News

To call Superstar a biopic is like calling a hurricane a bit of a breeze. This is no paint-by-numbers life story. Instead, creator Nacho Vigalondo grabs the strange, true tale of Spanish pop phenomenon Tamara and shatters it into a thousand glittering pieces, creating a fever-dream fantasia on the nature of fame.

The series dives headfirst into the early 2000s, a wild west era for television where a singer with a limited voice and an extravagant aesthetic could become a national obsession. Superstar isn’t interested in a simple chronicle of Yurena, the name Tamara would later adopt.

It seeks to capture the bizarre cultural weather system that surrounded her: the phenomenon of “Tamarísmo.” Vigalondo, a master of sci-fi comedy and fantasy, uses his distinct style not to escape reality, but to find a more profound truth within the media-fueled madness. It’s a chaotic, hilarious, and often unsettling ride.

I have to say here that Superstar might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I still think that you ought to give it a chance in order to witness the makers’ take on the real life story of Tamara. The series makes use of a lot of metaphysical elements to convey what it wants to say, and I won’t deny that at times it becomes a little too much to keep track of the events and understand what the makers were trying to communicate. So let’s try to understand the essence of every episode and what the makers wanted to say about the journey of the famous pop star, Tamara, who later changed her name and came to be known as Yurena.

Spoiler Alert

What Kind Of Relationship Did Tamara Share With Her Mother?

Tamara, who was born in Barakaldo as Maria del Mar Cuena Seisdedos,...

There were so many metaphysical elements used in the 6-part Netflix series, Superstar, that it is particularly important to understand what all happened in real life in this biographical drama. The series is based on the life of the real life Spanish pop star, Tamara, who became a sensation in the early 2000s. Her impact was so huge that the phenomenon came to be known as “Tamarism.” So let’s find out what events happened in real life and where the makers took some creative liberties.

Did Miguel leak Tamara’s video?

Cronicas Marcianas was the kind of talk show that believed in pushing a celebrity to such an extent that they ended up giving an impulsive reaction that in turn increased the Trp of the show. Like it was shown in the Netflix series, Tamara, Leonardo Dantes, Paco Porras, etc went on the show multiple times and it wouldn...

The ending of Superstar hinged on a confrontation between the two personas of the titular character, Yurena and Marimar. What preceded that is a bit hard to describe because of the miniseries’ unhinged and anthological nature, as it focused on all the people who influenced and were influenced by Maria del Mar Cuena Seisedos. Through the perspectives of Margarita, Leonardo Dantes, Loly Alvarez, Arlekin, Paco Porras, and Tony Genil, we more or less got the bullet points of her highs and lows: how she got her big break, her falling out with her lyricist, the sex tape with Arlekin, and her elimination from the TV show Survivor. Most of it, despite seeming extremely preposterous, was surprisingly factually correct. That said, a significant chunk of the show was probably fictional (very fictional) in nature, as it tried to evoke the feeling of living such a chaotic life instead of just giving it to you straight.

Initially, biopics were probably made with the intention of shedding light on the story of an unsung hero whose contribution to some profession or other has gone unnoticed. Or they were made in order to celebrate a well-known figure and educate younger generations about who they should be indebted to when they do the most ordinary stuff in life. But somewhere along the line, this genre turned into a hub for either propaganda, whitewashing, or defamation. This also led to a decline in the filmmaking and storytelling departments as artists took the blandest approaches to tell a tale “inspired” by real life so that these movies and TV could influence even the most smooth-brained individuals out there. Thankfully, there are outliers where the subject matter has been shown in a way that doesn’t seem like a blatant glorification of their exploits. I am talking about Amar Singh Chamkila, Baby Reindeer,...

Netflix has ordered another Spanish film, My Dearest Señorita, and unveiled a first look at upcoming dram series Superstar at an event in Madrid.

My Dearest Señorita, produced by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, is an adaptation of the 1972 Oscar-winning film of the same name directed by Jaime de Arimañán, who co-wrote the script with José Luis Borau starring José Luis López Vázquez.

The 1970s film was a romantic drama that explored themes of intersexuality, and was one of very few to tackle sexual orientation in General Franco’s ultra-conservative Spain. It won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film at the 1973 Oscars.

“My Dearest Señorita is an adaptation,” said Calvo and Ambrossi in a statement. “Times have changed, and we believe it is a good time to revisit this story, a story of gender identity and wonderful, mainstream love. The creative challenge is how far we can update it without losing the essence.