'Give your body melodrama, Macarena'

On Tuesday morning, in Morning 360, the sensational news program on La 1, reported on a religious tragedy that had befallen Seville the Virgin of the Macarena. Last weekend, she underwent conservation work that outraged parishioners. The expert craftsman altered the pigments in her eyes, redrawn her gaze, and added long false eyelashes. The result is a more sophisticated expression and, above all, sadder, because her eyelids now droop more. The devotees are furious, because they say their beloved Macarena has lost her look of hope, which is the sentiment she symbolizes. Television showed the crisis in front of the basilica, with a congregation of people crying and shouting at those responsible for the brotherhood.His gaze is lost!", "His look has changed!", "They have touched what we love the most!", "Now he is very sad!"An interviewee dressed in black announced that he would go into mourning and walk ten kilometers of penance every day until the Virgin regained her gaze."We don't repaint what can't be painted! All your pigments must be in place!", he protested. "These eyelashes must be open so that your face has the expectation, the hope!"The man said he couldn't look at her again:"I'd faint in front of her! I'm sorry!"When the panelists tried to convince him that with the correction work the look was not so different, he got angry:"This look is asleep! It doesn't look at the parishioners!". And he tried to explain the value of the original look: "Esperanza has cried a lot for her son. And when you've cried a lot, your eyelids are swollen and dark. This isn't a patina of varnish!~

The presence of the cameras outside the basilica heightened the protesters' emotion and helped dramatize the conflict. We witnessed an anthropological spectacle. The varnish had to do with a humanization of that figure. It wasn't a sculpture, so a kind of desecration of the Macarena's body had taken place. Shaped eyebrows and eye makeup worthy of a influencer of the 21st century. They added drama and docility to a female face that until now expressed expectation and amazement. They've given her a media facelift and stripped her of her sacred narrative. Wanting to add more emotional effectiveness, they've stripped her of the truth that devotees attribute to her. The image of the Macarena is not what she represents, but what she activates in others, and television served to stimulate the collective catharsis inherent in a sacred ritual.