a cartoonist in the way that one immediately understands the term to mean. It is only right that the Academy should honour him with a showing and only right that the art-world establishment, often haughty when it comes to cartoon works and even comic strips, should recognise the intrinsic artistic value of his contributions.
Rábago's first pseudonym was OPS. I have tried to find out the derivation of this pseudonym but without success, and Rábago himself seems to have been evasive in supplying an explanation. It might not have had anything to do with it, but put a "u" into OPS and what do you get? Opus. Rábago as OPS appears to have got away with a great deal during the final years of Franco's rule, partly because he didn't attempt to be a humorous cartoonist and so therefore didn't obviously expose himself as a critic of the regime, partly because he seemed to work in an artistic style reminiscent of Dalí who was generally sympathetic to Franco, and partly because Franco and his cronies simply didn't understand what he was doing. And among those who seemed not to have would have been fundamentalists within the church, such as Opus Dei.
OPS was killed off in the early 1980s, as the messages and style were no longer suited to a changing society. The underlying theme of allegorical repression that OPS displayed and the fears that this repression induced had given way to the more open, democratic society, but it was one that demanded a more direct political style, and so was born El Roto.
Literally meaning "the broken", El Roto is still at work, appropriately enough for an observer of the current rightist tendencies in Spain, in the left-leaning "El País". It is a time when sharp commentary, be it through cartoon, the written word or other means, is needed more than ever, especially in Spain. A desperate economy; an inadequate government; a clueless, ineffectual and anonymous prime minister; a church on the move that is seeking to regain its power; a monarchy plagued with controversy and gaffes; a banking sector in a partial state of collapse; unemployment the highest in Europe; poverty the worst in Europe with the exception of Romania and Bulgaria.
And later this year, in the Catalonian town of Hospitalet de Llobregat, there is to be a further exhibition that features Rábago's work. It will be called "a journey of a thousand demons", a nod in the direction of the OPS era. But the demons are as alive now as they were when they were symbolic of the torment of the Franco regime. Only they are different demons.
El Roto, the broken. How apt.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Needling The Spanish: French sporting satire
Sport has long had the capacity to stir up diplomatic unrest. Douglas Jardine's insistence that Larwood and Voce deployed leg theory on the MCC's Ashes Bodyline tour in the early 1930s threatened the relationship between Britain and Australia. This, though, was a purely sporting (or unsporting, were you Australian) incident. The spat between France and Spain is well removed from a sports arena; it is being played out on television.
There has been some needle, so to speak, between the French and the Spanish in the matter of Rafael Nadal. It was spiked by the utterances of Nadal's trainer-uncle, Toni, when he once referred to Parisians as stupid for having supported Roger Federer more than the Muscle of Manacor, and then by the director of Spanish tourism in Paris who not only agreed with Uncle Toni but went on to suggest that the Paris public had no style. (And they wonder why French tourism numbers to Mallorca have remained static since the turn of the century.)
Now it is the turn of the French and in particular the satirical puppet show, "Les Guignols de l'info", to have a go at Nadal. And the Real Madrid and Spanish national team's goalkeeper, Iker Casillas. And the cyclist Alberto Contador. It all comes on the back of former French tennis star Yannick Noah's insinuation that Spanish sport was so far removed from being clean that pretty much all Spanish sportspeople were doping.
Allegations that Nadal may have acquired his physique in ways other than just naturally are nothing new. But there has never been any proof. They are allegations, and though Nadal has sought to brush off the satire directed at him (e.g. using a syringe to write a letter of support to Contador, banned for two years for doping), the Spanish Tennis Federation has said that it is considering suing the show's broadcaster, Canal Plus. It would have a justifiable case in doing so. It may be satire, but it could just as easily be described as defamation.
The spat between Spain and France over the show has now embraced all manner of politicians. The Spanish Ambassador in Paris has been in touch with Canal Plus; the French sports minister has received a letter from the Spanish sports council; the leader of PSOE, Alfredo Rubalcaba, has had his say; and the Partido Popular in the Balearics is presenting a parliamentary motion condemning the "parodies of Spanish sportspeople", one that the opposition parties have criticised, saying that the PP should be worrying more about unemployment.
What kicked it all off was Contador's ban for doping during the 2010 Tour de France. If the 2010 Tour had been the only time that Contador had found himself embroiled in a doping controversy, the French might not have decided it was high time that some satire was directed at him and Spanish sport in general. But it wasn't the only time.
