Blog Post #6

Welcome back to my blog! This week in class, I had to watch a show in a different language with English subtitles. I had to analyze the cultural aspects of the characters and settings and compare them to the United States. A couple months back, I actually watched a Spanish television crime drama series on Netflix. The show was called La Casa de Papel. Meaning Money Heist in English.

Being a Spanish television show, I was not sure if I was going to like it or not. When they put the show on Netflix, they put the English language over the actors. If you pay close attention to their mouths, you can see the dialog does not match up. However, Money Heist had me hooked. Since I watched the show before, I decided to go back and watch the original version which is in Spanish. My experience was quite entertaining. I had to focus more on the subtitles to understand the dialog happening. Overall, I enjoyed going back and watching the original version.

What was similar and what was different?

The first season of Money Heist took place at the Royal Mint of Spain in Madrid. This show had some similarities and differences in cultural aspects.

• How did they travel? They used cars and trucks as their mode of transportation. The one difference was the design of their police cars. From being a Spanish show, they had “policia” displayed on their cars.
• What did they eat as staple foods? The first episode did not display any scenes where the characters were eating. Since I watched more of the show, you notice they displayed a café where they serve foods and drinks popular to Madrid.
• What was the weather like? The weather was dark and gloomy to set up the mood of the show.
• Where do they go for fun? Physical surroundings? The main premise of the show is the bank robbery to escape with billions of euros. In order to prepare for the bank robbery, they planned everything in a house in which all the main characters stayed at. Once they get to the Royal Mint of Spain, that is the primary location for the rest of the season.
• What did the characters value? The main characters valued money and their relationships they built with the other bank robbers.
• Other Elements? Many scenes in the show included props and scenery that were in the Spanish language. Since these elements were not included in the subtitles, if you did not understand what it was, you would have to look up the translation. I found myself doing this for two scenes in the first episode. I was able to understand and follow along with the story.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoyed this assignment! I loved being able to re-watch a show in a different way than I did before. It was a unique experience. Getting to see different cultural aspects compared to the United States was interesting. I watched all three parts of the show and the fourth part comes out on April 3rd. I am excited to continue watching this Spanish television crime series and I hope you consider watching the show too!

Here is a link to the trailer of Money Heist! You can access the full television series on Netflix!

Thank
you for reading my blog post this week!