Esther Mucientes Madrid
Madrid
Updated Wednesday, February 7, 2024-21:31
Zen The vulnerability of the 'alpha male', naked
Metrópolis Why Machos Alfa triumphs, the series that is sweeping among those over 40
Laura Caballero
, the director, screenwriter and producer with her brother
Alberto
of
Machos Alfa
, says
that the most important thing about this series, which highlights
machirulism
, machismo, patriarchy and many other things from comedy, is "the "You laugh when you see her and the melon she opens, and that you would never dare to open at any dinner with friends, because it's too lazy to talk about serious things." It is the key to
Machos Alfa
, which premieres its second season this Friday on Netflix, after becoming one of the platform's greatest hits in 2023: laughing at what we never laugh at or, rather, laughing at what we shouldn't or shouldn't. They let us laugh.
Have we forgotten to laugh? he asked both brothers during the interview for the premiere of
Machos Alfa 2
. Laura is clear that yes, "a little out of fear." Alberto Caballero, not so much: "We have not forgotten. What is happening is that
society is constraining us
because it is telling us what we can laugh at and what we cannot. I also believe that the so-called
mainstream
current of thought about what is right and what is wrong
is suffocating us
and distracting us a little from the most playful part of things, from their personality, from their existence. I
want to have the right to laugh at whatever I want
."
And with this premise, as always with the Caballero brothers,
Machos Alfa
was born , a series in which, without falling into clichés, they show the most cruel, biting and terrible side of machismo.
Fele Martínez
(Luis),
Gorka Otxoa
(Santi),
Raúl Tejón
(Raúl) and
Fernando Aguilar
(Pedro) accept, some reluctantly, to become deconstructed men to end their patriarchal and sexist behaviors. They sign up for a course and, while some continue, others end up organizing talks to recover the man's virality. At the end of the first season everything ends badly, at the beginning of the second everything starts worse for them, but... also for them. In
Machos Alfa 2
, the Caballero brothers wanted to show that women are not perfect either, that they have "their internal mess" and that, as Alberto says, "every oppressive system needs allies" and in the case of this second season, allies It's women, because there are women who also have their "toxic femininity."
Ask.
Let's start with the easy part, or not. What is a deconstructed man?
Laura Caballero.
I just don't know if there are any that are completely one hundred percent deconstructed.
Alberto Caballero.
He is a white blackbird, a unicorn, because a man devoid of any type of patriarchal or sexist behavior does not exist. Men, especially my generation which is the one represented in the series, have been educated to cancel out our more feminine side. And now it turns out that they tell us that this is not valid, so we have to do a total reprogramming. So in reality the deconstructed man is right now a clueless man, but with good intentions.
Q.
They are deconstructed, but on top of that everything is worse than before.
Laura Caballero.
The thing is that in the deconstruction course they didn't give them practical classes (Laughter).
Alberto Caballero.
The thing is that the courses are still very, very, very weak (Laughs). The fun was telling the different points of view and the different levels of the characters. They try to do things right and they get screwed. Let's see, we get paid to trash characters and that's what we do. Imagine that we deconstruct them and everything turns out great... The series ends.
The Caballeros brothers, with the cast of actors from Machos Alfa.NETFLIX
Q.
In this season we see that there are women who also need to deconstruct themselves.
Alberto Caballero.
We realized that there were women who did not like the end of patriarchy or that men were more sensitive. And, then, that there is a toxic femininity, equivalent to the toxic masculinity that had to be shown.
Q.
At some point when making the series did you think that someone might feel violated by what it shows. How do you do it so that a delicate topic is humorous and not annoying?
Laura Caballero.
The process is to treat a very real topic regardless of whether it is written or interpreted from a comedy perspective.
Alberto Caballero.
Above all, don't think too much about whether someone is going to get upset. It is very important when facing projects not to be afraid, especially because in the end society is much more prepared than we think to face practically any type of issue. Let's see, we always had a previous fear, but then we saw that the reception was fantastic and that only four offended
gentlemen
complained who said that Irene Montero had paid for the series for us.
"Those who are offended do it more because of nonsense than because of serious issues"
Alberto Caballero, director
The Caballeros, who always play with humor taken to the extreme in all their creations -
La que se cerca
,
El Pueblo
...-, do not want to know anything about political correctness. That's why
Machos Alfa
has fit so well with the viewer, because not only is the viewer laughing at themselves, but they also deal with thorny issues "with complete naturalness." "Are we going to give up having a couple comment on the series while watching it or having a group of friends laugh at what they are seeing so as not to offend anyone?" asks Alberto Cabello. "It's impossible," he answers to himself. "People have only been offended in a specific way and those who are offended do so more because of nonsense than because of serious issues," he adds.
Q.
How do you capture the characters so well?
Laura Caballero.
It is important that the characters have a soul, that is, that it is seen that they are alive, that they suffer, but, above all, give them a very marked personality.
Alberto Caballero.
In the last 20 years people have bought that the protagonists are a Tony Soprano or a Dexter. Do you think they are not going to buy a machine? Man, the others kill people...
They assure that during the creation process discussions between them are practically non-existent. Their objectives and their way of wanting to tell things are both very clear, although they recognize that in the case of
Alpha Males
the biggest debates have always been about how to give the point to each character so that "it is imperfect, so that it seems like a bastard, but don't take away from the viewer the enjoyment of the experience of watching the series."
They are both lovers of comedy, but above all of laughter. For
Alberto Caballero,
laughing at what one is not supposed to laugh at is entering "the territory of transgression, and that is wonderful and very healthy."
"The problem is that nothing was happening recently and now they cancel you from one day to the next
," his sister interrupts. "It's a kind of terror that you'll say something, that you'll make a joke and it will cost you your life," adds Alberto. "We are going a little crazy," he insists, and says: "We are in democracy and there is freedom of expression.
If something amuses you, you laugh and if you don't like it, you change it, remove it or look for something else, which is not "It will be because there is no content to see
. There is a kind of need to be there that jumps to see what someone is doing to screw up and mess up, and that seems very harmful to me."
The main actors of Machos Alfa in a scene from the second season.NETFLIX
In this second season of
Machos Alfa
, the Caballero brothers play to find the balance between men and women, but without ceasing to show the reality that is being experienced in that battle, which for them was never a battle.
They avoid clichés by playing with ambiguity
to enter a territory that generates ambivalent sensations, so that the cliché is completely nullified. And this is what they do with the new situations that
Kira Miró
(Luz) will have to experience,
who, despite wanting a liberal relationship, always has her ring removed and who in this new season will experience the pressure of motherhood. "Now the woman faces a wonderful phase of empowerment, of autonomy, of not needing a master even close to her and, suddenly, she finds that she has to make decisions because biology runs faster than her," explains
Alberto Caballero
.
"The harassment of a male boss towards a female employee is a cliché. I mean, there is no possible debate, it is harassment and that's it"
Alberto Caballero
Q.
This season also addresses harassment in the workplace, but not as we think.
Alberto Caballero.
Harassment by a male boss of a female employee is a cliché. I mean, there is no debate possible, it's harassment and that's it. But what if it's from a female boss to a male employee? The first reaction between them is 'throw it!'. What really worries Pedro is that it is a humiliation to denounce him. It's really painful for him to have to lower himself to say 'oh, they're harassing me!'
Q.
Why do you think series like
Alfa Machos
are so engaging ?
Laura Caballero.
For me, the most interesting thing is not so much the theme but the mental position regarding how to deal with topics that can be uncomfortable. We have to be free to enter society and, above all, series have to tell something.