Y tu Luna también: Pan y circo: Season 1, Episode 3 – “The Failure of Prohibition: Drug Legalization” (2020)

After seeing Diego Luna’s tremendous work as Félix in Narcos: Mexico and watching some of the promotion he did for that series, it’s no surprise that this was a topic Pan y circo. The drug war in Mexico is a subject that he’s very invested in, and it showed in his hosting duties in this episode.

At today’s table, we had, not one, but two folks in politics: a former secretary of state and a former president of Colombia(!) We also had a drug researcher and two people who’ve attained a rare “legal remedy” to grow/consume marijuana for medicinal purposes—one a political scientist/activist and one an actor (it was Gael García Bernal!)

Before the guests could get down to discussing the nitty-gritty of legalization, they had to examine the exact nature of the drug problem in Mexico. As with Colombia, they’re more of a producing country than a consuming country, with narcos primarily growing/making drugs, then transporting them out of the country. But even though Mexico doesn’t have a major problem with drug consumption, the narco/gang activity and their clashes with the government have put them on the frontlines of the drug war, with over 250,000 violent deaths in the country since 2006.

Despite the reality of the state of affairs, the law still strictly restricts drug consumption. Those legal remedies I mentioned? Only eleven people in the entire country have been approved for one. Meanwhile, 60% of inmates in Mexican federal prisons are there on drug-related convictions. That’s where the topic of legalization came in. The president of Colombia noted, “The world declared a war on drugs almost 50 years ago. And that war hasn’t been won, which means it has been lost.” The political scientist remarked on the fact that there were three different kinds of alcohol on the table, a state-altering substance that no one bats an eyelash at.

Like I said, I couldn’t help but think of Narcos: Mexico as I watched Luna preside over the discussion. After having a more hands-off approach last week, he was eager to dig in here. His love and care for his country shone through, and he acknowledged how the drug war has hurt Mexico right along with the drug traffickers. He pointed out, “They tell us: ‘You have to keep drugs away from your kids,’ and I say: ‘But I’d also like to keep the military away from my kids.’”

I really enjoy him hanging out in the kitchen with the chef in the pre-dinner clips during the episode. After following the chef’s instructions on how to chop the onions, he exclaimed, “Damn! I’ve been doing it wrong my whole life.” His enthusiasm to learn and easy willingness to make fun of himself is endearing. 

Y tu Luna también: Pan y circo: Season 1, Episode 2 – “#NiUnaMás: Gender-Based Violence” (2020)

This is the first “regular” episode of Pan y circo, the brunt of the season that was shot before the pandemic began. It was interesting to learn more about Mexico’s relationship with feminism and gender-based violence, and shoutout to Diego Luna for recognizing his (limited) role as the only man at the table.

Rather than opening with narration from Luna, we begin with footage from a massive women’s march in Mexico. In the U.S., the Women’s March has covered a wide variety of issues relating to gender equality, but this protest is more squarely focused on violence against women, for being women. Ten women in Mexico are murdered every day, and killing a woman on the basis of her gender has its own legal designation: femicide. One of the chants we hear in the footage is, “They took them alive! We want them back alive!”

The five guests (and the chef) are all women. Three are activists, two are attorneys, and one is a government official, the national commissioner for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence Against Women. They hand their phones over for the duration of the meal, sit down at the table together, and discuss gender violence in Mexico. “#NiUnaMás” means “not one more.”

All the women at the table have experienced misogyny and fought for women’s freedom in different ways, and each has their own perspective to bring to the discussion. They talk about where the misogyny that leads to gender violence begins, looking at cultural traditions and sexist media elements that view women as objects rather than people. They debate whether it’s enough to address the role of “institutions,” such as gender roles taught in the family, or whether the problem must be faced head-on with laws. They acknowledge that, as with most issues, poverty only exacerbates the problem. Different guests take the government official to task because they feel her department only pays lip service and isn’t doing enough to bring about meaningful change.

Since this is an episodic nonfiction talk show, I figured I’d structure this similarly to the way I used to do my News Satire Roundup posts and share some favorite quotes from the episode.

• One of the activists, also a sports analyst, talked about how much resistance there is in the culture for men to embrace feminism – “There is a total dismissal of those who want to recognize us as people with wills and differences and the right to be free from violence and the right to live.”
• One of the lawyers highlighted why femicide requires its own separate categorization – “What happens to women isn’t the same as what happens to men, in terms of the violence they are subjected to. The cause and consequence is discrimination due to the social constructs of what a woman should be, right? So society condones women being controlled.”
• Another activist, one whose own daughter was murdered, discussed the motivation for family members like her – “We prefer, like many other families, not to mourn them, but to say ‘no’ for them. Because they no longer have a voice.”
• The third activist was also a rapper, and between the second and third course, Luna asked her to perform a piece for them – She rapped in Spanish, and I’m sure the translation couldn’t capture her words entirely, but I loved the line, “You butcher my heart / And muzzle my trust.”

As I said, Luna recognized that, as the only man at the table, his voice was the least important. And so, he was a little more hands-off in his hosting duties. He brought up topics for the group to discuss at different points—I liked his list of both the large and small ways violence against women manifests in Mexican culture, “including the violence we let slide in the name of humor”—but he also just listened a lot, letting the guests follow where the discussion took them.

