Buero Vallejo and the Ideology of Francoism

Spanish drama was seriously affected by the ideological cultural state apparatus of censorship. While censorship under Franco was not wholly effective, it did cause great difficulties, particularly for the committed dramatist who wished to give testament to a reality other than that prop agated by the officials of the regime. The use of censorship as a protector of ideology is evident from the questions posed on an early censor's report on publications:

• 1. ¿Ataca al dogma?

• 2. ¿A la moral?

• 3. ¿A la Iglesia o a sus ministros?

• 4. ¿Al Régimen y a sus instituciones?

• 5. ¿A las personas que colaboran o han colaborado con el Régimen?

• 6. Los pasajes censurables, ¿califican el contenido total de la obra?

• 7. Informe y otras observaciones.

The concern is clearly the preservation of the dominant ideology of the regime through the protection of the state apparatuses. The early report on theatre shows similar concerns, which were later incorporated in the 1964 legislation. The problem was the interpretation of such vague questions, and the censorship of a work of literature tended to depend upon who the censor was. This difficulty was addressed by Buero Vallejo in Las Meninas, a play highly critical of censorship and its arbitrary application. Interestingly, the censor Padre A. Avelino Esteban y Romero, who read the play, drew a parallel between his own actions and those of Velázquez's detractors in Las Meninas.

So, just as Velázquez suggests in the play that lasciviousness is in the eye of the beholder of a beautiful nude, Buero also suggested that any negative commentary the censor detected in the play was read into it by the censor and not necessarily meant by the author.