Los 80
Los 80 portrays the daily life of a middle-class family between 1982 and 1990 in Chile. The Herrera family lives in the capital Santiago de Chile. The characters in Los 80s represent multiple ideological, gender and class positions vis-à-vis the Pinochet dictatorship. The purpose of the staging is to provide a means of conciliation between opposing ideologies.
The series was inspired by the U.S. series The Wonder Years (1988-1993), which shows various portraits of a middle-class family confronted with situations of political and economic turmoil. This format has also been successfully utilized in the Spanish and Argentine TV-series both called Cuéntame cómo paso. The first TV-series deals with the Franco dictatorship. The second recreates events in Argentine history from 1974 to 1983 and focuses on the last years of the military dictatorship.
Los 80 was conceived within the framework of the Bicentennial celebration in Chile by the open television channel, Canal 13. With this series the channel's producers sought to review recent Chilean history from the perspective of a less ideologized middle class. Los 80 is one of GUMELAB's case studies due to its great success in Chile. In addition, this series dealt for the first time with the subject of the Pinochet dictatorship in this beloved entertainment format. Thus, opening the way for the creation of new television series that commemorated the 40th anniversary of the coup d'état in Chile.
Sources and references
IMDb: Los 80 (TV Series 2008-2014) Full Cast & Crew: URL: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1569539/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_cl_sm (11.08.2021).
Antezana, Lorena; Cabalin, Cristian (2020): Memories of repression. Political violence in television fiction 40 years after the coup d'état in Chile. (Memorias de la represión. Violencia política en la ficción televisiva a 40 años del Golpe de Estado en Chile). In: Comunicación y Medios (41), p. 82–94. URL: https://comunicacionymedios.uchile.cl/index.php/RCM/article/view/55927/61583 (11.08.21).
Farías G., Daniela (2014), "Los 80 allowed me to remain in love with television." (“Los 80 me permitió seguir enamorado de la televisión”), Revista Universitaria 127, Santiago de Chile, p. 24-30.
Mateos-Pérez, Javier; Ochoa, Gloria (2019): Chile en las series de televisión. Los 80, Los archivos del Cardenal y El reemplazante, Santiago de Chile. URL: https://germina.cl/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/libro_2018_Mateos-P%C3%A9rez-y-Ochoa_Chile-en-las-series.pdf (11.08.21).