Art and Culture: Money Heist

Executive director:Alex Pina

Release date: May 2, 2017 (Madrid, Spain)

https://www.netflix.com/title/80192098

Summary: The new hit tv show on Netflix “ Money heist is a crime drama, originally called La Casa de Papel. The first season revolves around a long-prepared, multi-day assault on the Royal Mint of Spain in Madrid, in which a group of robbers take hostages as part of their plan to print and escape with €2.4 billion. It involves eight robbers, code-named after cities and led by the Professor from an external location. The story is primarily focused on Tokio, she narrates , as they battle with hostages on the inside and the police on the outside. The professor sets up a plan that seems to be perfect, but with every minute one of the robbers does something crazy and totally messes with the plan. Also the professor gets romantically involved with the hostage negotiator named Rakiel. Eventually at the end of the season the hostage negotiator switches sides and starts helping the bank robbers. In the second season, the surviving bank robbers from the first season are called out of isolation because one of the robbers named Rio is captured by cops. The team must now band together with new members who are just as quirky as the original members to rob the bank of Spain.

Response: I really enjoyed this series, but I feel like it depicts bank robbery as a good thing if you have a justifiable reason. The first reason they were all in the bank robbery is because they want to escape their horrible life and they think the money will help. Another good reason they robbed the bank, “ It technically wasn’t stealing” due to the fact they were taking anybody money they were printing their own. The third being the government was hiding secrets and they deserved some of that money. I don’t think any of those reasons make it ok to hold people at gunpoint and make them go through hard labor. The robbers were inconsiderate of the everyday person who was just coming to the bank to handle some business. The show makes felony such as hazing and disturbing the public seem like a good thing. Another way the show makes bank robbery look like a good thing is how it dives deep into the robbers personal life and makes the audience feel bad for them and their situations. I don’t believe that just because you have rough life gives you the reason to go torment other people or steal just to make yourself happier. The storyline was good and the scenes were very powerful but i don’t think the crimes should be promoted as a good thing.

-CN