Rodrigo López Martínez
This article examines the fictional renderings of Pedro Almódovar and la movida in the Spanish TV series El Ministerio del Tiempo (2015–2020). First, I analyze how El Ministerio champions the democratic transition as a period that set the foundations for a modern pluralistic Spain. Then, I examine how the series incorporates Almodóvar's Laberinto de pasiones (1982) into its story as a means of stressing the vital contribution of the underground scene to the renewal of post-Franco culture. I focus on El Ministerio's portrayal of drag performances and the HIV/AIDS epidemic, highlighting the restaging of one of Almodóvar's earliest and most daring films, and thus showing how the series adjusts an emblematic example of counterculture to hegemonic accounts of the transition. Ultimately, I argue that El Ministerio assimilates sexual diversity and counterculture into a teleological rereading of Spanish history that celebrates the transition as the ultimate stage of individual freedom and national reconciliation.