I have to say here that Superstar might not be everybody’s cup of tea, but I still think that you ought to give it a chance in order to witness the makers’ take on the real life story of Tamara. The series makes use of a lot of metaphysical elements to convey what it wants to say, and I won’t deny that at times it becomes a little too much to keep track of the events and understand what the makers were trying to communicate. So let’s try to understand the essence of every episode and what the makers wanted to say about the journey of the famous pop star, Tamara, who later changed her name and came to be known as Yurena.
Spoiler Alert
What Kind Of Relationship Did Tamara Share With Her Mother?
Tamara, who was born in Barakaldo as Maria del Mar Cuena Seisdedos, harbored dreams of making it big in show business since her childhood. She knew she had the flair and the potential, and she just needed the right opportunity to prove her worth. Tamara decided to go to Madrid, and her mother, who was extremely protective of her, decided to accompany her. The makers, through their abstract expressionism and metaphysical elements, depict the kind of perspective Tamara’s mother, Margarita, had towards her. To her, her 30-year-old daughter was still a small child who needed to be protected and cared for at all times. Margarita was very scared that people would take advantage of her daughter, make her do things that she didn’t want to do, and just torture her under the guise of giving her an opportunity. People felt very weird when they saw a grumpy-looking old woman sitting in the music studios and also in the nightclubs, where Tamara often went to network with the people of the industry. It was rumored that Margarita had hidden a brick in her handbag, and she used it to hit whoever tried to pester her daughter, be it her manager, Miguel, or the paparazzi who hounded Tamara day and night. But the fact remained that Tamara was grown up, and deep down, even Margarita knew that there would come a time when she wouldn’t be able to be with her.
I can see why people found it weird when they saw her with Tamara all the time, but if you think from the perspective of that old woman, she actually took a lot of pain and made a lot of sacrifices just so she could be there for her daughter. Due to constant rejections and not getting the right kind of opportunity, Tamara, one day, broke down, and in her anger, she asked her mother to leave her alone. Another interesting element incorporated by the makers was a guest house that I believe served as a supernatural place where a person got the chance to understand themselves better, and it just accentuated the feelings one had inside. The place was called Paradai Guest House, and when Margarita went there, the other ladies encouraged her to develop feelings of hatred for her daughter after what she had done. I believe it was a parallel realm where a person was given the opportunity to analyze the thoughts that they had been too scared to entertain. Margarita did stay at that guest house, but she didn’t let all those negative sentiments overpower the love she had for her daughter. Probably she was never able to see her daughter for who she had become, and for her, she was always that cute little girl who needed to be protected. But that didn’t undermine the love a mother had for her daughter and the kind of sacrifices she made for her happiness.
Why did Leonardo go back to his village?
Leonardo Dantes was probably the best human being Tamara encountered on her journey, but for a long period of time she was not able to understand the man. The song, No Cambie, was written and sung by Leonardo first, and it was through that song that Tamara achieved unparalleled success and stayed at the top of the charts for many weeks. But the man never got credit for his creation, certainly not in the way that he would have liked. Leonardo’s real self and his alter ego were in a constant battle with one another. His alter ego, subconscious mind, or whatever you might want to call it, convinced him to develop a style of his own and make people realize that he was just as entertaining a performer as Tamara, if not more so. But then one day, there came a time when Leonardo grew tired of pretending. No matter how hard he tried, he was just not happy with his life. His old friends Miguel, Tony Genil, and Paco Porras did try to get in touch with him, but he realized that he was not cut out for that toxic industry. He didn’t enjoy the work culture; he didn’t like the fact that people just did things for publicity, and there was no appreciation for a true artist. Leonardo decided to go back to his village, and that’s when something changed inside him. The way people greeted him there, he realized that he had been undermining his own achievements for such a long time. He realized that constant comparison had robbed him of his happiness, and in the process, he hadn’t realized that he had traveled the world and made a name for himself, even if he couldn’t be as popular as Tamara and the others. Being around his own people made him feel happy, and he decided to continue doing what he loved, i.e., writing songs and performing them.
Why did Loly hate Tamara?
Loly Alvarez, just like Tamara, wanted to make it big in the music industry. But she realized that nobody valued talent, nobody valued what she brought to the plate, and she would have to resort to other means and methods to achieve her dreams. There came a time in Superstar when Tamara decided to fire Miguel de Deigo, who happened to be her manager. Miguel always boasted about how Tamara became a household name after she met him and how he had a knack for spotting talent. Miguel didn’t realize in the process that he was delusional to believe that Tamara was nothing without him. He was obsessed with the woman, though I believe he was too proud to accept that fact. When Loly got to hear about them parting ways, she decided to go to Miguel and ask him to take her on board and help her become the star she’d always desired to be. The biggest mistake that Loly committed was that she compromised on her self-respect, and she let other people belittle her time and again. She knew that Miguel would never look at her the way he looked at Tamara. I could never really understand why Loly became so obsessed with the man. Apart from the fact that she wanted him to be her representative in the industry, she craved his love. She was ready to be ridiculed if that gave her a chance to be around him.
