TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States: Appropriation, Subjectivity, and Cultural Production

Vanesa Cañete-Jurado University of Nevada Las Vegas TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States: Appropriation, Subjectivity, and Cultural Production ABSTRACT In recent years, U.S. production companies have adapted a number of popular Spanish TV series for American networks. Contemporary Spanish fiction has drawn the attention and interest of many producers, who have signed on to localize culturally esteemed formats that have gone on to achieve a covetable and lasting success in the United States. Albeit underutilized as a tool for critical analysis, these remakes always shed light on the underlying dynamics of dissemination and influence of ideas in any given culture, since factors of re-appropriation, dominance and self-awareness are always at stake. This study aims to explore the phenomenon of TV remakes of contemporary Spanish fiction on a practical level in order to critically analyze the challenges posed by processes such as multiplicity, fragmentation, and repetition and to show how these processes subvert the role of a subjectified viewer, especially in the context of the contemporary American society. KEY WORDS Spanish television, TV Adaptation, Remake, U.S. fiction, Appropriation 1. Introduction Even though the United States has enjoyed an advantageous and longstanding position as a top exporter of TV shows to the rest of the world, in recent years the number of foreign productions being remade and adapted for American audiences has seen a small yet steady increase (Bielby & Harrington, 2008; Straubhaar, 2007). Despite the obstacles that the distributors of shows produced abroad face when they attempt to expand their presence into the United States, cultural reproduction (in the form of sequels, remakes, or adaptations) lies at the center of the American screen life now more than ever. In the current audiovisual climate, in which innovative strategies of globalization and localization are radically changing TranslatoLogica: A Journal of Translation, Language, and Literature, 2 (2018), p. 140-155 TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States: Appropriation, Subjectivity, and Cultural Production the media markets all around the globe, Spanish production companies have become influential stakeholders with an ever-increasing profile among U.S. networks. The emergence of new distribution channels and video on demand (VOD) platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, or Amazon Video, has been gradually tipping the balance in favor of including foreign shows in mainstream U.S. programming (Forrest & Martínez, 2015; Levisalles, 2004; Mirrlees, 2013). As a result, the number of Spain-produced television shows made available to American audiences has experienced a surge in the last decade.1 While there has been a tendency to contextualize the number of Spanish-language shows that are being broadcast in the United States “within the broader milieu of market growth, management strategies and regulatory environment” (Wilkinson, 2015, p. 5), not much scholarly attention has yet been paid to the case of television series that were originally aired in Spain but later have been recreated (with new sets, casts, and scripts) specifically for the U.S. market. This is mostly because this phenomenon is quite novel. Although there have been some instances of Spanish TV remakes in other European countries since 2005 (Diego & Grandío Pérez, 2018), the first explicit instance in the United States dates back only to 2012 (Table 1). Table 1 U.S. remakes of Spain-produced TV fiction series Spanish Title Year(s) U.S. Title Year(s) Física o química 2008 – 2011 Relaciones peligrosas 2012 Los misterios de Laura 2009 – 2014 The mysteries of Laura 2014 – 2016 Polseres vermelles 2011 – 2013 Red Band Society 2015 – 2016 El Ministerio del 2015 – 2017 Timeless 2016 – present Tiempo2 Motivos personales 2005 Personal motives In development (ABC/Calamity Jane) 1 At the time of publication, Casa de papel (Money heist), a Spanish television series originally developed by Álex Pina, was considered “the most watched non-English series on Netflix ever” (Netflix, 2018, p. 3). 2 The inclusion of Timeless as a remake of El Ministerio del Tiempo is not exempt of controversy. In September 2016, El Ministerio del Tiempo’s producers filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against NBC’s Timeless, claiming that the American executive producers had “ripped off” their idea (Pedersen, 2016) after negotiations had stalled. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed in May 2017 when both parties agreed to settle out of court (Patten, 2017). The information provided by the plaintiffs in the lawsuit complaint, however, gives enough ground to consider the unusual degree of similarity and affinity between the two productions despite the lack of legal recognition. 