117

La enseñanza de la losofía a través de las series de

televisión: estudio de caso de Merlí

Teaching of Philosophy through

television series: a case study of Merlí

ARTICLE

Universidad Internacional de La Rioja

PhD in Communication with International mention (University of Huelva). Master in Informa-

tion and Communication Technologies for education and digital learning (Universidad Nebrija).

Master in Communication and Education on the Net (UNED). Graduate in Teaching in Primary

Education with mention in foreign languages, English (UCJC). Diploma in Early Childhood Edu-

cation (UCLM). Member of the Euroamerican Interuniversity Research Network Alfamed. Her

lines of research focus on transmedia narrative and educational television, as well as the use of

narrative in social networks, all focused on the adolescent and youth population.

aurora.forteza@unir.net

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9680-5927

RECEIVED: 2023-08-24 / ACCEPTED: 2024-01-24

Aurora Forteza Martínez

OBRA DIGITAL, 25, June 2024, pp. 117-132, e-ISSN 2014-5039

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25029/od.2024.396.25

Abstract:

Series are one of the formats most consumed

by young people. Thanks to them, teachings

are transmitted through the content shown.

The aim of this study is to nd out the rela-

tionship between philosophy and the daily life

of teenagers in the series Merlí. A qualitative

methodology has been chosen through an

analysis of content and characters. The results

show how philosophy is brought closer to teen-

agers through the issues that interest them.

It is concluded that educational series have a

great didactic value for the audience.

Keywords: Series, television, education, phi-

losophy, teenagers

Resumen:

Las series son uno de los formatos más con-

sumidos por los jóvenes. Gracias a ellas se

transmiten enseñanzas con los contenidos

que se muestran. El objetivo de este estudio es

conocer la relación entre la losofía y la vida di-

aria de los adolescentes en la serie Merlí. Se ha

elegido una metodología cualitativa a través de

un análisis de contenidos y de los personajes.

Los resultados muestran cómo se acerca la lo-

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Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

sofía a los adolescentes a través de los asuntos

que a estos les interesa. Se concluye que las

series educativas tienen un gran valor didáctico

para la audiencia.

1. INTRODUCTION

Recently, audience habits have altered due to,

among other things, the arrival of the Internet

(Forteza-Martínez et al., 2021). Television series

have become one of the most preferred for-

mats among viewers’ preferences. They have

gained importance in recent years in enter-

tainment (Moreno-Mínguez & Rodríguez-Julián,

2016). Moreover, according to Galán-Fajardo

(2007), “ction series, in addition to serving as

entertainment, present models of identica-

tion that are imitated and tend to foster and

further entrench stereotypical representations”

(p.236).

With serialized ction, society is shown as it is

through the stories told in them. According to

Vasallo-de-López (2008), television series be-

come an element that “preserves, constructs

and reconstructs a common census of every-

day life” (p.38). In short, television series inu-

ence the development of the audience’s per-

sonality through their behavior or approval of

the contents shown (Chicharro-Merayo, 2011).

It has been found that, in recent times, there

has been an increase in the number of studies

linked to television series, either from an analy-

sis based on entertainment (Álvarez-Rodríguez,

2021), related to culture and media (López-Ro-

dríguez & Raya-Bravo, 2019), as well as discur-

sive and audiovisual elements (Masanet & Fed-

ele, 2019; Barra & Scaglionni, 2020; Castro &

Cascajosa, 2020; De-Caso-Bausela et al., 2020;

Wilke-François & Seide-Froemming, 2021).

Among the genres of television series, the most

popular with the youth population are those

known as teen TV series, which have some pe-

culiar characteristics that facilitate their clas-

sication (Fedele & García-Muñoz, 2010). Ac-

cording to dierent researchers, these types

of series are characterized by the fact that the

actors are usually teenagers, and the audience

that watches them is generally young (Davis &

Dickinson, 2004; Ross & Stein, 2008).

According to several studies, the stories told in

these series revolve around two environments:

the family and the educational environment.

The latter has the most signicant presence

in the scenes (García-Muñoz & Fedele, 2011;

Lacalle, 2013). In this sense, great importance

is given to plots centered on social elements,

such as relationships with their peers (Lacalle,

2013), as well as those stories that focus on

the conicts of young people, rebellion against

adults, or the control of their feelings, among

others (Falcón & Díaz-Aguado, 2014).

