Talk:Culture of Spain

Bullfighting

I notice that bullfighting has been placed under "sport". I would argue that involves a misunderstanding of the role of bullfighting in Spanish culture. Bullfights are reviewed in the arts sections of Spanish newspapers, not the sports sections, and I think that pretty much says it all. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:08, Nov 1, 2004 (UTC)

Several misconceptions

Under the heading music it was stated that:

The first popular music of Spain began to appear in about 1959, after the fall of Francisco Franco.

Well, Francisco Franco didn't die till 1975. This was so blatantly an error that I've removed the text after the comma.

As a spaniard, I feel that the text is full of missconceptions. Most notably:

1. Saying that most basque and catalonian people favor statehood is an overstatement. While this regions are the ones with more regionalist feelings, only a tiny minority of its inhabitants favor statehood (spcially true in the case of Catalonia). Last elections in Basque Country show that only 50% of the electorate voted for regionalist parties. And surveys show that the majority of regionslists don't want an independent state but a greater degree of self-government.

2. The siesta is not "an hours-long mid-afternoon break from work". Siesta consists of taking a little nap after the mid-day meal, rarely exceeding half an hour or so. In fact, almost nobody takes a siesta on working days. I work from 8:00 to 17:30 with two breaks, one of half an hour at mid-morning and another from 14:00 to 15:00 to eat lunch, so I couldn't take a siesta if I wanted.

3. The relative lateness of the dinner hour is not explained just by Spain's adherence to Central European Time. Meals are taken at different hours and in different quantities than in the rest of Europe. Lunch is the main meal of the day and is usually taken arround 14:30. Dinner/supper is less copious and taken arround 22:00.

4. The heading Architecture doesn't mention Santiago Calatrava who is internationally acknowledged as a great architect. Amongst other things he's designed the Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, the Milwaukee Art Museum, Athen's Olympic Stadium...

5. Álex de la Iglesia can be considered a B-movie director if you consider most of holliwood directors as such.

• I love Álex de la Iglesia, but I think his work is precisely in the best B-movie tradition. -- Jmabel | Talk 22:57, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

6. As another user pointed, bullfighting is not considered a sport in Spain.

Sincersly, I think that this page needs some re-editing.

--Anconor 19:20, 5 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well please correct as much of it as you can. The problem is ideally we need references for that material. Just adding it in is just personal experience in some cases and could be considered original research. - Taxman 14:53, Apr 5, 2005

I am aware of that. This is the main reason why I didn't re-write many sections. I'll try and find some sources that can be cited and correct the major issues, but it may take some time. --Anconor 16:24, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well good, if you do that the article will eventually be in great shape, the goal of course. My issue is I don't know what would be considered the most reliable sources. I can get some books from the library, but I haven't gotten a hold of any high quality ones yet. A lot of what they had were children's books. Maybe I'll check again as soon as I can. - Taxman 16:43, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Balearics

The Balearics were recently added to the list of "other regions which, despite a broad Spanish nationalist feeling, have strong regional identities". Is that accurate? I've never been there, but I would expect that there would be strong Catalanist or even specifically Balear, as against Spanish sentiment there. -- Jmabel | Talk 21:23, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

The whole section is unreliable. I wonder what sources were used by the author of those lines and which criteria that is based on. It is obvious that Aragon, the Balearic Islands and La Rioja cannot be put at the same level. Balearic people feel in general culturally tied to the Catalans, yes, although insularity gives them a special feeling of uniqueness and foreign inhabitants may have reduced the local sentiment. Aragon is more than just a region with a strong identity, officially considered one of the 'nationalities' of Spain. On the other side, La Rioja as an Autonomous Community was created after Franco's death, so there's no such traditionally strong regional identity, except perhaps in some people under 30, as it has historically been a Castilian province. As a matter of fact, there may be a stronger feeling of identity in León, which was not made Autonomous Community. So this, and some other parts of the article, are vague, badly stated or simply wrong. --Estrolicador 17:03, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

what a bad article

First, some sections need urgently better prose. They are clearly written by ESL people, I wish we had truly native english people writting here. Second, many people have added stuff more concerned to get across the differences, particularly those of the 'historical' regions, than the spanish culture as a whole. Where are all the forms of culture that exist nowadays in the spanish society, apart from cultural diferences between regions and the nationalism problem? How about taking about the great cultural patrimony of Spain? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 81.34.92.67 (talk) 22:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC).

Removing "Ethnic groups"

Hi, I'm removing the section "Ethnic groups" because it's vague and it does not accurately reflect the reality (see Demographics of Spain and Spain#Demographics). The contents of the section are:

==Ethnic groups==
*Basques
*Jews
*Moors
*Roma (gypsies)

Moreover, I think that information does not belong in this article, as it is already covered in the two given articles. —Anna Lincoln 08:57, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

forget?

Hi, for me, two things was importants: 1) The first ancestry of the spagniards were Iberians (and not celtiberians). 2) For the musics "dancing & listening" by the spagniards you forget the "Reggaetón" than lot of spagniards listen! In spain, this music is anywhere!

Hola, faltan dos cosas en el artículo: 1) Los primeros antepasados de los españoles son los Iberos (no los celtiberos que eran tribus celtas del norte oeste un poco mezcladas con los iberos, que vivían al sur este de la peninsula) 2) Para la musica que escuchan los españoles, no debéis olvidar el "Reggaetón". ¡Esta musica hispana se escucha en toda parte de españa!