But even though he took a bit of a step back during the discussion, that didn’t make him less present as a host. He helped the chef with the meal prep beforehand, asking her about her perspective on the topic as well. (Side note: the chef joined the table and the discussion during dessert, which I thought was nice.) He was personable and disarming with the guests when they arrived, freely admitting, “I always need a drink before I start, because I’m really nervous right now.” And near the end of the meal, he proposed a moment of silence for the victims. Still an effective host, even if part of that entailed knowing when to take a backseat.

Y tu Luna también: Pan y circo: Season 1, Episode 1 – “Chronicles of the Pandemic: COVID-19 and Its Consequences” (2020)

Diego Luna wears a lot of hats on this show. In addition to creating it/originating the idea, he hosts the series and has also produced and directed the second season. His hand is especially apparent in this episode, which, by its nature, draws attention to how it was made.

The conceit of Pan y circo is simple. In each episode, Luna brings together five people to discuss a particular topic through the lens of their areas of expertise, the conversation happening over the course of a sumptuous meal prepared by a talented chef.

COVID hit after the filming but before the release of the first season, so Luna and his team decided to pause, innovate, and figure out how to create a new first episode that would take place in quarantine. As became so familiar to us in 2020, the dinner guests now meet over Zoom and the chef is Luna himself, who cooked the meal according the COVID protocols and had it delivered to the guests before filming. In that brave new world of the 2020 COVID era, Luna and his guests discuss the wide-reaching effects of the pandemic.

I feel like the early days of COVID caused many in the entertainment industry to want to pull back the curtain a little on their process. Rather than the usual movie/TV magic, there was a sense of “we’re all in this together” and a desire to let the audience see the strings a bit more, as it were. That’s true here, where part of the episode includes clips of Zoom meetings between Luna and his team prior to filming the dinner, brainstorming how they can make this work. We also see Luna asking a chef for advice on how to prepare a meal in a COVID-safe manner.

Once the Zoom dinner begins, it’s the same “artificial digital togetherness” so many got used to and later discarded as people decided they were cool with the pandemic. That quarantine feeling of, “This is weird, and it’s definitely not ‘normal,’ but I’m so glad to see other people’s faces I’ll take it!” Once Luna instructs them on how to reheat their various courses, the ball gets rolling and the discussion starts.

(A quick side note about the meal: the dishes—homemade soup and vegetarian lasagna, with fresh bread and guava rolls from a bakery—make my mouth water something fierce. Also, Luna and his team go all in on the boxes they prep for the guests. In addition to three courses, bread, and wine, the boxes also include salt and pepper shakers and a bottle of olive oil.)

The guests in this episode include an activist, an author, a social psychologist, an epidemiologist, and a chef. Together with Luna, they discuss all sorts of aspects of the pandemic, from the personal to the professional to the societal. Just a few topics that get pulled into the larger discussion of the pandemic are Mexico’s economic disparities, the fate of restaurants, increases in domestic violence, and access to abortion under travel restrictions.

The author initially thought he’d do well in lockdown, since he writes from home anyway, but now the rest of his family is home with him. “And that changes the environment,” he observes. “And I live my lockdown, and I live their lockdown, too.”

The chef wrestles with public safety and looking out for his employees, closing his restaurant due to government mandates but worried if there’ll be a restaurant to go back to at the end of lockdown. He also talks about the need to reinvent how they do things in light of the pandemic. He says, “If we did not make these changes from the bottom up at this time, we were going to be spending all the emotional and economic effort to keep things the same as before, instead of really rethinking it and making this fundamental reassessment.”

Interspersed amid the conversation are clips from political press conferences, infographics, and footage of the quiet world outside. Additionally, we see footage from an interview Luna had with the undersecretary of prevention and health promotion.

The whole thing offers a nice mix of facts, debate, and more personal observations. This isn’t the sort of show that features people from different “sides” talking about an issue. While the guests all come from different fields, their ideologies are more aligned, and so it’s more about a group of likeminded people bringing their own experience to a particular problem. It’s like these are the guests Luna chose for a dinner party—the point is to inform and collaborate, not prove anyone right or wrong.

I will say that the subtitles can be a little difficult sometimes. Because this is a show that uses onscreen text in different ways, from infographics to guests’ occupations/titles, there are times when the English translation for a graphic cuts off the translation for what one of the participants is saying, and vice versa. I have no doubt it works perfectly well in Spanish, but the show is so packed with information, both visually and auditorily, that the subtitles don’t always know which thread to follow.

Luna makes for a good host. In his opening narration, recalling the before-times with, “We were happy and didn’t know it,” he brings a soft compassion, and the building-the-episode scenes are relatable as he works to navigate COVID with everyone else. I enjoy watching him instruct the guests about the different parts of their meal (the author needs a little direction just to open the box!), and in his interview with the undersecretary, he’s friendly and personable without throwing softballs.

This was a really interesting question he had for the epidemiologist, in response to a discussion about globalization and how nations will sink or swim together:

“Invoking that speed or that connectivity or that globalization, doctor, right now some vaccines are being developed and we are seeing a certain international cooperation to get that vaccine. Is there a world where that cooperation could happen in prevention? Or will that coordination always come from disaster?”

On the whole, a nice first episode, and I think going back to address COVID, knowing the rest of the season was filmed prior to the pandemic hitting, was the right call. Here are my first impressions.

Recommend?

In General – If you’re interested in informative/talk show-type series, I think I would. I like how it’s set up as a dinner, and the conversation goes in some interesting directions.

Diego Luna – While I definitely prefer seeing Luna act, this is a neat project, and I like his ethos behind it. If you’re interested in Luna as a person beyond just his work as an actor, I’d say it’s worth a watch.

Warnings

Thematic elements, language, and drinking.