In her assessment of the visit of several politicians to the Pradera de San Isidro in 2007, during the pre-campaign of the regional and municipal elections in Madrid that would once again elevate the Madrid PP, the journalist Ruth Toledano (who became two years later the first woman appointed chronicler of the Villa) analyzed the extension of the term “parpusa” to designate the chulapa cap.
In his analysis, Toledano contrasts the habits and customs of the mayor at the time, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, with those of the former president of the Community of Madrid Esperanza Aguirre: “Gallardón, who is a populist of the first order, stopped to use the parpusa. The big timer said he doesn’t like wearing outfits he doesn’t usually wear. And the thing is, he’s right, because it looks like a circus. Esperanza appeared dressed in a chulapona costume missing only the scarf (or whatever that cloth on the head is called in Spanish).
“What is traditional is not only what is folkloric. It is a way of being in the city, both for the people and for the aristocracy, classic and at the same time popular”, explains the sociologist and historian Emmanuel Rodríguez to differentiate the use of this identity by the popular sectors by compared to that used by politicians like Aguirre, for Rodríguez, in conversation with Somos Madrid, “politics is a game of masks” in which Aguirre “knew how to play his role”.
A game that “Ayuso now imitates and integrates”. According to the author of The middle class effect. Criticism and crisis of social peace (2022), the current president of the regional government takes from her predecessor elements such as “a traditional accent”. But no longer from the position of the elites who address the people, but from a speech intended to address the middle classes directly by assimilating with them.
“Ayuso is not Trumpism, but the evolution of an earlier current, that of neoconservatives Aguirre’s Madrid. It is the last tranche of the Madrid neoconservatives, the great laboratory of the PP of the 90s, and once again the triumphant version of the PP, ending up diluting the embers of the 15M and the memories of popular corruption,” Rodríguez wrote in a analysis of Madrid neoconservatism.
The sociologist outlines the broad outlines of this current: “They are characterized by their Atlanticist orientation, anti-communists, neoliberals in the economic domain, conservatives in the political domain, semi-liberals, pure and simple privatizers, but also statists in the protection of their interests. social clientele: walking and changing contradictions depending on who is speaking, depending on who is being addressed. There is an excess of ideology, of mobilization, of theatricalization, one excess after another. The most defining characteristic of neoconservative That’s his style: aggressive, solid, tough. Ayuso’s antics are less of a provocation than an art: always being at the center of the media, at the center of conversations, on social networks and in cafes.”
Madrid’s “processism”
Rodríguez explains the application of this same prefix neo- At chulapism: “There is an anti-progressive component, of arrogance and moral self-importance in the face of the alleged hypocrisy of a left which addresses the working class when it comes from the same middle classes as Ayuso. » He believes that the Madrid leader “knew how to play her role, take responsibility for the conflict and pretend to speak frankly”. A “kind of honesty, even if it is as false as that of other politicians, which also explains, for example, the success of the first Podemos”.
This “assuming the conflict” of which the editor of Traficantes de Sueños also speaks materializes through the exacerbation of Madrid identity, which functions as an “affirmation of local interests against what tends to be sold as a seat of the Catalonia”. An identity that seeks to assimilate with national identity, with Spanish identity, and in contrast with Catalan nationalism. “Ayuso’s processism consists of confronting a fable with another fable: Catalan nationalism with Madrid pride, peripheral resentment towards the inhabitants of the capital with the apology of xuleria madrilenya, Hatred of Madrid clashes with celebration of liberal Madrid. “Everything is very moving,” Rodríguez wrote.
There is an anti-progressive component, of arrogance and moral self-importance in the face of the supposed hypocrisy of a left that addresses the working class even though it comes from the same middle classes as Ayuso.
Emmanuel Rodriguez
— Sociologist, essayist and editor
A “Madrilenian style” nationalism which attempts to construct an identity and then pass it off as the incarnation of Spanishness. This is what Raquel Peláez, journalist who recently published the book Blackie Books, says. I want to and I can’t: a story of the posh people of Spain. “This Madrid nationalism functions as a reaction to the existence of other nationalisms which already existed. But it is insane to give nationalist connotations to what Madrid is, which is not a historic nation,” he emphasizes in statements to this newspaper.