Among other themes in these series, those

linked to self-concept, character, and personal-

ity development stand out (Falcón & Díaz-Agua-

do, 2014). Likewise, the representation of roles

and stereotypes associated with gender (Si-

gnorielli, 2007; García-Muñoz & Fedele, 2011;

Masanet & Aran-Ramspott, 2016), as well as the

elimination of barriers imposed by being male

or female (Raya-Bravo et al., 2019; Masanet &

Fedele, 2019; Mateos-Pérez, 2021). It is import-

ant to highlight those that analyze the creation

of identities (Padilla-Castillo & Sosa-Sánchez,

Palabras clave: series, televisión educación,

losofía, adolescentes

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Aurora Forteza Martínez

2018) or didactic topics (Forteza-Martínez &

Conde, 2021; Forteza-Martínez, 2023).

Generally speaking, the actors who play these

series’ protagonists usually have specic pecu-

liarities. As Lacalle (2013) expresses, the pecu-

liarities are about being “young, attractive and

fashionably dressed, belonging to a uniform

middle and upper-middle class” (p.30). More-

over, teen TV series usually feature stories

where rst-couple relationships are shown;

these are seen as true platonic love, where the

protagonists experience them as if they were

love for life (Masanet & Aran-Ramspott, 2016).

Among the series for adolescents, Merlí stands

out, which has achieved excellent audience

success. As a consequence, numerous types

of research have been conducted around it,

where elements such as its discursive elements

(Martínez-Pérez, 2020), aspects linked to sex ed-

ucation (Alcalá-Angiano et al., 2018) or freedom

of thought and expression (Pascoal & Novaes,

2019) have been studied. In addition, the series

has been analyzed from an educational point

of view (Leduc & Acosta, 2017; Cambra-Badii &

Mastandrea, 2020), as well as the importance

given by young people to philosophy as a re-

sult of watching the series (Martínez-Cantos &

Rodó-de-Zárate, 2020).

This research focuses on the characters and

philosophical themes reected in Merlí, as it

shows the daily life of adolescents in an educa-

tional center, where the conicts that may arise

at this stage of life and their possible solutions

through reection and philosophical thought

are reected. This series belongs to the drama

genre and consists of three seasons and 40

episodes, averaging 50 minutes per episode.

It was created by Héctor Lozano, directed by

Eduard Cortés, produced by Veranda TV, and

broadcast on TV3 between 2015 and 2018. It

can be seen on the RTVE Play website and the

Prime Video platform.

To this end, the following research question is

posed as a starting point: How does philosophy

relate to the everyday problems of young peo-

ple?

2. METHODOLOGY

The general objective of this research is to

know the relationship between philosophy and

the daily life of adolescents in the series Merlí. In

addition, the specic objectives are: 1) to study

the characters that appear in the series and 2)

to identify the teachings of Merlí and their link

with the conicts of young people.

The entire series has been visualized to form

the corpus of this study, allowing for a com-

plete manual analysis of its themes and char-

acters. In addition, an extensive and updated

bibliographic review was carried out to lay the

theoretical foundations for the study. For the

control and format analysis classication, the

researcher’s criterion was considered based

on analysis matrices already elaborated in pre-

vious studies.

A qualitative methodology with quantitative

support was chosen to respond to the objec-

tives proposed in this research. A content anal-

ysis has been developed since this study meets

the criteria established by Igartúa-Perosanz

(2006) to “scientically approach the analysis

of messages (whatever their nature), to under-

stand their genesis and formation process, and

to obtain precise descriptions of their structure

and components” (p.180).

On the other hand, the characters will be ana-

lyzed by counting all the characters appearing

in the series. The following elements are stud-

ied (Table 1).

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Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

Type of character Teachers/Students/Family/

Others

Gender Male/Female/Other

Nationality Spanish/Other

Age Adolescent/Adult/Late Adult-

hood

Sexual orientation Heterosexual/Homosexual/

Bisexual/Not Specied

Academic back-

ground

No studies/High school Ed./

University/University/ Not

specied

Table 1

Categorization of character analysis

Figure 1

Total number of characters in Merlí by season

Source. Own elaboration

Teachers Students Family Others

According to Koeman et al. (2007), when study-

ing a character, they must appear in the scene

and have a dialogue with other characters.

