The premiere of “December 2001”, the Star+ serieswhich narrates the last month of the government of Fernando De la Rua, comes to confirm the tendency that in our country retropolitics is a reality. Argentines are seduced by their recent past and the best way they find to revisit it and ask questions about it is through all kinds of cultural products that narrate it. The interest in investigating the political events that marked the country has become not only the new mechanism to keep collective memory alive, but also the way in which necessary debates as a society are revived. As if it were a window to look at the past to try to understand the present, Argentines join the retropolitics and content offers are not lacking.
“This phenomenon cannot be thought of without also taking into account that politics, in recent years, has suffered a weakening. There is a crisis of politics and political acts. This ‘retropolitics’ is the search in the past of some kind of narrative where the political actor still had an important role because the current one does not have an epic”, Luciano Lutereau, doctor of psychology and philosophy, explains to NEWS. Thus, even if they are artistic works that deal with difficult moments in the national past, such as economic crises or even the last military dictatorship, what seduces consumers is seeing those central figures in history and seeing that “politics of the past.” ”. “The figure of a strong politician is sought, even when that politician is (Carlos) Menemsomeone who generates the biggest divisions ”, adds Lutereau.
But in addition to looking for those strong figures who made Argentina what it is today, answers are also sought that help to understand the present: “There is an interest in knowing what happened, how we got here, in a country where no one is to blame you’re welcome and no one seems to take care of their part, we Argentines want to know why the country is the way it is. In this type of work, one can question this and find one’s own answer to when everything stopped going as it should or as each one of us would have liked”, reflects the sociologist Carlos de Ángelis, for whom, although many of these cultural products they occur in dark moments of national history, the saying applies in part that all past times were better. “In moments of crisis like the current one, the past is looked at with longing. Even if there is a crack, we all agree on something and that is that things are not right like this and we look in the past for the answers to understand the reasons ”, he adds. A similar situation is observed by the political analyst Carlos Fara, for whom, moreover, “we try to find at some point in the past a situation with which, in some way, we can recognize ourselves.”
That identification is another key. Since the public, having an idea about some of the events that will be narrated, feels even more attracted and questioned. “Each of us who knows something about history, because we like it or because we have studied it at school, things always resonate with us, but they are only the headlines. That is why, being something ‘pre-known’, these types of creations are interesting because you want to know more and you find out new things ”, he tells NEWS the director of “December 2001” Benjamín Ávila. For the filmmaker, the centrality that audiovisual historical-political works occupy today partially replaces the information that was previously obtained by other means. “I don’t know if it’s a good thing, but it somewhat replaces the book in general terms of reaching the population and its reach. If you want to know more, you should read, but political series and movies narrate specific events in society itself, which are topics that end up being discussed at the family table ”, he says. The massiveness of these works, which is also sustained by the proliferation of new platforms and content producers, form a successful cocktail. A paradigmatic case occurred with “Argentina 1985”. The film directed by Santiago Miter generated a great impact and Argentines of all ages found themselves talking about the trial of the military juntas and “Nunca más” and that motivated going beyond the screen and the circulation of information about what happened at that time it became a central topic of conversation.
In this way, a story common to the entire population, within everyone’s reach and presented and produced in an entertaining and dynamic way, makes these productions a success and deeply penetrates the imagination of those who consume them. “The question about the history of the country contains the question about our personal history and keep our own secrets. We can find ourselves and understand what we are, individually and as a society, from our past. And that’s why he questions us,” says Marcelo Clingo, president of the Buenos Aires Association of Psychologists and professor at the National University of the Arts. In that search for identification with the public, for example, “December 2001” was intended to be released two years ago on the twentieth anniversary of the fall of De la Rúa, however the pandemic forced it to be postponed. In any case, the intention of the public’s complicit wink is always there.
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