Miguel, most of the time, was not in his senses, and he mistook Loly for Tamara, which was the sole reason why he was with her. That was the level of obsession he had for Tamara, and I don’t think that it changed till the very end. Loly and Miguel stopped speaking with each other before the latter showed up at her workplace out of nowhere. Once again, Loly gave in to her impulses, something she shouldn’t have done. Loly was even ready to pretend to be Tamara if that gave her an opportunity to be around Miguel. It was torturous for her, and it wrecked her from within, but still she endured. Obviously there came a time when she broke down, and she realized that she could no longer be in that situation. She lost her temper when she was in a car with Miguel, and as a result, the latter ended up losing control of the vehicle, and they both met with an accident. I don’t think Loly ever saw Miguel after that, and the kind of bitterness she felt towards him stayed with her always.
Why did Miguel, Paco, and Tony Genil want to take revenge on Tamara?
Episode 4 of the Netflix series Superstar was probably the most absurd of the lot. We were made privy to the fantasy land of Paco Porras, where he claimed that he had been abducted by a secret society and given the task of eliminating Tamara. The secret society could see the future, and they believed that in the year 2018 there would be a protest where people would come on the streets and demand equal rights for women. The secret society, Kilometer 0, believed that patriarchy was essential for the common good, and the moment a female was allowed to dictate terms, then it would be the end of the world. Also, they saw that Tamara would trigger that change, and if they wanted to stop the so-called apocalypse from happening, they needed to pin down Tamara before it was too late. Paco Porras had been known as a parapsychologist who could predict the future of a person by looking at different fruits and vegetables. He liked to call his skill fruitology, and he won a lot of fame because of it. Paco tried his level best to eliminate the femi-Christ, but he wasn’t able to do so. He wanted to get married to her and make sure that she didn’t have a thriving career. The entire episode was emblematic of the deep-rooted patriarchy in Spanish society and how it affected the lives of the women who wanted to create a name for themselves and not just serve their male counterparts their entire lives.
Similarly, in Episode 5, we were introduced to the kind of hatred Tony Genil, the singer, also had for Tamara. The fact that a woman had become more popular than him was something he couldn’t make peace with. He had ceased to be relevant, while Tamara was still enjoying a lot of fame, and she was remembered as somebody who left an indelible mark through her music and her distinct style and personality. In Superstar episode 5, Tony Genil coincidentally bumped into Paco, Miguel, and Leonardo Dantes, and he felt that it was some kind of godsend. He was adamant in his belief that fate wanted them to take revenge on Tamara and make her bear the consequences of trying to make a name for herself. Each one of them had taken advantage of that woman (except Dantes), and very conveniently, they had made themselves believe that they were in that situation because of her. Once Leonardo realized what his old friends wanted to do, he backed out of the plan. He had a lot of issues with Tamara, but still he didn’t hate her, and moreover, he didn’t want to be a part of a petty plan to insult her publicly. Tamara had just been eliminated from a reality game show, and Tony had decided to insult her the moment she landed in Madrid. In a bizarre set of events, we got to know that there was a man who was staying at Tony’s house and he claimed that he was the real Michael Jackson. It was that impersonator, or maybe a figment of Tony’s imagination, who made Tony realize that they needed to apologize to Tamara for signing her for all those years for their own benefit and then having the audacity to blame her for their misery. Tony realized his mistake, and he understood that destiny had gotten all of them together once again so that they could mend their ways and make up for the wrongs they had committed.
How Did Tamara Make Peace With Her Circumstances?
There was another supernatural occurrence at the end of the series when we saw that Maria del Mar Cuena Seisdedos found a portal through which she could access another dimension, where she realized that she had become a star and her childhood dream of becoming a singer had come true. This sequence was incorporated to make her understand how she had started taking everything for granted and stopped appreciating what she had been able to achieve in her life. So Maria traveled to the dimension where she was a star, and she intentionally swapped places with her other self. She trapped Tamara in her reality, and she started living the life of a celebrity. Maria realized that her other self had taken a break from her music career, and she couldn’t understand why she would do that. So she started making music once again, and the people around her were rather excited with her newfound enthusiasm and passion. But then, the next day, Maria felt a little guilty for trapping Tamara in her reality. So she went back to her dimension and realized that Tamara was working at a shopping center. It came to be known that Tamara was rather happy living the life of a common woman. She loved the fact that things hadn’t changed in that dimension, and she could do whatever she wanted to. But Maria made her realize that she needed to accept the mistakes she had made, forgive those who had gone against her or tried to hurt her in any manner, not think too much about the disappointments she had faced on her journey, and just keep moving forward. She told her that, if not for herself, she needed to go back and perform because their mother had sacrificed so much to make her achieve her dreams. Moreover, all the love she had gotten was unimaginable, and she needed to show some gratitude towards it. Tamara realized that everybody has their own issues, and you cannot let them overpower you. She realized that she needed to break free from her shackles and accept herself for who she was. So with a renewed passion, Tamara decided to go on a quest to reinvent herself and make a comeback with a bang. She might have loved the normal life she had been leading, but she remembered that once there was a girl who dreamt of everything she had currently. She realized that she couldn’t let it all go so easily. She was a fighter, and so once again she stepped on the stage, this time with mother’s spirit by her side, and together they set the stage on fire.