The analysis of the characters is seen as an

essential element in constructing the stories

shown in the series. The characters come to

create aective bonds with the viewers. This

is expressed by Galán-Fajardo (2006) when he

says that:

Characterizing characters in television

series requires a deep and detailed

elaboration, focusing on their past and

motivations to explain the actions that

will take place during the narrative evo-

lution of the story. (p.65)

In addition, a narrative analysis (Fisher, 1985)

was conducted to study the discursive ele-

ments of the series through characters, plot,

narrative structure, and themes. Every chapter

was visualized and reviewed independently,

and the data were analyzed in a way that could

provide answers to the stated objectives in

Marradi et al. (2018).

3. RESULTS

The results are structured around two main

blocks: 1) characters and 2) themes.

3.1. CHARACTERS

In the series Merlí, the characters are stable

throughout the three seasons, as they are

maintained throughout the series, although

there are some additions and departures. It

should be noted that a character fullls a dual

function; that is, he or she is a teacher and a

family member. Thus, in the rst season, there

are 32 characters; in the second, 37; and in

the third and nal season, there are a total 41

(Graph 1).

When analyzing the main characters, who have

a greater presence within a series, there are 10

(31.25%) in the rst season and 11 in both the

second (30.55%) and third seasons (26.82%).

Regarding the socio-demographic prole of the

rst season, 17 are men (54.83%), and 14 are

women (45.17%). Concerning age, 10 are ado-

lescents (32.25%), with ages between 17 and 19

years; 19 are in the age range of 30 to 55 years,

which is considered adulthood (61.29%); and

2 are over 60 years old, which places them in

late adulthood (6.46%). It is also observed that

all the characters are of Spanish origin since no

individuals of other nationalities exist.

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Aurora Forteza Martínez

Heterosexual

Without studies

Homosexual

Secondary

education

Bisexual

University

students

Not specied

In the second season, 20 are men (52.63%) and

18 are women (47.37%). In terms of age, 11 are

adolescents (28.94%), 25 are in the adult age

group (65.78%), 1 is a child under ve years

of age (2.64%), and one is in late adulthood

(2.64%). Regarding the nationality of the char-

acters, 37 are Spanish (97.36%), and 1 is a girl

of Ukrainian origin (2.64%).

In the third and nal season, there are 20 males

(48.78%) and 21 females (51.22%). When pay-

ing attention to age, 11 are teenagers (26.82%),

28 are in the adult age range (68.29%), 1 is a

child under ve years old (2.44%), and 1 is over

65 years old (2.44%). Regarding the nationality

of the characters, 40 are Spanish (97.56%), and

1 is a Ukrainian girl (2.44%).

When examining sexual orientation, it can be

seen how, in all three seasons, heterosexual

characters predominate. The rst season is

where this group is shown the most (83.87% in

the rst season, 81.87% in the second season

and 67.44% in the third season). About homo-

sexuality, it is observed how it is also represent-

ed in the series. This group is more represent-

ed in the last season (6.45% in the rst, 5.26%

in the second, and 7.14% in the third season).

Finally, bisexuality is also a group that is also re-

ected. This orientation is reected through the

same character in the three seasons (3.22% in

the rst, 2.63% in the second, and 2.38% in the

third season) (Graph 2).

In terms of academic background, characters

with university studies are the majority group

in all three seasons. They are more represent-

ed in the second season (41.93% in the rst,

47.36% in the second, and 33.33% in the third

season). Those in Secondary Education or who

have already completed these studies are the

second most numerous. For them, the rst sea-

son is the most representative (41.93% in the

rst season, 31.57% in the second season, and

28.57% in the third season). The group with no

studies is the third group, with the highest rep-

resentation in the third season (9.67% in the

rst, 15.78% in the second, and 21.42% in the

third season) (Graph 3).

Source. Own elaboration

Figure 2

Sexual orientation of the characters in Merlí

Figure 3

Academic background of the characters in Merlí

Source. Own elaboration.

