148 | nº 29, pp. 139-159 | doxa.comunicación
July-December of 2019
Portrayal of the journalist in Spanish cinema from 1990 to 2010
ISSN: 1696-019X / e-ISSN: 2386-3978
It is all about strategies to gain audience share. He goes to Rosa’s house and tries to justify his actions in the face of her anger. She calls him “bastard, son of a bitch, and disgusting”. He tries to stop the aggression and assures her that he treated Violeta better because she is the Comet Award winner.
Theo: You’re nervous, honey. You know perfectly well that my on-camera flirtations are just that. It’s my style. My style is to mess with everybody, babe. If I hadn’t, it would have been very noticeable.
Rosa: I don’t want to have sex. You’ve already fucked me in front of two million people.
Theo: That’s four million people. It’s the star show. (TC: 00:06:00)
He treats his lover with complete coldness and contempt. After making love, he dresses hurriedly: “Don’t forget. I’m seeing my in-laws today”. However, the great betrayal is stealing the idea of her novel. He goes to the Retiro to meet Rosa’s friend, Rose, and enter her life and that of her boyfriend for the sole purpose of befriending the two of them to find out the details of their cult, a story that Rosa uses for her novel, and that Theo wants to use for his TV show.
The height of his lack of scruples occurs when he asks his lover to help him choose a tie for the program, and soon after he betrays her on that same program. He announces on live TV that he is going to travel to Tibet with Rose and her partner’s cult, and he is going to write a book about this group’s cannibalism, and he assures the audience it will be very macabre. The broadcast begins at the airport when he gets on the plane, but not before getting a slap in the face from Rosa in front of the cameras. The crazy situations run all the way to the end because the plane in which they are travelling crashes, and as Theo is the only victim, he serves as food for the rest of the passengers who belong to the cult, an end that attempts to ‘serve justice’ to this villain.
In Acción mutante, J. Blanch (Jaime Blanch) is the host of a television program in charge of introducing the film. The news selected announces the film’s surreal content:
Tonight, at five o’clock in the morning, Matías Pons, president of the National Federation of Culture, was murdered under strange circumstances. Apparently, it could have been a kidnapping attempt. The police attribute responsibility for the crime to the terrorist group Acción Mutante (while he is reporting, behind him on a large screen appear images of police at the scene of the victim). The Acción Mutante band started ten years ago, and since then many attacks have been perpe-trated by this group of disabled people. Their specific targets so far have been prominent personalities due to their beauty, public health institutions, and sperm banks.”
Jaime is a caricature with a greedy personality who is only concerned about attracting an audience. He announces the kid-napping of a young woman and a request for 100 million ‘ecus’ in ransom. Anything goes when he tries to increase audience share and he has no scruples in resorting to nudity, like the time when a half-naked stewardess brings him an envelope using the excuse of delivering the latest news. The final act of the TV host takes place in a bar where the money from the kidnapping will be delivered. He breaks in, and without a word to anyone says, “film it”. The journalist, followed by the ca-mera and two sound technicians, broadcasts live the act of handing over the money that ends with his own shooting death. “Don’t shoot. I’m from the TV Show”. His concern for audience share, and mostly his show, which he values more than his own life, make this reporter a villain.