Mònica Planas: "Many of those who have booed or threatened me would not have dared to do so with a man"

BarcelonaMònica Planas (Barcelona, ​​1975) is the first guest of the 2 x CIEN interview series we are premiering at el ARA. A conversation, two people talking and, as an audience, one hundred readers and subscribers of the newspaper. The setting will always be the same: the rehearsal room of the Orfeó Català, in the Palau de la Música Catalana. Planas is a journalist, she has worked on La mañana de Catalunya Ràdio, on Este año, 100 of TV3, on Problemas domésticos and co-directed El mundo en RAC1, with Xavier Bosch. In 2007 she began writing television criticism in Mundo Deportivo and since 2010 her articles, thoughtful, precise and sharp, are one of the most read and commented pieces in el ARA every day.

You have just turned 50, you started television criticism at 32. Who has changed more in these 18 years, Mònica Planas or television?

— Wow, I think we've evolved both simultaneously. I hope I haven't changed like television, that I haven't deteriorated.

Do you think it has deteriorated in these 18 years?

— In some ways, yes. It's still a place to find interesting things, a window worth looking through if you can be selective and pick out what interests you. But as for entertainment, I think it has deteriorated a lot, yes.

Tell me about Mónica Planas before she became a television critic. What family do you come from? Do your parents have anything to do with journalism?

— No, not at all. My mother is a child psychologist. She always worked in a public school in Hospitalet. And my father was a pharmacist and pharmacologist. He had a pharmacy in Molins de Rei and, above all, dedicated himself to scientific research. For many years he worked researching in pharmaceutical laboratories.

A mix of science and letters. And where does journalism come from for you?

— I liked sciences, I really liked languages, literature. I think I was interested in so many things that journalism was the space where I knew I could find many different things.

In an interview on Comunicació 21, you told Quim Miró that you had decided to do television criticism not by playing it safe, but to the bitter end. What are its consequences?

— They will surely think you are very unfriendly, and that there are people who may not want to greet you or who get angry. Little happens. That is to say, if we compare it with the articles I write every day, sour or harsh reactions are a very low percentage.

There are jobs where you make friends.

— Yes, but criticism is not among them. What's more, when you criticize to make friends, the rest of the people who read you detect it so easily that they then lose interest in reading you, because they realize that you are not thinking about them. If your aspiration is to work in television or dine with famous people who appear on television, criticism is not a good path.

Having worked in television, I have sometimes heard a phrase: "This critic has a grudge against me." Do you hold a grudge against someone?

— I don't dislike anyone. If I felt that dislike or hatred – people have even told me – I wouldn't be able to work. I, when a job has caused me discomfort, or when I've had a boss I couldn't stand, I've left that job. Besides, when you are a professional, you must put this dislike aside. It's not about "I like this person and I don't like that person." On the contrary, when I sometimes think "This won't go very well for him" or "Let's see how he'll do it," for me it's a very interesting exercise to have my expectations broken.

You were previously talking about some reactions, calls, etc. What is the most unpleasant thing that has happened to you?

— I won't tell you in detail, but a threat. A threat with all that a threat entails, yes. He did it with a logic and with an ease in his speech that I thought "Wow, this is a person who must be used to threatening".

What message do you have for your WhatsApp status?

— "Arguments and parrots, abstain". In Spanish, by the way.

What day did you decide to wear that message?

— The day I saw there was a man who had found it recurring to call me and first justify himself, then lament, then get angry, then shout...

And did it work?

— I blocked it.

I couldn't do your job. Surely I'm not as brave as you or I don't handle conflict well, I don't know.

— I don't handle conflict well. I try to avoid it. I don't consider my work to be conflict-ridden. And I have to tell you that the vast majority of the profession has no problem with it. That is, I've been able to continue interacting with people I've criticized. There are people who have an extraordinary sense of humor, a great capacity for acceptance. I would say women perhaps better than men. Women have more ease in reviewing themselves, in accepting that they have been wrong at times, in trying to correct themselves, or at least, to continue thinking what they thought but reflect on it.

Would you say you are braver now than when you started in 2007?

— No, no, always. It's just that I don't live what I do with any kind of epic. Critics should try not to give ourselves too much importance, but we should think that we must do our work by giving it importance. What's important is the work we do, not us.

We come from a tradition of television criticism in Catalonia, with names like Josep Maria Baget Herms, Víctor Amela, Ramon Miravitlles, Ferran Monegal... I haven't mentioned any women.

— I don't know if in theHoy there was any woman who did criticism...

Yes, in theHoy Gemma Busquets wrote about television. Because you are a woman, do you think it changes anything about the reactions you have encountered?

