Modern Spain: Stylizing the Stereotypes?

Spain is a country that attracts strong stereotypes. Images of wife-beating machos, blood thirsty sports and crazy drivers may have dissolved since the years of Franco isolation, but siestas, fiestas and Flamenco is still what most people think Spain is about. So what is modern Spain? Maybe maturity is not worrying about what people think or maybe the key to modrrn Spain is in the stereotype. Latinolife investigates Spain's image of its contemporary self.

by The LatinoLife Team

Flamenco, fiery brunettes, siesta, fiesta, sun and sangría. For Brits, and most of the planet, Spain conjures up vivid and colourful stereotypes. We think we know Spain, in a way we wouldn’t imagine we did, say, Lithuania or Sweden. Why does it seem familiar and produce so many easily recognizeable images? Aside from Penelope Cruz, La Barca, Pedro Almodovar and an economy in crisis, do we know modern Spain at all? And who are the Spaniards, apart from the ni-ni generation (ni estudia ni trabaja) and mileuristas who appear in the press?

From lecture halls to virtual reality: ‘Spain is Different’

There are a number of university courses dedicated to Iberian studies. ‘Myths and realities of contemporary spain’ at the University of Southampton, ‘takes the death of Franco and the Spanish democratic transition as a starting point, analyses the key social and political transformations that Spain has undergone in the last four decades: establishment of a parliamentary monarchy; forging of a secular civil society with equal rights for men and women; incorporation to the European Community; accelerated modernisation; recuperation of regional identities' and decinstructs them in the quest to understand the reality of Spain and undermine the myth. But why is Spain a country of myths in the first place?

Dr Alicia Pozo Gutierrez, who runs the course suggests several myth contrbutors: "firstly the different cultures that have passed through the Iberian Peninsula - Moorish, Jewish and Roman-Christian - with their rich and colourful cultural manifestations and then the climate and the fact that Spaniards concentrate in densely populated urban areas. Spanish people can be perceived as gregarious, noisy, and extroverted, especially during the celebration of its many festivities. Then there is the dissemination of a ‘Black Legend’ with regards to Spain, based on the cruel way in which the colonisation of the Americas was carried out by Spanish conquistadors, the religious persecutions and purges of non-Christians by the Tribunal of the Holy Inquisition, the atrocities committed during the Spanish civil war and the repression of the Franco dictatorship. At a more cultural level violent cultural traditions that involve torture of animals add to these images which have inevitably contributed to the forging of certain stereotypes that have shaped outsiders’ perspectives of Spain."

Ah yes, Spaniards, that mercliness, bloodthirstly lot. You only have to watch Monty Python's Spanish Inquisition to know.

Indeed, nowhere are stereotypes more present than on the internet. If you google ‘Spain’, you will encounter a number of holiday destinations, practical advice for those who want to move to Spain or buy property there, and bunch of articles on Spanish cuisine. In various blogs too, stereotypes ride high, reflecting popular perception. One by Jane Cronin refers to a controversial campaign entitled 'Spain is different' conjured up in the 1960s by Manuel Fraga, Franco's Minister for Tourism and Culture, which internally justified Franco's violence in the cause of a superior Spain and, outwardly, projected a country of exotic traditions; bullfighting, the almost eerily traditional Easter celebrations and Sevillanas.

Of course, the campaign's impact was to consolidate Spain's international image as isolated and folkloric, says London's Instituto Cervantes Director Isabel-Clara Lorda Vidal. “For years, Spain was seen as different and mostly, backward; run by an authoritarian and ultra catholic elite out of touch with people, a corrupt bureaucrary and outrageously slow justice system, and a very conservative public that is generally disorganized, and, paradoxically, disregard authority and order.”

To these stereotypes you could add: Impunctual. Loud. Argumentative. Jealous. Oblivious. Easy to take offence. Superficial. Bad listeners. Opinionated. Pushy. Strong sense of decorum. Excessive and exaggerated. And all that is without even mentioning their driving.

Fortunately, many of these stereotypes have dissolved on their own over the last fifteen years, with Spain own’s development and integration into the European project, and more people getting to know the real Spain. “During the Franco era, culture was very much associated with popular culture as intellectual life was repressed,” continues Isabel “People's knowledge of Spain has grown but also realities have changed. Everything has matured, our political systems, entrepreneurial life, infrastucture” ...yes even its football (do you remember the days of Spain being the greatest team that never won?). It’s as if freedom allows everything to breathe and flourish; the burst of activity and creativity has placed Spanish arts, design, literature, entrepreneurialism and, yes, its football at the cutting edge of world culture.

Loving the Stereotypes

More to the point, perhaps, Isabel suggests that part of being comfortable in your skin, knowing who you are, is not getting defensive about stereotypes. There is always an element of truth in a cliché. “And there are many positive stereotypes,” she adds. “Our sense of solidarity. Passion. Our regions, with their different characters and customs, our sense of family. Also, at the Institute we know that there is already interest in certain themes, like Flamenco or Lorca or the Civil War, so we want pay attention to those aspects, and challenge people’s ideas through them."