“We see it in this semantic transformation of the Madrid (or certain Madrid sectors) use of the word freedom. Freedom becomes a shameless mixture of public and private resources,” criticizes Peláez, in a sentence that recalls “the statists in the protection of their social clientele” described by Emmanuel Rodríguez. “In other words, freedom becomes a kind of permission to do evil or break the rules. As if freedom meant enjoying doing evil,” explains the journalist.
A “malism” (as this current is called in Mauro Entrialgo’s new book) whose forms go well beyond politics. One example is the commitment to companies with sordid names and aesthetics that proliferate in the capital, especially in traditional neighborhoods like Chamberí, exactly the same one where Isabel Díaz Ayuso comes from and resides.
Raquel Peláez distinguishes those businesses that even boast of their chic origin from traditional or popular ones: “The business names of traditional places generally highlight positive qualities (La Imperial, La Graciosa…). Now the new businesses are a little more numerous and they insult you to your face”: La Malcriada, La Chunga, Bellaco Mida… The establishments follow a similar line with corny puns, like the defunct La Polla del Pollo in Zurbano Street.
The commercial names of traditional places generally highlight positive qualities (La Imperial, La Graciosa…). Now the new companies are a little more numerous and they insult you to your face
Raquel Pelaez
— Journalist and author of “I Will and I Can’t: A History of the Posh People of Spain”
“In Spain, there is a long tradition of luxury scoundrels, and it still continues: the most chic people, the aristocrats for example, already have their destiny written. In a way, an ordinary person is luckier, because they have more freedom of choice, and many classy people rebel against this predetermination by canalismtransgression,” declared Iñaki Domínguez to the same effect in an article in El País. A way of rebelling against nothing, of inventing oppression when nothing oppresses.
Left-wing “neochulapism”
Emmanuel Rodríguez placed “the hypocrisy of the left”, or at least the sensation that these formations can transmit, as one of the keys to the electoral success obtained by the “franchise” of Ayuso, however sincere it may be conceived and staging. . In this sense, Raquel Peláez recalls the key role that Más Madrid has given and also gives to what is traditional, a “neochulapism with friendly folk use. He cites, as an example, the party’s typography inspired by posters from old Madrid.
For Peláez, this strategy “was then violated by a conscientious maneuver by the right to transform certain symbols into a reaction against other nationalisms.” He even suggests that “the regional costumes of lagarterana or maragata are an invention to display an imagination that did not exist”.
So, everything traditional is imposed? Raquel Peláez finds her refuge of sincere chulapismo at Bodegas Alfaro. This century-old tavern in Lavapiés, founded by the Alfaro family at the beginning of the 20th century and currently managed by Ángel Rodríguez, is a Spanish tapas institution. A consideration achieved thanks to a menu that includes hits such as melva with peppers, sirloin in oil, smoked sardine, Iberian sausages, Manchego cheese, anchovies in vinegar, salmorejo, draft beer or vermouth. A place that retains the aesthetic of its beginnings, even if its current owners have given it a little facelift, enlarging the space and revealing in certain corners the stone on which it was built.
Peláez also lays claim to La Pradera. An esplanade which is occupied every year by young people from the bottle, dozens of fairground stands or modest families and a large proportion of migrant origin. “It is very difficult to transform La Pradera into an April Fair,” he says. Of course, this year we were also able to see Mario Vaquerizo, who performed with his group Nancys Rubias in exchange for 30,000 euros paid by Madrid City Hall. All this a year after starring in the most representative advertisement of the traditional Madrid of the elites. Ayuso awarded four hand contracts for the Madrid promotion announcement, which cost 54,268 euros, of which Vaquerizo received 13,310 euros. He neochulpaism the scoundrel is not only ideological, it is also paid.
