Élite is the second Spanish production (the first is La casa de papel) that entered the list of most popular series in Netflix history: its seasons 3 and 4 are in that ranking and, predictably, the premiere of the fifth batch of episodes, on April 8, attracted a huge audience: it was placed in the number 1 global with more than 51 million hours of views. Although critics have been divided, even the refusal recognizes it as “the great guilty pleasure” of marathon fictions.
From Rebel to Thirteen Reasons, from Gossip Girl to Riverdale, from Buffy to Glee and from Stranger Things to Atypical, teen series have grown as a genre in recent years and have been mixed with other narratives, such as horror, vampires and thriller. But in itself, the genre is a success — Euphoria also proves — based on the drama and intensity, typical of people's teenage years: it appeals to those who live them and those who lived them.
In the case of Elite, the successful formula adds criminal intrigue, avant-garde music, high-voltage eroticism and economic inequality at Las Encinas school. All issues that transcend geographical and age boundaries: “The best thing was to make it as universal as possible. In the background, the desires are very similar,” one of its directors, Darío Madrona, told the newspaper El País. In addition to actors known around the world for La casa de papel — Jaime Lorente, Miguel Herrán and María Pedraza — and Mexican star Danna Paola, these are the reasons why Carlos Montero's creation is once again successful.
1. Current Issues for Adolescents
The relationship between parents and children is a common theme in the exploration of these series, but Elite has gone one step further by showing contemporary problems of young people. If they seem stereotypical, the characters soon reveal different layers in which they talk about alcohol and drugs, discrimination, machismo, bullying, the effects of social networks, racism, religious conflicts (one of the new students is Muslim), immigration, economic inequality, HIV and the different forms of sexuality and identity.
In season 5, sexual violence is addressed directly, with an accusation of rape against Philippe (who had already violated Cayetana's intimacy by filming it) and with an attack by several young people on a girl who was passed out by intoxication. Among the points of division of criticism is this question: for some, the series exposes something that concerns all teenagers and what was not talked about; for others, it has frivolized a crime.
Another prominent topic, which shows how much the world has changed since the creators of the series were teenagers, is HIV: far from talking about risk groups, we talk about behaviors. The person suffering from the infection does not meet the stereotypes of past decades — it is a straight, upper-class girl — and the diagnosis is not fatal, at least in rich countries.
Perhaps a repeated criticism is the lack of diverse bodies, something that was explored in Euphoria with the character of Kat. Montero talked about it with Fotogramas: the perfect bodies seen in Elite are “an idealization, a stylization,” he said. “Just as I show swimming pools and dream houses, I also show dream bodies.”
2. An unbeatable genre: the thriller
Violent death seems to be the leading cause of death among students in Las Encinas. However, the song does not bore audiences: on the one hand, the script shows revelations — notably after the fourth episode of the fifth season — that lighten the reiteration of the flashback structure. In addition, each chapter closes with a hook: a lack of resolution that leads to the beginning, even if not, of the next.
The genre presents an enigma, and part of human nature is to discover the unknown. Faced with a mystery — who did it? — the audience becomes just another character, a researcher looking for answers. There are also factors such as danger and hope: the situation can go wrong, but there are elements to believe that it will work out. Finally, the thriller allows you to channel negative thoughts and emotions by allowing you to explore the thoughts of a murderer, understand why he acts like this.
3. A soundtrack that falls in love
“We have given great importance to music in Elite,” Madrona told Los40. “We wanted it to be reflected from the adolescent world, to our 40-year-old, with all the rhythms that sound today,” Montero added. “Music is important in a series because it is also important in life: it is the vehicle of emotion.”
The list is on Spotify, and throughout each season it reproduced an ultra-contemporary and popular catalog, which featured music supervisor Lynn Fainchtein. Pol Granch, Rosalia, Rhye, Sacre, Mula, C. Tangana, Tiësto, Lola Indigo, Aime Simone, Hardwell, Bad Gyal, Sprints, Ocie Elliott, Simon Field, REYKO and bAlex Rose, among many others, have been played.
In season 5 there is an electro pop cover of “Cariñito”, the well-known Latin American cumbia, made by Spaniards Sandra Delaporte and Sergio Salvi. You can also listen to Moa Moa, La Bien Querida, Mothermary, Sparkle Division, Bubble Tea and Cigarettes, Flo/So, NWYR, Kelly Lee Owens and even “Adesso É Amore” by Ennio Morricone.
4. A lot of sex
On the disk. In the shower. In the pool. At parties. Boy-girl romance, same-sex, threesomes, open couples, voyeurism. The hypersexualization of Elite has been much talked about since the beginning of the series, in particular because it uses sex both from adolescent fantasy and from the power factor that it implies, and which the plot is about in general.
But not only is the impulse of attraction covered: there is also a lot of romantic back-and-forth, touching words, vulnerability to falling in love, family and social pressures, casual eroticism of naked bodies. There are characters who explore their bisexuality. And the trans actor Ander Puig will play a young trans man in the sixth season: “I feel very good to be doing something that I really like, acting, and at the same time helping people who are going through something that I went through at the time, and I had a hard time. Now I can help make it not so.”
Among the new faces of season 5, the characters of Valentina Zenere (Isadora) and André Lamoglia (Ivan) also stand out in the field of sex.
5. Poor and rich and new rich
From the beginning, Elite raised the issue of economic and social inequality: the group of teenagers from the exclusive Las Encinas school was joined by three young people from the lower class, in whose neighborhood school the roof has collapsed. The scholarships received by two boys and a girl who come from public education do not enable them to fit into a place from which “tomorrow's leaders will come out”, according to one teacher, on which one of the new ones reflects that is what is scary.
The rich boys will be tomorrow's leaders not on their own merit but because they are the children of the elite in the 21st century, where the culture of effort and social advancement have lost meaning and the privileged take care that the next generation inherits its power. There are also lucky breaks: Ivan, for example, is the son of the best football player in the world, and that is why he is rich. However, for families like the Blanco Commerford, there are nuances between old and new money.
The issue of inequality had a particular impact on the public in South America, such as Brazil. “We thought the issue of inequality would be better understood,” Madrona said. “Elite schools and fortified chalets are the normality there.” But even in Europe, the process of the disappearance of the middle classes takes place in some countries, and as in almost all of Latin America and certainly in Las Encinas, one is either poor or rich.
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