Ninth International Conference on Sport & Society

Abstract

The contemporary socio-political crisis within the Spanish state initiated with the explosion of the global financial crisis in 2008. Paradoxically, that same year La Roja (Spanish Men’s National Soccer Team) started its victorious streak of international triumphs in European Championships (2008, 2012) and the World Cup (2010) and, of global recognition and admiration due to the fact that these wins were obtained through the practice of “the latest evolution of soccer” (Wilson, 2012), the sophisticated playing style of tiki-taka. The coincidence and the collision of these two apparently contradictory phenomenon happening in contemporary Spain, have produced conflict manifestations within the cultural field. This study focuses on the investigation of the meanings and uses associated with La Roja in its portrayal as a representation of the Spanish national identity. More specifically, it examines La gran familia española (2013), a film which was both distributed and received by the critics as a commercial Hollywood-esque type of comedy destined to produce a feel-good feeling to alleviate the effect of the crisis. Contrary to this, my analysis first reads it as a symptom or manifestation of the proceedings of the cultural hegemony of the post-Franco regime, (the so-called “Transition Culture”). Then, by offering an examination of cinematographic strategies such as mise-en-scene and lighting and by looking very closely to the role played by the male star actor of the moment (Quim Gutierrez), this paper emphasizes the series of contradictions, ambiguities and fault-lines that are undermining that supposedly normalized, modern and celebratory depiction of the Spanish family.