doxa.comunicación | nº 29, pp. 139-159 | 157
July-December of 2019
Cristina San José de la Rosa, Mercedes Miguel Borrás and Alicia Gil Torres
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
program. In Acción mutante, J. Blanch fights for audience share until he dies. Una chica entre un millón introduces the TV mogul and gangster Miguel. In El día de la bestia, Professor Cavan hosts a show with charades of UFOs, possessed people and extraterrestrials. In Dame algo Marisol Fernández looks for blood when searching for the news of the day. Siempre hay un camino a la derecha (There is always a way out) is also the name of the program directed by Lanza Gorta, who takes advantage of the misfortune of others for his television show. In El grito en el cielo, Miranda lives her particular madness under the pressure of audience ratings.
Disparate Nacional can be found in a press office during this decade, and this is a show involving Manolo and Emilio, both of whom make a living telling lies and creating deceptive shams. On radio, there are villains in El hundimiento del Titanic, with Albert and his skirt-chasing escapades. There is also deception in Atilano, Presidente, with Sol heading the press with her bag of tricks.
As the hypothesis states, laughter prevails over anger, and this is clearly evidenced by the film genres chosen. Comedy dom-inates throughout this period with its total presence in 8 of the titles; in 2 of them, it shares the screen with drama; and in 2 others, there is only drama. In the 9 television titles, the gender balance regarding villains is nearly equal, with 4 female and 5 male. The cases of press and radio are men, and there is one woman as head of the press
The predominance of television for impossible villains continued in the last 10 years of the research, with 6 titles out of 8 occupying this section. In Hable con ella, there is a host who takes advantage of the live show to intimidate the interviewee. In No somos nadie, the host of a morbid television program is the one who decides if people condemned to death should be saved or not. In Teresa, Teresa, a television diva performs a surreal interview with Saint Teresa. Volver features a television program in which morbid statements are gathered in exchange for medical treatment for the woman who confesses. Cuba libre shows Cristina Melero and her ‘anything goes’ attitude for becoming the network’s main host. Prime time features a macabre reality show that makes a business out of suffering.
There are two radio titles: Año Mariano shows María in the strange role as the ‘Virgin Mary’ on the radio, and in Franky Banderas, lies on the air, even with minors, keeps the tension going.
For the first time, comedy is reconciled with drama, with 4 films in which humour prevails and another 4 in which television satire disguises sorrow. There is a predominance of television with 6 cases, while radio is the chosen media between the other two. The villainous woman is dominant with 6 females on the screen.
The study of 20 films during the two decades of the sample has allowed for this contribution to be made to the worlds of cinematography and journalism, thanks to the recovery of Vladimir Propp’s famous work entitled Morphology of the Folk-tale. This period of Spanish cinema around the 1990’s was a crucial moment in national film production in which a wave of young creative talent appeared with their ground-breaking projects. The success of Spanish cinema with its impressive box office numbers, and even awards in Hollywood, can be seen in this research with examples among our list of films, such as El día de la bestia by Álex de la Iglesia, Hable con ella, and Volver, by Pedro Almodóvar. These two decades were also very important for Spanish journalism with the arrival of private TV channels and an overload of television programmes. In summary, this work complements the body of research on the same topic with a new methodology by which we have chosen to continue with the study of the media and the portrayal of journalists in films.