{"id":211769,"date":"2020-01-06T16:54:45","date_gmt":"2020-01-06T21:54:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=211769"},"modified":"2020-01-06T17:00:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-06T22:00:26","slug":"andy-dont-back-up-facundo-dont-die","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/andy-dont-back-up-facundo-dont-die\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy, don’t back up. Facundo, don’t die"},"content":{"rendered":"

We are experiencing a kind of mourning, mixed with irritation, disappointment, uncertainty, because of the very summary suspension of actor Andy V\u00e1zquez of the \u201cVivir del Cuento\u201d TV program, and the disappearance with him of one of the most beloved characters he embodied, Facundo Correcto.<\/span><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know if at the top of Mais\u00ed, or in his native Baracoa, they know that it is an act of rampant censorship, and a rotund stupidity of the decision makers in \u201cthe ideological sphere.\u201d But in Havana, Miami and Facebook, those three Cuban cities where some of our daily anxieties are resolved, the news has been going around, suspecting that the reasons given to justify such a decision are only pretexts that don\u2019t convince many.<\/span><\/p>\n

The director of the Cubavisi\u00f3n Channel, Rafael P\u00e9rez Ins\u00faa, spoke through <\/span>an \u201cinformal\u201d interview<\/span><\/a> (with a \u201cjeez, that\u2019s great!\u201d included) on a YouTube channel\u2015Cuba en Directo\u2015that coincidentally started publishing last December 31 four fragments of an interview without rhyme or reason that don\u2019t reach the 300 visits. As one friend described it, \u201cthat invented page\u201d was used to try to especially silence those who are following this debate through the social networks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why was this clarification not transmitted through the channel he directs, if the you-know-what program is from Cubavisi\u00f3n<\/em> and the viewers on the island expect it Monday after Monday? The answer is obvious. The \u201cideologues\u201d once again intend to operate with two parallel countries, as if they existed: one that receives little information, almost none, controlled from the traditional media and supposedly inhabited by unconditional people; and the other, the one they think is mostly outside of Cuba, who access the Internet without limits and that they seem to perceive as mostly against the government, so it deserves this type of \u201cfalse information.\u201d A mistake.<\/span><\/p>\n

Many people have even been more outraged by the director of the channel\u2019s silence and half-words. It’s hard to make do with these words from P\u00e9rez Ins\u00faa: \u201cAndy is not sanctioned. Not at all.\u201d He then gave one of the most bizarre arguments he could have chosen to justify the sanction: \u201cWhat Andy did was use the program and the character which he plays based on personal criteria and that led to making a decision [typical amphibology] on his participation in the season that is now being recorded.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That is, that Facundo was not Andy\u2019s, and therefore the actor had to be careful about the issues Facundo was going to talk about. It is a bit unusual to pretend that Facundo was not the bearer of the \u201cpersonal criteria\u201d of the actor who embodies it. Can’t Andy V\u00e1zquez be his own scriptwriter? Did he sign a contract of muteness or exclusivity of thought with Cuban Television? Of course he didn\u2019t, and <\/span>neither did P\u00e1nfilo<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

All the characters of \u201cVivir del Cuento\u201d have been doing an overwhelming amount of sketches of the Cuban Television program for years, in Havana as well as in Miami, in theaters as well as in cabarets, in work centers, in a Hialeah store, or in the Focsa stores; making fun of everything and everyone, either using the popularity of their characters to talk with Cubans about issues that don\u2019t fit in a weekly program, nor in the story of old P\u00e1nfilo and his neighbors in the barrio. Among all the actors they also advertise for Cuban brands inside and outside of Cuba. But that, apparently, hasn\u2019t been the cause of the departure of one of its four main characters.<\/span><\/p>\n

Others have been more honest when recognizing in their Facebook accounts and unofficially that the straw that broke the camel\u2019s back for those who executed the censorship was a video of Facundo on YouTube satirizing <\/span>the opening of the Cuatro Caminos market<\/span><\/a>. And that despite the fact that Facundo, surely being cautious, dealt very mildly about the mob and the destruction that occurred there. (By the way, it is not known that any of those who could not foresee what would happen there were sanctioned, those who did not do what was necessary to avoid it, or those who planned that opening so badly.)<\/span><\/p>\n

And why do censors get so sensitive with a video that anyone could consider as a second division joke? In those days, what happened in Cuatro Caminos was driving them crazy and they immediately used the media to blame the heartless, ungrateful people. Now they react by proclaiming the topic closed, untouchable, sacred. Apparently a shy mockery about what happened there, which really deserves much more than a moralizing discourse, can\u2019t be allowed. But you\u2019ll know them for their noes.<\/span><\/p>\n

In August 2019 an article published in <\/span>Granma<\/span><\/a><\/em> put on the table the real causes for which Facundo is no longer in \u201cVivir del Cuento.\u201d It said: \u201cThe official character, the political cadre, the simple barrio leader, the one who once directed and no longer does, and even the members of law and order institutions, have become a favorite target at the time of putting together the most ridiculous characters or those who assume negative roles in not a few audiovisual productions (humorous or not) of recent times.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

And the article\u2019s author warned: \u201cI don\u2019t think it appropriate to always pigeonhole the figure of the official authority in the so-called negative roles, because art moves and enthrones stereotypes and in the long term people will end up associating these authorities, without exceptions, with botching and even with failure.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

You didn\u2019t have to be a fortune teller to perceive that the sighthounds had gone hunting. The \u201ccadres\u201d could no longer be wounded, ridiculed.<\/span><\/p>\n

The holy leaders<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n