Banderas, Almodóvar and Maricarmen (Juan Carlos Girauta in El Debate)

Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodóvar, two names of Spanish cinema, have commented on Operation Maricarmen and left two positions on housing: looking at the whole system or demanding that politicians tackle evictions. Columnist Juan Carlos Girauta analyses them in El Debate.

## Two names from cinema and the same housing issue

Antonio Banderas and Pedro Almodóvar were two very close figures in Spanish cinema. They have commented on Operation Maricarmen, a housing issue linked to evictions, and their positions outline the two main currents of opinion on the matter.

Banderas calls for looking at the whole picture. Not rushing by looking at a fragment of a complex system that concerns us all, because whoever is not an owner is a tenant or is looking to become one. And there is an intersection that is often overlooked: tenants who at the same time own another home, and owners who own several.

Columnist **Juan Carlos Girauta** argues in **El Debate** that these views are not cultural speculations or group-interest positions, but stances whose success or failure will affect us all. That neither of them is an economist is, in his view, the charm of the matter: they are "the street."

## The panoramic option and Bastiat's essay

Girauta calls Banderas's option panoramic. If it were to prosper, he says, demagoguery would disappear, since in this area it feeds on the concrete example. When that concrete example abusa the law, bringing it up as a complaint is fine: think of an owner whose home is occupied while he lives in it.

There is a paradox in how indignation is distributed. That type of injustice outrages few. It does not provoke chain reactions, it does not bring singers and actors together in front of the occupied home, no one recites poems. The person left out in the cold does not become a human banner. Nor does it escalate to the mass occupation of a main square, nor is there continuous news coverage.

Beneath that panoramic view beats, whether Banderas knows it or not, a philosophy parallel to that of the short essay by **Frédéric Bastiat** **What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen**, published in **1850**. Most likely the actor arrived at that coincidence by combining his intelligence with a prudent temperament.

## Almodóvar, less radical than might be expected

Girauta considers **Pedro Almodóvar**'s view less radical than might be expected. Also less absurd and dangerous than that of the reckless activist he once was. The columnist recalls that he used the microphones of a film festival to tell the world that the Spanish government was preparing a coup d'état during **Aznar**'s time.

The text takes for granted that Almodóvar and his brother are large property holders. Hence the lack of radicalism. Once he has expressed his respect for private property, he asks politicians for solutions and goes no further. He turns it over and everything leads him to the same point: preventing new Maricarmen cases, that is, new evictions.

## The anti-Banderas and the recipe that makes renting more expensive

Compared with the panoramic view, Almodóvar is the anti-Banderas: the viewer observing a tiny scrap of the system. He knows that Operation Maricarmen is too good not to take advantage of, so he wants to do his bit.

His contribution amounts, according to that reading, to proposing exactly what raises prices and reduces supply: interventionism that caps prices and discourages renting. With very good intentions.