— Clearly. I've been able to speak with colleagues in the profession, with Sergi Pàmies, for example, and, indeed, many of those who have dared to shout or threaten me, surely would not have dared to threaten Víctor Amela or Sergi Pàmies in this way. Certain individuals receive criticism worse because it comes from a woman. Generally speaking, men are always an authoritative voice and women are intruders in the profession. And this happens in journalism and in many other fields. Television professionals, who already produce very testosteronic, very macho television, for a woman to be criticizing... And, what's more, a woman they know nothing about, who they don't know where she came from... 'But who is this dame, who thinks she has the right to criticize me?' It's not well received, no.

I have the feeling that lately you've been cheating a lot on public television, both TV3 and Televisión Española. Why?

— Firstly, because public television is essential and must strive for excellence. They are the only ones we can oversee. At a time when we need them most, a very politically turbulent time, I notice that there is poorer content and a lower level of demand.

Does this work for both TV3 and Televisión Española?

— Yes, yes. It's a strange time for public television. I have the feeling that it's a reaction to having to compete with private channels, and that in many aspects they have wanted to resemble them. But, of course, if we degrade public television, a moment will come when someone will say that we don't need them because they are garbage, right? Or that this television, like this, we can't maintain it. And then, if they get rid of them, we are left without an essential state structure, which is public media.

What program could they offer you on television right now that would make you stop criticizing?

— None.

None?

— None. I mean, I was clear, when I decided to do television criticism, that I wasn't going to do any television programs, and that's how it's been. There have already been times when I've said no.

You once did a collaboration onIt's happening, it seems to me. But have you had the opportunity to do a show and have you said no? Do you think it's a decision you'll stick with until you retire?

— I think so. It's just that I have a job that, as they say, I can do in my pajamas.

Would you like to retire as a television critic?

— Yes, of course.

I'm raising the offer. Director of TV3.

— Less and less. Less and less.

Or has this already happened?

— No, no, it hasn't happened. I've told you before that being a television critic doesn't make you friends, much less get you offered a position. Look, I've never experienced criticism as an intermediate step to then do something else. Never. Besides, I really like what I do.

That thing floating in the air, that we used to notice here among the audience accompanying us, that TV3 was better before... Do you agree with this statement?

— Memory is always better than what we saw. And shit has always existed everywhere and in all eras. We can't fool ourselves about that. But I do believe that at some moments there has been better entertainment than what there is now on TV3. Above all, it is very related to this kind of obsession with capturing young audiences. I understand that they want to capture young audiences, although I'm not sure they are capturing them entirely, but they are certainly expelling many people who were there and were waiting for something interesting that hasn't arrived. And that criterion of what young people supposedly want... They are young, but they are not imbeciles. The young people I know and deal with...

You have one at home, let's say.

— I have a house and I have at the faculty. They don't feel represented by this kind of idea of what young audiences are. When I ask very young people, teenagers, what they watch on TV3 and what they like, they love Crímenes, which is a program that is not intended for young audiences but everyone watches it. Beyond what I might think of true crimas, which would be another topic, it is a program that is well made. Worked on, with a very clear idea of what they want to do. There are possibilities for well-made entertainment that can also be transversal. I have the feeling that they make series for young people in which everyone has a lot of sex, takes off their shirts a lot, and very erotic things happen, and all this to turn on kids who have been watching absolutely terrible porn on social media since they were 10 years old. This obsession with young audiences has infantilized their content. Or the justification of 3Cat, with a quantity of content that has arrived at the same time with a criterion that I don't quite understand, nor who it is aimed at. And, furthermore, in many cases I don't see the cost of these programs justified by what the viewer actually sees later.

But 3Cat, the platform, is a success, isn't it?

— I don't have much confidence in 3Cat. I mean, with the data they give. I don't quite believe it. I don't feel there's absolute transparency with the 3Cat data. I understand that a click at a certain moment is different from someone who actually devours eight full episodes of a particular series, for example.

And do you think La 2 Cat is competition for TV3?

— No, for now it's like a strange channel, it's like a staging of a channel that doesn't quite become a channel, because it works at times, sometimes it stops being in Catalan. Practically the entire channel has the budget of what would be a good television program. And then it's so precarious that I don't know what image you end up giving of what a Catalan channel should be. For now, beyond some specific programs that are interesting and good, I don't see it as competition for TV3.

Monica, we're done. What would you say about television to the audience who has come to listen to us?

— That they can turn it off. That I sometimes have the feeling that they forget a little: people can turn it off. And then, that TV is never innocent. In the most absurd entertainment there is always a message and there is always some idea they want to get across to you.