A problem for the Spanish, in defending themselves against the jibes, is that there has been equivocation by sporting authorities and that there has been political influence. The Spanish Cycling Federation was close to giving Contador a one-year ban before former prime minister Zapatero voiced his support for Contador and the federation accepted the defence of meat contamination, which ultimately led the World Anti-Doping Agency to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and to the two-year ban (which in practice will finish in August this year).
Nevertheless, the satirical attacks by Canal Plus and Noah's accusations have caused rightful indignation. As always, in understanding why there is indignation, it is appropriate to consider the reaction were the boot on the other foot, i.e. were the French on the receiving end of doping accusations from Spanish sources.
Nadal does come out of all this pretty well. He has played it down as an attempt at humour, but one that may have gone too far. Whether, however, the Canal Plus show was the catalyst is not clear, but Nadal was subject to a surprise, recent dope test.
In accepting that, rather being personal, the French attacks are aimed at Spanish sport in general, Nadal is aligning himself with the politicians, one of whom, the foreign minister no less, has pointed out that in 2011 there were 62 more cases of doping in France than there were in Spain. Touché. Meanwhile, however, and the political fall-out notwithstanding, the Spanish sport minister has said that there will soon be a new anti-doping law. This may or may not have been planned, but it will now seem timely, and no doubt the French will take the credit.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
There has been some needle, so to speak, between the French and the Spanish in the matter of Rafael Nadal. It was spiked by the utterances of Nadal's trainer-uncle, Toni, when he once referred to Parisians as stupid for having supported Roger Federer more than the Muscle of Manacor, and then by the director of Spanish tourism in Paris who not only agreed with Uncle Toni but went on to suggest that the Paris public had no style. (And they wonder why French tourism numbers to Mallorca have remained static since the turn of the century.)
Now it is the turn of the French and in particular the satirical puppet show, "Les Guignols de l'info", to have a go at Nadal. And the Real Madrid and Spanish national team's goalkeeper, Iker Casillas. And the cyclist Alberto Contador. It all comes on the back of former French tennis star Yannick Noah's insinuation that Spanish sport was so far removed from being clean that pretty much all Spanish sportspeople were doping.
Allegations that Nadal may have acquired his physique in ways other than just naturally are nothing new. But there has never been any proof. They are allegations, and though Nadal has sought to brush off the satire directed at him (e.g. using a syringe to write a letter of support to Contador, banned for two years for doping), the Spanish Tennis Federation has said that it is considering suing the show's broadcaster, Canal Plus. It would have a justifiable case in doing so. It may be satire, but it could just as easily be described as defamation.
The spat between Spain and France over the show has now embraced all manner of politicians. The Spanish Ambassador in Paris has been in touch with Canal Plus; the French sports minister has received a letter from the Spanish sports council; the leader of PSOE, Alfredo Rubalcaba, has had his say; and the Partido Popular in the Balearics is presenting a parliamentary motion condemning the "parodies of Spanish sportspeople", one that the opposition parties have criticised, saying that the PP should be worrying more about unemployment.
What kicked it all off was Contador's ban for doping during the 2010 Tour de France. If the 2010 Tour had been the only time that Contador had found himself embroiled in a doping controversy, the French might not have decided it was high time that some satire was directed at him and Spanish sport in general. But it wasn't the only time.
A problem for the Spanish, in defending themselves against the jibes, is that there has been equivocation by sporting authorities and that there has been political influence. The Spanish Cycling Federation was close to giving Contador a one-year ban before former prime minister Zapatero voiced his support for Contador and the federation accepted the defence of meat contamination, which ultimately led the World Anti-Doping Agency to take the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and to the two-year ban (which in practice will finish in August this year).
Nevertheless, the satirical attacks by Canal Plus and Noah's accusations have caused rightful indignation. As always, in understanding why there is indignation, it is appropriate to consider the reaction were the boot on the other foot, i.e. were the French on the receiving end of doping accusations from Spanish sources.
Nadal does come out of all this pretty well. He has played it down as an attempt at humour, but one that may have gone too far. Whether, however, the Canal Plus show was the catalyst is not clear, but Nadal was subject to a surprise, recent dope test.
In accepting that, rather being personal, the French attacks are aimed at Spanish sport in general, Nadal is aligning himself with the politicians, one of whom, the foreign minister no less, has pointed out that in 2011 there were 62 more cases of doping in France than there were in Spain. Touché. Meanwhile, however, and the political fall-out notwithstanding, the Spanish sport minister has said that there will soon be a new anti-doping law. This may or may not have been planned, but it will now seem timely, and no doubt the French will take the credit.
Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.
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