User:Ravave/My sandbox

Typically Spanish

Españolada (translated in English as Typically Spanish) is a derogatory term to those artistic works that gives an exaggerated image of Spanish people based on stereotypes. One of the most notorious example is the Andalusian folklore, being (for example) flamenco very popular among foreign people.

This term has another meaning that focuses on any flamboyant and messy effort that actually is worthless, for example the expression:

Matar a una hormiga con una bomba atómica
To kill one ant with one atomic bomb

Background

This distortion about Spain would have its beginnings in the 19th century, when several European writers and artists from the romanticism era made popular the "Spanish Myth". One of those famous novels inspired in Spain were Carmen by Prosper Mérimée.

Cinema

Regarding the cinema, it was created in the 1930s as a subgenre developed after the Spanish Civil War and Francoism. Some known productions were: El turismo es un gran invento, Amor a la española, 40 grados a la sombra, Vente a Alemania, Pepe and Abuelo made in Spain among others.

According José Luis Navarrete, these films were so popular because they gave the population an unrealistic and idyllic vision about how Spain should be.