Any Spanish-speaking person who loves popular culture, especially music, sooner or later ends up looking at Mexico with reverence. And rightly so. More than 170,000 people gathered last Saturday in the Zócalo of Mexico City to attend Juan Gabriel’s first concert at Bellas Artes, held on May 9, 1990. The screening, courtesy of Netflix, after the enormous and deserved success it had Juan Gabriel: I must, I can and I wantthe wonderful four-part documentary on the star of Juárez directed by María José Cuevas, has come to confirm what we already know: that idols do not die when the death certificate requires it, but when the public abandons them. And, therefore, Juan Gabriel lives, the fight continues.
Forgive me for the sentimental outburst, but I cannot help but envy in this sense a country that can date exactly the day in which the border between popular culture and high culture was blown up, which could declare May 9th as the National Day of All Cultures. In Spain we could reclaim November 3rd, in memory of 1965, the date on which a twenty-year-old named Raphael performed for the first time at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, also changing the codes of the venue. But that day did not mark the legitimate entry of a mass idol into the cathedral of refinement, as happened with Juan Gabriel in Fine Arts, but rather the trigger of the success of a promising young man.
“An idol,” writes Carlos Monsiváis in the chapter dedicated to Juan Gabriel in his book Scenes of modesty and lightness“it is a multigenerational agreement, the emotional response to the lack of sentimental questions, a hard-to-perfect version of joy, the romantic spirit, the gentle or aggressive breaking of the norm.” Rereading her words today it is impossible not to look at Rosalía. Once the limits between what is high and what is popular have been exploded, when many justify their limits by appealing to their popular belonging. “I don’t create for the elite, I create for the people,” he decided to raise the bar. Juan Gabriel told the snobs, “You like me too.” Rosalía told the Los 40 listener, the Mexican who dines at La casa de Toño as she did during her last visit to Mexico City: “Lux It’s different, but I’m still yours. You must, you can and you want.