More positive stereotypes? Spontaneous. Sincere. Peace loving. Gregarious. Tolerant. Blunt. Extrovert. Lovers of children. Repsect for the elderly. Lovers of family (98% put family before work, friends, leisure, religion or politics). Having fun. Neighbourliness. Streetlife, processions and demonstrations. El bar. (138,000 more than rest of Europe). Comunidad de vecinos. Mini-democracy. Lovers of food – eating and discussing. Talkative. Whole-hearted. Generous. Able to discuss politics, religion and money openly. Able to talk about death and grieve without inhibition. Nocturnal. Sociable.

One of Spain’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Carlos Casas, due to exhibit here as part of the Sottovoce Festival, also embraces the Spanish stereotype. ‘I see Spain today as having a modern perspective and class that comes from a certain intuition and instinct, from understanding what living means. I am proud of the myth sourrounding the Spanish - good living, loving people, passionate about life, knowing how to enjoy life. If there is something that can represent Spain, it would be our ability to embrace the human spirit, the passion that fuels life, without compromising our dignity. In an new era which places less value in values, and human dignity is sacrificed for a radical capitalism that borders on slavery and medieval behaviour, I believe that Spain holds a very important role, as a role model of a country that can be passionate and progressive, wiser and based on intuition, that loves life and will not compromise it’

Another contemporary artist who uses Spanish stereotypes as inspiration is filmmaker Pedro Almadovar. “The value of Almadovar," says Isabel of the Instituto Cervantes "is that, on the one hand he perpetuates stereotypes by depicting very traditional local scenes, like La Mancha in the first scene ofVolver or a Madrid barrio and it’s characters in What Have I Done to Deserve This? (just watch Carmen Maura hitting her husband with the Jamón). But at the same time he plays with these charicatures and stylizes them in a way that makes them totally contemporary. For most people Almadovar represents modern Spain, the Spain that broke with Franco’s conservatism and rebelled against it. At the same time he is a product of a very long tradition of black humour in Spain.”

Even the negative stereotypes hold an allure for Casas. “Laziness, creativity, chaos, ambition, faith, belief, intuition, immaturity, they are a comfortaing resource in a global culture which runs faster than the stereotypes survive. My mother married out of her region to an Asturian, I married an Uzbek woman, my dauighter is already Uzbek-Spanish, who knows what her children will be. Culture is becoming diluted. Stereotypes need to be refreshed and updated to keep accurate and appropriate.”

Memory as part of modernity

If stererotypes are becoming a memory that many, especially artists, see as necessary to retain identity in an increasingly diluted global culture, there is a general apreciation in modern Spain of memory as culture.

For years, as with post-dictatorship South America, the issue of debating the repression and divisions of the Civil War and Franco era was itself repressed, atleast officially, says Alicia Pozo-Gutierrez. "Then in 2007 the ‘law on historical memory’ was passed which envisaged a process to officially acknowledge and morally compensate those who had suffered as a consequence of the civil war and the dictatorship. This has created a context which has encouraged many people to talk about their repressed memories. As a result the memory of the Spanish Civil War and the Franco regime has become central to the identity of Spain today."

And for The Instituto Cervantes memory and history is now central when promoting Spanish culture, because, as Isabel says, "together they produce the contemporary.” Casas agrees: "contemporary spain is all the trouble and difficulty that Spain has had to grow from and leave behind’.

Innovation and old taboos as future

The other cultural blueprint for the Cervantes is “innovation”, says Isabel, because “often people mistake contemporary for being what the market decides is modern. It is our duty to expose aspects of contemporary spain that are less known, less popular or that don’t have a mass media outlet.”

Her point is that by nature the innvoative or groundbreaking that doesn't have a mass audience, precisely because it is ahead of its time and therefore not easily digestable by a naturally conservative public (or mass market), is in a sense what is most contemporary. "That is why it is important to support it."

Another old taboo which Spain is embracing as part of its modernity is the great Latin American influence, through reverse migration and influence. Whilst Spanish artists and intellectuals have long expressed solidarity with Latin American artists, who were fleeing the dictatorships of the 70s and 80s, Spanish officialdon of old not only helped repress them but also sought to perpetuate the colonial relationship and idea of Spain's cultural superiority over Sputh America. Now, there is an official Spanish stance of cultural solidarity that the Cervantes is part of, promoting not only Spanish culture but Hispanic culture in the broader sense. "Latin American culture is now part of Spanish culture," says Isabel. "We live in a labrynth of mutual influence, which forms part of our cultural patrimony. It is difficult talk talk of Spanish culture because it is so diverse, but what bonds all our regional and nmational cultures is our language, so we have become Europe's interlocutor with Latin America."

Franco would probably be turning in his grave at Soain's official cultural stance today. And this is the key. If a government institution is promoting what, thirty years ago, itself would have repressed, it means that Spain has learnt the lessons of history. This, along with the willingness to accept and embrace others' perception of it, albeit stereotypical, and move in is the sign of a truly modern state, and perhaps one that Britain can learn a lesson from in forging its own modern identity.