The viewer of Tell me how it happened has been able to meet José María Aznar this season. Described as a candidate with little charisma in 1996, the popular politician had the challenge of defeating Felipe González, affected by the corruption of the PSOE and state terrorism.
Aznar’s victory depended on the “undecided middle class,” as a professional colleague of Toni (Pablo Rivero) pointed out, as he was perceived as a centrist candidate. And, in a conversation at the Alcántara home, the scope of this idea was exemplified: Antonio (Imanol Arias) was going to vote for him while Merche (Ana Duato), suspected of taking the same electoral course, defended the right to keep her vote. in secret.
Patriarch Alcántara suggested that perhaps it was time to change the face of Moncloa: the principle of political renewal as a necessity of democracy. The vote, coincidentally, aligned with his conservative thinking and his interests as a businessman. At the table, with Toni at the front, there were those who did not understand this betrayal of the working-class essence of the San Genaro neighborhood.
It was a comforting scene. During the process, the Catalans had been blamed for family breakups and uncomfortable dinners when, as the Alcántara family demonstrated, political disagreements in the middle of a meal were also a tradition on the plateau.
That vote of Antonio, however, had a symbolic value. It represented what Michelangelo Bernardeau’s fiction has been from the beginning: a portrait of the status quo and the way it evolves. From the presence of the Catholic Church in the day-to-day life of Francoist society, with a Herminia (María Galiana) with firm beliefs, to an institution that disappeared from history in the nineties.
From a Merche housewife to a graduated woman and owner of a textile workshop that had to close in this final stretch due to globalization. From the patriarchal and heteronormative view of the beginning to Inés as a single mother or Toni with a homosexual son, recognized and loved just as he is by her grandmother. From the working-class nature of the San Genaro neighborhood to the consolidation of a middle-class Spanish dream that changes the vote of the population.
Cuéntame was the antithesis of disruption: it took the pulse of each era so that we understood the consensus, the advances or the setbacks. Even, at a formal level, it had a more classic television characteristic: introducing characters of all ages to unite families in front of the television with a traditional drama.
But it is because of this official perspective that the series is a most interesting document to understand how history, in this case of Spain, can be supported through art. That it was born during a popular government and remained on the air for 22 years regardless of who occupied the Moncloa is symptomatic of this helpful condition of Cuéntame. Other works of fiction were not so lucky.
