doxa.comunicación | nº 29, pp. 139-159 | 149
July-December of 2019
Cristina San José de la Rosa, Mercedes Miguel Borrás and Alicia Gil Torres
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
In Kika, Andrea Caracortada (Victoria Abril) is an extravagant broadcaster. She is an unreal, bizarre character who is being used to satirise tabloid journalism so excessive it borders on madness. She has an unusual look with her equipment when she is on the street, and with her eye-catching gothic dresses on the TV studio set as well. If the way she looks is striking, no less provocative are her appearances in front of the TV camera. Her first appearance takes place in a television studio when the tone of her message is revealed. “A woman is burned to the bone in the office of a director of the BVB bank after being denied a loan of 800,000 pesetas. After these words, some images appear in which Andrea approaches a woman who is going to visit a tomb:
Andrea: Excuse me, what were your daughter’s reasons for committing suicide?
Woman: Please, leave me alone.
Andrea: Was the girl happy? What was the family environment like?
Woman: What do you expect it to be like? It was a living hell because of my husband. A year ago, he abused the girl. (TC: 00:18:03)
In another report, we are plunged into Kika’s house. She has just been raped by Paul Bazzo. In the presence of two officers who personify police incompetence, the victim is addressed, at which point the persuasion to achieve their objectives is again verified. “The fact that you’ve been raped doesn’t give you the right to be nasty” he reproaches her when the victim wants to close the door. An obsession to grab headlines is repeated in the final scene of the film when she dies trying to get a few words out of the murderer, Nicholas, who also takes her life at the end. This race for morbidity and audience share places Andrea and her strange behavior among the most villainous females.
In Una chica entre un millón, Miguel Robles (Juanjo Puigcorbé) listens to the TV in his luxurious car with a program on the screen in which the speakers assure viewers that a marriage of convenience has been arranged in order for his TV station to be joined to that of his future father-in-law. Miguel lives for his work, and he knows how to deceive anyone in order to achieve his goals, including his girlfriend, with whom he appears docile and submissive, although he really has no illusions about the wedding. His girlfriend accuses him of being selfish, and he defends himself:
This is a world of sharks, and my instinct is to cut someone in half with my teeth (TC: 00:17:06).
He’s a calculating, intelligent man who doesn’t trust even his girlfriend’s father. “By marrying my daughter, you will be the greatest man on television. You could end up on National Television”, his future father-in-law reminds him. There is even a moment when he is about to lose an advertiser worth 10 billion pesetas, and he suddenly thinks his father-in-law is respon-sible. “I’m not married yet. For 10 billion he is able to sell his own soul”. Another villain, just like himself.
El hundimiento del Titanic stars Albert Planes (Sergi Mateu), who proposes giving a boost to the radio station by merging with another network, and to announce the proposal he organises a party in the facilities of the same station, precisely in the old room where radio programmes with live audiences were broadcast 20 years ago). After the merger, he is the one who hosts the party for the presentation of the new radio station in which he commits to radio that is “truthful and serious”. However, he fails in his private life because he lies, cheats on his wife with his program partner, flirts with other women, and is an unscrupulous infidel, because the person with whom he betrays his wife is his best friend’s girlfriend. Though to a lesser extent, the rest of the workers are defined as a group of immature people who only think about smoking drugs in