The original joke in Feijóo’s question on Wednesday in Congress was not bad. It was well done Anatomy of a fakebut when the microphone got stuck and closed, the joke improved a lot, until it rose to the fleeting immortality of the meme (immortality, these days, lasts a week): Anatop Ap It is the series we would like to see.
Between choking and laughing, we have neglected a more than uncomfortable truth: neither Anatomy of a fakeis Anatop Apnor is any political series inspired by the present possible. They are not going to film a production about corruption in Pedro Sánchez’s government, just as they are not going to film one about corruption in Feijóo’s PP. Politics in Spain only becomes audiovisual fiction when it is harmless.
Anatomy of a momentthe series that the popular president tried to paraphrase, has been released 16 years after the publication of the novel by Javier Cercas from which it is inspired. Of its four protagonists, only the king emeritus lives, deactivated and dismantled in his Arabian tent and disqualified from his right of reply. The other three, Carrillo, Suárez and Gutiérrez Mellado, are dead. When Cercas published his book, Carrillo and Suárez were alive (the latter, already ill), and the king was still the untouchable Juan Carlos. Conclusion: a single writer is braver than all the television networks combined.
Literature has an advantage because it does not bother as much as cinema. That maxim of Manuel Azaña that whoever wants to keep a secret in Spain must publish it in a book is still applied to the printed letter. Even if the book is successful, as is the case. Secrets are only revealed when adapted to the screen. At least, this is what the judges have understood, very strict with the application of the right to honor and self-image in audiovisual fictions based on real characters, but lax with analogous literary fictions. It’s normal: the book has to be read to verify the accusations, and judges have a lot of trouble starting to read novels. A series, on the other hand, can be seen by anyone.
Nobody is going to buy the adventures of Koldo and Ábalos in prison, no matter how hilarious the snoring episode is and how sensational its success is predicted to be. Neither Anatomy of a fake in Anatop Ap: This absurd time will have its series when there are no blankets left to pull or courts in which to litigate.
