TV show
By Varela
On prime-time TV, between 8 and 10 p.m., the average American likes to watch comedies and police dramas. The Hispanic televiewer prefers the tear-soaked soap opera. But in Miami we’re being forced to watch political fantasy. I say “forced” because political fantasy was created to counteract the effects of the soapy-sudser.
Two dynamic hosts of local TV, María Elvira Salazar and Oscar Haza, bring to us a world of conspiracy, heroism, defections and intrigue that really doesn’t exist. They pick the names, inflate the charges, exaggerate the importance, invent a script, and tell us a tale every night.
Both the Miamian former newscaster and the Dominican announcer (competing from different channels) rely on a little group of unscrupulous producers (interchangeable, even) whose task it is to find experts, analysts, academicians and retirees. In general, those producers are newly-arrived Juanito-come-latelies who are hungry and desperate to rise in an environment to which they were not welcome.
Although lacking all journalistic ethics and having not a whit of respect for the community in which they live, the two programs feign a minimum of decency. For example, for the benefit of the militant heroes, they invite not Frómeta but Posada Carriles. The two men are vulgar international delinquents, but one blew up a plane and the other one didn’t. The hosts invite the guy who blew up a plane and preen before the cameras, play with words, and pull in the listeners with squinting eyes and trembling voice, building up the impressive personality of an assassin who blew up a plane.
To keep viewers from being bored, the two telejesters use opportunist techniques, depending on the audience. The Salazar woman works her long legs, which she moves, crosses and crisscrosses with perfect timing, always showing the right amount of flesh by keeping just enough skirt over the knee. The Haza fellow relies on something more subliminal and cynical. He is the spokesman for some clinics for the elderly and he tries to squeeze the most out of his image of local shaman, from a credibility he doesn’t have to a free meal at the Versailles Restaurant.
When a topic gets a good response and high ratings, they turn it into a weekly series, until the competitor pulls a new card from his sleeve. Then they start improvising, both along the same line. Of course, the viewer tunes in depending on the amount of hype each hosts gives his or her show.
Thus we see parading through their screens a fauna that abounds in consummate defectors – always brought in secretly – who are either bodyguards, housemaids, chauffeurs, aides, gardeners, cooks, in sum, any character who has something to say about the Cuban leadership, whether it’s true or not. “Credibility” is bestowed on the title, not on the words or the information.
The guests reveal alleged intimacies, personal tastes, foods or fruits, cigar brands, type of underwear, shoe sizes, music (almost always American) and even some eroticism rewritten with evil intent. Any nonsense is welcome, as long as it is televiewable nonsense.
In reality, these are reality shows (no pun intended) that have all the ingredients of absurdity and politicized aberration. I remember when I wrote story ideas for María Elvira in 2006. Among several projects for programs that she bought from me, there was one that was particularly grotesque and foolish: Cuban military officers who have sex with animals. She loved it.
I invented a character – a high-ranking officer, of course – who allegedly had served in the Cuban Army and was posted to some God-forsaken place where no women were available. So he got himself a mare. We hired an actor, covered his head with a hood (which I bought) and he recited my script from memory in front of a lectern. That night we got a 9-point rating; the previous night we had had a 4-pointer.
We thought we might continue with the topic of bestiality but then Haza announced he would reveal a sexual secret involving a Cuban leader, as told by a former girlfriend of his who had just arrived in Florida. Right away, Salazar told me she didn’t want officers talking about mares but fillies talking about officers. And she proceeded to look for a filly who could do that. I lost interest and went on to other pursuits of life, but I believe they found the filly. Right away, the competition started to look for a stallion who could talk about a woman leader. And they’re still at it, judging from the ratings.
Born in Cuba in 1955, José Varela was an editorial cartoonist in Miami for 15 years, on the staff of the magazine Éxito (1991-97) and El Nuevo Herald (1993-2006). He is a publicist and television writer. He is also a member of the Progreso Weekly/Semanal team.
