Aída

"Aida" is the first TV show I watched after moving to Spain. Now it's my favorite. I find it very entertaining although I don't always understand the cultural jokes.

This show is centered around the Garcia household, a not-so nuclear family. Aida is the head of the household, and not always the lead role in every episode, despite her name being on it. She tries to keep the rest of her family in line, but they constantly get into trouble...Aida's unemployed brother lives in the house, and also her mother and two children. There are many adventures among them and people around the town, including Paz, Chema, Fidel and Mauricio.

You can imagine this is like a sitcom in the USA, but I think the Spanish censors are a little more relaxed. The plots are about love, relationships, family, friends, work, personal issues, etc. It should be pretty universal even if you're not a native of Aida's country. These days the show comes on Sunday nights.

For most people, fiction, in any form, is a way of scaping reality. When doing this we tend to prefer scaping upwards, to the unknown and more 'elevated'. There is, however, a tendency in Spanish cinema and series of portraying the daily routine of the 'popular' class (understanding popular as tacky, loud and uneducated people) and doing it again and again. Thus, Antonio Resines is not unemployed, shows like "Manolo y Benito" exist and "Manolito gafotas" is a film.

Aida is the quintessence of this kind of production. A bunch of stereotypes are clumsily put together and told to act in an histrionic and contrived way. How people find this funny remains a mystery to me. Is the audience laughing at the caricatures of the low-class? Are they better?

The concept and production of this thing annoy me beyond limits. It has already been sued for its degradation of midgets, hopefully more protests will follow. Hopefully, too, the show will be canceled soon.

"Aída" was originally a spin-off series based on Aída, one of the characters in the coral sitcom "7 vidas". I love both, but I now think "Aída" is slightly superior to its predecessor. It is a very well-measured mix of pure comedy that provides good laughs, and dramatic situations. In fact, the trademark of "Aída", as was, to some extent, of "7 vidas", is that it makes comedy out of situations and characters that would have usually been good material for melodrama: meet Aída, a middle-low class house cleaner, ex-alcoholic and mother to two unruly teenagers -the boy, Jonathan, has already been to a reformatory and has his own minor criminal record-, abandoned by her husband, living with her mother, whose only life aim is to eat and have her daughter work for her and maintain her; and with Luisma, her younger brother, a recovered drug-addict who has never had a serious job and is not planning to get one. This universe is also populated by the young prostitute Paz, Aída's best friend; the bartender Mauricio, an example of the stereotypical Spanish macho; and Chema, who owns the grocery shop (his son, the young and misunderstood genius Fidel, is one of the funniest characters in the show). Sounds dramatic and not funny at all, yet that's exactly where the charm and the talent of this comedy lies: it makes fun of the ugly side of life, with smart jokes and non-clichéd characters, who live situations we can all relate to. It's extremely funny and it compiles some of the most deep-rooted stereotypes of the Spanish urban culture and mentality. This is definitely a must-see for all lovers of Spanish sit-com.

Being a Latino, who's a great fan of American sitcoms, I'm very pleased to be able to enjoy a real one for the first time in Spanish. And this is a true original Spanish sitcom in it's own right that has nothing to envy to the American or British ones. And they have achieved it without doing remakes or copying jokes and scripts.

I'm sick and tired of Latin American, especially Mexican, versions of American sitcoms that are only sanitized, watered down caricatures of the original ones. The Mexican or Argentinean versions of shows like "The Nanny", "Married With Children" or even the Mexican version of "Betty La Fea" just look like poor sketches for a cartoon show played by actors. Where's the originality?

Living in the US, it's amazing to be able to enjoy Aida on TV. Fortunately, the FCC does not go after US Spanish cable channels the way it goes after English media. Otherwise it's dialogues and subject matters would be mercilessly massacred and fined millions of dollars by the FCC. Aida have been able to portray their characters in a more authentic way American actors and writers could only dream of. It's also a peek of how much better US sitcoms could be if there wasn't so much puritan censorship in the US. In Latin America and the US it's all double meanings and euphemisms. In Europe they just tell it like it is.

The show has crated some great archetypes that may remind you of some our favorite US sitcom characters of all time but original in their own Spanish flair. Worth mentioning are:

-Aida's character working class antics. Is like a bit of "Roxanne", Carla from "Cheers" and Peg Bundy from "Married with Children" all in one.

-Her mother, Eugenia, has that delicious Mediterranean "dark humor" of Sofia from "Golden Girls"(although more crass), along with the gluttony and nosiness of Sylvia from "The Nanny".

-Mauricio is the neighborhood bar owner who's a loud, conniving, grouchy mama's boy in the Danny De Vito "Brooklyn Italian" tradition with a touch of "Archie Bunker's" political incorrectness. A racist opportunist chauvinist, who hates labor unions and environmentalists and is always trying to make an easy extra buck, even at the expense of taking advantage of women, friends and his poor illegal alien employees. But you got to love him.

-And Luisma, hilariously played by Paco Leon, an actor who has created a character that should be added to the best dimwits of all time like Woody from "Cheers", Jim from "Taxi" and Jeff from "Coupling". Luisma's constant pursuit of Paz, and Paz rejections, are as good as Sam Malone's pursuit of Rebecca in "Cheers". He's simply brilliant.

-On an interesting note, Fidel is the first openly gay teenage character I've ever seen on TV. Although played a bit campy by Eduardo Casanova, the show manages to deal with this delicate subject and portray the character in a respectful, non offensive way, with his struggles, dreams and desires. Chema, Fidel's loving single father who was abandoned by his adulterous wife, makes for some hilarious moments by being the only one in the neighborhood oblivious to his son sexuality.

Along with great production values and a catchy theme song, this show is definitely a must watch for all sitcom lovers. If you can't get it on TV, you may want to check it out on You Tube. They have all the seasons.

The theme of the series is very simple, as it's main character, Aída. This is her life: she lives with her brother (Luisma), who has left drugs and it's very dumb; with her mother, who's never satisfied with nothing Aída does, and her son and daughter, as rebel as she was when she was young. The other characters in the series are the barman, a rich, mean and dumb guy on his forties, and the owner of the market (the only clever one) with his son, Fidel. This comedy it's not just the spin off of 7 vidas. It has it's own personality. Paco León in it's role of Luisma and the character of Fidel are really great and make it so funny and fresh. The stories are not so imaginative but they're enough to make you laugh at the jokes and the situations. I think, whether you liked 7 vidas or not, you can like Aída.