Monday, September 20, 2010

Nudity and The Simpsons

While I was away at Ibiza this weekend, it came to my attention that once again, nudity and sex was not something that was hidden nor a subject matter that the media felt shy towards. Since I arrived at the Ibiza airport, there were posters and billboards that solely promoted the ¨discotecas¨around the area. These clubs had posters that looked risque, yet looked acceptable to promote in such a public area or in other words, they were posters I would see around in the U.S. However, once I arrived at the Ibiza hostel, I found fliers that promoted the different clubs with events that would never occur in America. For instance, a club that my friends and I were planning to go to had a stack of fliers and had a description of the events of the night at the club. While nowhere did it say before we bought the tickets for the club online that there would be porno stars at the club, the fliers informed us that there would be a porno filming taking place at the club. This boggled my mind as to how it was legal...or even how it was socially acceptable. That is when it hit me that Spain can essentially get away with anything sexual; there is no such thing as too sexual and too graphic for the public eye. As long as the public is okay with it, the media follows.
One show that I´ve seen here in Spain, once in Toledo and once in Ibiza is The Simpsons. I am not sure why this show is so popular here, however I´ve tried to see why it might be so appealing to Spain. The Simpsons in America is a blunt show in terms of its
dialouge and the events that occur. Since the Spanish people are very direct in their way of manner, I realized this aspect of the show might be appealing to them. What was also interesting was that according to my friend who is fluent in Spanish, the dialouge of the show in Spanish was a lot harsher and direct than it usually would be in America. It was as if they took the American version and changed the words to make the show even more vulgar.
I am trying to get more into the tv shows here in Spain as well as the magazines to find more interesting qualities that I can learn about however it´s been difficult to follow the media here because aside from the language barrier, I haven´t had any interest in reading the newspapers here. I will try to watch more tv and read more through the internet for more exposure to Spanish media.

1 comment:

  1. Why don't you try online newspapers instead? You can always use a translation tool to help you out with the language. I will try to get you more interested in media here during the semester. Hopefully next Monday's class will give you a good idea of each media.

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