Talk:Manuel (Fawlty Towers)

Catalan
There is no such thing as "Catalan Spanish". Catalan is an independent language.

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''In the Catalan TV3 channel, Manuel's origin was changed from Barcelona to Mexico. Most Catalans are offended with Manuel as being Catalan, and don't like the eclectic Swedish I'm from Barcelona band because it remains them of Manuel's true Catalan origin.''

This is nonsense. Manuel was indeed a Mexican with a strong Mexican accent in the Catalan dubbed version, so most Catalans don't know he was from Barcelona in the original one. So they can hardly feel offended. When they get to know it, they are simply surprised. And the comment about the band... well, I wonder how many Catalans will have ever heard anything about that band. I wonder too where that comment of Catalans being offended is taken from. Some Catalans might not like a 'very Spanish' character as a representation of a Catalan (which could rather be a Catalan speaker and be called Manel, the Catalan version of Manuel). But British knowledge about Spanish diversity was rather weak at that time. (Nowadays it's not much better, but there's much more access to info, at least) --Purplefire 16:11, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

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I'm Catalan myself and I've saw Fawlty Towers many times in DVD (in English with subtitles, Catalan and Spanish (Castilian)). I agree with Purlplefire about the weak British knowledge about Spanish diversity. Catalonia has is own history, language and culture and Manuel (who is brown-skinned, short and says 'olé' and dance 'Fandango' music) seems to be an Andalusian immigrant stereotype rather than a Spanish stereotype. There are a lot of Andalousian immigrants in Barcelona and the mistake of identifying an Andalousian as a Spanish stereotype for a foreign is possible, but not for a Spanish or Catalan. On the other hand, Manuel says he's Spanish, not Catalan (I guess British don't know the existence of the Catalonia region). About the ‘paella’, it’s funny because in Spain it’s known to be a Valencian common dish, not an important typical Spanish dish (www.adhochoteles.com/hoteles/hotel_monumental/valencia/guia_valencia_en.html). So, as has been said, in the Spanish dubbed version Manuel is an Italian (who can't speak Spanish properly) called Paolo and in the Catalan dubbed version is a Mexican (who can't speak Catalan properly) called Manuel. The Swedish band is unknown in Spain or Catalonia.(Toni from Sabadell (Barcelona province)) (please correct my English) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.32.59.40 (talk) 22:28, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it's important to note that the Swedish band is unknown *everywhere*, except possibly Sweden and Wikipedia. 95.149.126.95 (talk) 15:18, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 15:43, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Curiously, there were some "in-jokes" which most viewers would not have got where Fawlty's Spanish was not very good when he attempted to communicate with Manuel in Spanish, getting confused between Spanish and French e.g. he tried to tell Manuel to do something with the butter, which he referred to as "burro", and Manuel tried to point out to him in broken English that this means "donkey" in Spanish, the Spanish for "butter" is "mantequilla", also when Fawlty told Manuel to clean the windows, he called them "fenestros" (incorrect). PatGallacher (talk) 03:33, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

That's right. If Manuel was Catalan his name must be Manel and he usually speaks Catalan, so: butter (Spanish: mantequilla; Catalan: mantega), burro (English: donkey, Catalan: ase) and windows: ventanas (Spanish) and finestres (Catalan). Finestra (singular) and finestre (plural) is Italian.

Hi everybody.Being catalan and alive in the 70's myself,I'm sad to see people writing inaccurate things about how catalan people should be depicted,just because they see things only under their own present point of view.Back in the seventies,when Manuel's character was created,we catalans usually spoke spanish instead of catalan when we were outside Cataluña.(By the way,because of the effect of Franco's dictatorship,even inside Cataluña we spoke spanish more often than catalan).A lot of us cooked and ate paella, and danced,sang and appreciated flamenco.(Some of us still do).So if Manuel never used even a single catalan word,but knew how to cook paella and liked flamenco, it doesn't mean he wasn't depicted properly as being catalan.On the contrary,it means Cleese created a very accurate portrait. On the other hand,using "burro" instead of "mantequilla" and "finestros" instead of "ventanas" could also mean Basil had learnt some words of italian that he thought it was spanish,because "burro" is the exact italian word for "mantequilla" (butter) and "finestros" quite similar to "finestre",exact italian for "windows". --Aristarco de Samotracia (talk) 09:21, 5 July 2010 (UTC)
 * The simple fact is that even educated British people would have been unaware of Catalonia in 1975. Modern Catalan nationalism had yet to emerge and if the word was known at all it was from George Orwell's book Homage to Catalonia. Barcelona was just known as a big Spanish city. Manuel is a stereotypical Spanish waiter based on British experiences in British and Spanish hotels. The British are much more aware of Spanish regional identities today, and if the scripts were being written now Manuel would come from a southern Spanish city such as Seville or Cordoba. --87.113.69.141 (talk) 15:03, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Manuel is based on Luc Meynet - French manservant of British Alpinist Sir Edward Whymper
The way the 'little comic Frenchman' and manservant, Luc Meynet, is treated in the 1938 mountain-film: The Challenge, is clearly the inspiration for the latter treatment of the Manuel character in Fawlty Towers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Challenge_(1938_film)

A drawing of Luc Meynet at the time he was alive... http://gian.mario.navillod.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/3401luc-meynet.jpg

Utterly confusing
The article states: 'Since the Catalan version was broadcast in 1986, eleven years after Francisco Franco's death, the dubbing of Manuel says "Dead!" In "Basil the Rat", Basil says to Manuel, "You have rats in Spain, don't you — or did Franco have them all shot?"' - If it's the Catalan version, why is he saying "Dead!" (rather than the Catalan word for "Dead!"? And if he's saying the Catalan word for "Dead", how is this any different from what he says in the English version?  Furthermore, the quote about Franco having them all shot is the same as the English version - so again, what's the connection to the Catalan version?  Finally, the previous paragraph stated that in the Catalan version Manuel was Mexican, so how does it make sense that there were these references to Spain and Franco?  Is this paragraph trying to make the point that these references were kept in, even though they made no sense in relation to Mexico, or were their multiple Catalan versions, only one of which relocated the character's origin to Mexico?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.144.157.195 (talk) 19:32, 19 October 2020 (UTC)