141 TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States: Appropriation, Subjectivity, and Cultural Production El barco 2011 – 2013 Magellan In development (WBTV) Gran Hotel 2011 – 2013 Grand Hotel In development (ABC/UnbeliEVAble) El chiringuito de Pepe 2014 – 2016 In development (20th TV) Los Serrano 2003 – 2008 In development (20th TV) Cuéntame cómo pasó 2001 – present Remember when Rights sold to New Media Vision Velvet 2014-2016 Rights sold to Lionsgate The level of transformation of the shows listed in Table 1 differs significantly from one title to another; however, they all share the common interest to adapt socio-cultural specificities of the source production to the target culture. This tendency has been at times perceived as “glocalization” (Robertson, 1992; 1995), which can be understood as “the interpenetration of the global and local resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas” (Ritzer, 2004, p. 77). When it is accomplished, the series’ origins are masked so well that viewers in the United States are unlikely to even notice that a show in question is a remake of a product created in Spain. Although a fair amount of scholarly interest has been dedicated to the notion of transnational remakes (paying special attention to the particular case of U.K.-produced fiction), the phenomenon of interlingual TV remakes as an object of study within audiovisual translation remains largely unexplored in spite of its significant implications for our understanding of the discipline: The double categorization of translation as a textual and an institutional category mirrors that of remakes. Remakes, then, and especially interlingual remakes that involve a movement between languages, are conceptually similar to translations. Both show a repetition of narrative, though there may be variation in that narrative. Both are recognized by readers or viewers as offering a full scale reworking of a previous text. (Evans, 2014, p. 306) While some translation scholars insist on distancing themselves from many of the debates around the distinction between translation and rewriting, adaptation, or recreation, others have wholeheartedly embraced the notion of remake as a subcategory of translation 142 TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States: Appropriation, Subjectivity, and Cultural Production (Mazdon, 1996; Evans, 2014). In this vein, Grindstaff (2002, p. 277) states that, despite the fact that remakes “are not translations in any conventional sense, U.S. adaptations of foreign films certainly raise many of the same concerns about fidelity, superiority, and appropriation as do literary translations of foreign texts.” If we consider the intricate dynamics of the decisions involved in the many stages of the TV development process, “[r]emakes suggest another way of reading translations, as a form of rereading across languages that can offer a deeper interaction with the text, enhanced by the extra dimensions of the target language” (Evans, 2014, p. 310). The purpose of this study is, therefore, to explore the emerging television remakes of contemporary Spanish fiction for U.S. audiences in order to critically analyze the challenges posed by processes such as appropriation, multiplicity, fragmentation and repetition, and how they subvert the role of the viewer as a passive observer. As a process and a product, the remake-as-translation can be used as a wide-ranging methodological tool to conceptualize the complex dynamics of alterity at play. Such a comparison of contemporary Spanish TV shows and their American counterparts will further expand our understanding of audiovisual translation by (a) underscoring the ways in which remakes, as cultural artifacts, appeal directly to their audience's emotions, their desires and fears, and to their often-unexamined attitudes and beliefs; and (b) analyzing Spain-produced TV shows and their remakes in the U.S. through a multidisciplinary lens that moves beyond the notions of fidelity and derivation. The idoneity of remakes as research tools will be explored through an analysis of two recent remade productions: Los misterios de Laura/The mysteries of Laura, and El Ministerio del Tiempo/Timeless. The complexity of these shows will illustrate how remakes may repeat and echo the narrative structures of their source productions on the surface while considerably varying from their counterparts in the realm of ideology. 2. Remakes and market expansion Despite the fact that “each act of translation carries Western civilization across,” (Vieira, 1998, p. 175), the role of translation in the American TV market has failed to attract mainstream attention over the past decades: 143 TV Remakes of Contemporary Spanish Fiction in the United States:

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