X-ray of 'El hormiguero': successful white entertainment... and controversies over machismo

It has been on the air for 16 years, more than 2,500 programs.

It has had versions in Portugal, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, China and even tried to adapt it in the United States.

He has won the Ondas Award, the National Television Award, the Rose d'Or, has accumulated several Iris Awards from the Television Academy and has been nominated for an International Emmy on two occasions.

In June it completed its eighth season as the leading slot in its slot, with a 15.6% audience share and an average of 2.4 million viewers, figures that very few titles can dream of today.

It is the place where campaigning politicians want to go, where production companies try to get their actors to promote and one of the priority objectives for international artists passing through Spain.

But it is also a continuous focus of controversy due to the attitudes and comments of its presenter,

Pablo Motos, described as macho and disrespectful to their guests.

The last one has been as a result of a campaign by the Ministry of Equality that has offended Motos for considering itself alluded to, which has sparked a great deal of controversy, especially on social networks.

More information

Twitter against Pablo Motos: go for wool and get sheared

The success of

is unquestionable.

It is a format made to measure for his presenter, and in which he has a great role.

His formula may seem simple, but it is not.

Created by Pablo Motos, Jorge Salvador and Juan Herrera, directed by the first two and presented by Motos, it was born in 2006 in a very young Cuatro (the channel had only been in existence for a year) as a weekly program.

That first season did not attract much public attention, but its conversion into a daily format, with a model more similar to the current one, and after various adjustments to its content, has managed to capture a massive audience.

Already then,

It was run by the production company 7 y accion, a company created in 2007 by Motos and Salvador.

In 2011, the program left Mediaset to move to Antena 3.

The king of

(the strip prior to the broadcast of the main content of the night) has been able to defeat all the adversaries that have come up against each other in the rival channels.

The public remains faithful to

, so much so that last season was his second best in audience data.

The space engages viewers with a proposal for white entertainment, aimed at the whole family, with a lot of humour.

The rhythm cannot drop at any time and the sections follow one another: interview with a guest, appearance of the Trancas and Barrancas ants, scientific experiments, magic, TikTok dances, fashion trends, practical tricks for the home, almost impossible challenges, prizes for the public, comic and current affairs gatherings… All in favor of entertainment.

Not even the covid epidemic could stop it: in just one week, the team was able to reorganize to continue broadcasting, with interviews by video call and face-to-face gatherings with collaborators that are still going on today.

The team works piecemeal.

Motos has ever explained that his life is dedicated almost exclusively to the program.

In exchange, he and his partner are getting a great return through his production company (which is in charge of other programs such as

also on Antena 3).

In 2021, eight million euros were distributed in dividends from his company, as published by

from the accounts presented in the Mercantile Registry.

Little more is known about Motos than what he himself tells in his space: he barely gives interviews (the last one with EL PAÍS dates from 2013), but he did recently participate in the Joaquín Sánchez program,

.

Controversies that are resurrected

Every night, from Monday to Thursday, Motos introduces his guest with the same formula: “Today he has come to have fun at

…”.

But it has not always been so.

From time to time, guests or spectators point out uncomfortable moments that have as protagonists, especially women.

Last Thursday, Motos decided to dedicate almost 10 minutes of the program to respond to what he considered a direct reference to him in a campaign by the Ministry of Equality.

In the ad, a presenter asked a guest the same question he asked Elsa Pataky in 2016 while the model and actress was promoting a lingerie brand.

Motos' defense, putting the interview in context and recalling similar questions to male guests, awakened the memory of the tweeters.

A video circulating on Twitter (and which repeatedly disappeared after being denounced for violating copyright) compiled many of the most questioned moments.

This is the video that Pablo Motos does not want you to see and that Twitter is censoring.

So you know, don't even think about spreading it.. pic.twitter.com/UoPYcEluHA

— ★Antidoto★ ⚒️ (@Yo_Soy_Asin) November 25, 2022

One of the visits that has been most remembered these days was that of Charlize Theron and Kristen Stewart in May 2012. Or rather, the explanation that Theron gave a few days later, in the United States, on Jimmy's program has been recalled Kimmel about his experience on

.

The South African actress was surprised by the fact that the program was addressed to all audiences, from children to adults, and that it therefore mixed innocent and white content with others of a certain erotic tinge.

“For some reason, everything we responded to was played like

So I thought, ah, this is the public, "said the actress on American television.

Charlize Theron tells what she lived in the anthill, but Pablo Motos will tell you that he does not have sexist and macho attitudes, and instead of asking for forgiveness and accepting his mistakes, he will disguise himself as a victim to tell you that he is suffering from a campaign orchestrated by the Ministry of Equality pic.twitter.com/QudKBLqozC

— Maica Travesa 🐈🐱🐾 (@Iratxotravesa) November 26, 2022

A few years later, the protagonists of the series

also starred in an interview questioned by some viewers.

Motos asked Blanca Suárez, Maggie Civantos, Nadia de Santiago and Ana Fernández if they knew how to dance reggaeton, because "the girls are divided between those who know how to dance and those who don't know how to dance".

Civantos replied that it was not a gender issue.

A few months earlier, Motos had asked the news presenter Mónica Carrillo: "Do you think men read you because of what you write or because they are attracted to you?"

She also assured that it was her erotic myth: "Sometimes I watch the news and the volume is turned down."

The

(as the attempt to censor information that ends up spreading more is known) has caused even some interviewees, such as Virginia Maestro, to have made public their displeasure with her time at

years ago.

"Well yes, he was macho, violent, uncomfortable, seedy, shameful and very unfortunate.

How easy to do that from power.

Less erasing and more apologies.

We all make mistakes and to admit it would be wiser," the singer said in a tweet on Saturday.

It refers to an interview in which the presenter made comments about her dress and her neckline.

Come on Pablo Motos, ask them to delete this video too.

What you are not going to be able to delete is the tweet from @virginiamaestro.

https://t.co/WKpjoVX03P pic.twitter.com/y5mHBlkVpR

– Rubén Sánchez (@RubenSanchezTW) November 26, 2022

"Is it true that they caught you in

because you're scared?"

This joke started the interview that Pablo Motos did with Ana de Armas in 2008. She could only respond with a “well…”.

"Am I noticing that I'm trying to win her over?" She kept joking while the actress showed the discomfort in her gestures.

That of Ana de Armas from 2008.

This is the first minute and it is a NON-STOP.

pic.twitter.com/z4MYCtDnH0

— Jash Moody (@Jashmoody) November 28, 2022

In 2017, Motos kissed the singer Anastacia on the neck and danced with her while resting her face on the artist's.

On another occasion he stole a kiss from Chenoa and touched Mónica Naranjo's ass.

Very criticized was her question to the young actress Luna Fulgencio, then only nine years old, about whether she had a boyfriend.

“I am nine years old, I am not 26 ″, she answered the little one.

In 2014, the show proposed a game to Kylie Minogue: catching ping-pong balls with her mouth between herself and the host.

He did the same game with supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio.

Will Smith's fondness for

and the good harmony that the actor has with Pablo Motos is well known, so much so that he bought the rights to the program to try to adapt it on American television, a project that did not finish moving forward.

But not all Hollywood visits have gone equally well, and it's not just women who have felt uncomfortable, or misunderstood the show's humor, in its 16-year life.

In 2010, Jesse Eisenberg, star of the movie

recounted on the Conan O'Brien show, shortly after his visit to

“The program is designed to humiliate the American guest.

In a way they laugh at you.

When you hear the translation, you no longer have time to respond because they have already moved on to something else in Spanish”.

It seems that not everyone gets to have fun in

.

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