3.3. THEMATICS

The series deals with dierent themes through

philosophers, each associated with various as-

pects and problems concerning adolescents

(Table 2).

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Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

Table 2

Philosophers associated with themes by chapters

Sea-

son

Chap-

ter

Title

Subjects

worked on

1 1 Peripatetics

Ability to

reect

1 2

Plato

Platonic love;

reality

1 3

Machiavelli

Success in life;

State Power

1 4 Aristotle Happiness

1 5

Socrates

Questioning

things; distrust

1 6

Sohapen-

hauer

Desire; suering

1 7

Focault Normality

1 8

Guy Debord

Exposure on the

networks; enter-

tainment

1 9

Epicurus

Money; hedo-

nism

1 10

The skeptics Epogeo

1 11

The sophists

Education and

work

1 12

Hume Perceptions

1 13

Nietzsche

Death; following

rules

2 1

The Presoc-

ratics

The principle of

everything; ques-

tioning things

2 2

Thomas

Hobbes

Demagogy;

chaos

2 3

The Stoics Lack of passion

2 4

Kant Lies

2 5

Hipparchy

Superuous;

austerity

2 6

Montaigne Truth

2 7

Judith Butler Sexual freedom

2 8

Freud The unconscious

2 9

Descartes Existence; doubt

2 10

Engels

Money; love;

family

2 11

Zizek Love

2 12

Taoism Life

2 13

Boecio Freedom

3 1

Walter Ben-

jamin

History; interpre-

tation of facts

3 2

Adam Smith Success

3 3

Albert Camus

Suicide; the

meaning of life

3 4

Karl Marx

Capitalist society;

consumption;

money

3 5

Hannah Ar-

endt

Forgiveness

3 6

Kierkegaard Making decisions

3 7

Thoreau

Civil disobedi-

ence

3 8

Plotino

Beauty; knowing

oneself

3 9

Zygmunt Bau-

man

Uncertainty;

decision making;

liquid reality

3 10

Heidegger

Death; future

plans

3 11

Hegel

Dialectics to

reach knowledge

3 12

Saint Agustin Passing of time

3 13

The peripatet-

ics of the 21st

century

Future; studies;

university

3 14

Merlí

Bergerón

Death; friend-

ship

Source. Own elaboration

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Aurora Forteza Martínez

With Socrates, mistrust and questioning are in-

troduced, such as whether parents are right to

instill ideas in their children, thinking it is best

for them. Therefore, they are encouraged to

distrust everything that comes before them.

With Schopenhauer, desire and suering are

discussed.

Merlí: According to Schopenhauer,

man is a disgusting creature. To de-

sire the immortality of man is to desire

the perpetuation of a great error. How

can it be that man is corrupt, a tortur-

er, and a murderer that he organizes

wars and genocides? (...) According to

Schopenhauer, animals are not cruel;

for man, they are because you have to

be intelligent to want to harm. (...) For

Schopenhauer, the only way to com-

bat desire was to opt for nothingness.

Nothingness is emptiness, the absence

of desire. For him, it was the only way

to ght against suering.

Merlí (TV3: October 19, 2015). Season 1. Chap-

ter 6: Schopenhauer

With Guy Debord, he deals with issues related

to the society of the entertainment industry,

such as social networks.

Merlí: His name is Guy Debord. Ac-

cording to him, ours is a model of so-

ciety that has turned people’s lives into

a spectacle. For this thinker, who did

not know social networks, we live on a

kind of global screen where everyone

wants to be visible at any price. In oth-

er words, if you don’t show yourself,

you don’t exist (...) According to Guy

Debord, man becomes a spectator of

himself when he sees himself reected

on any screen. But he also becomes a

With Plato, teachings related to Platonic love

are transmitted, where the meaning of love is

explained. They are made to see that love is the

impulse that leads to the knowledge of beauty,

which makes it possible to distinguish between

the sensible world and the world of ideas. On

the other hand, Plato’s myth of the cave urg-

es one to look beyond the cave to understand

what is happening around each person.

Machiavelli conveys the idea of success in life

and the power of the state in people’s lives.

Merlí: Machiavelli tells it like it is: that

force is force, violence is violence, and

lies are lies, and that there is no need

to disguise it with nice ideals.

Tania: What does it mean that it is not

necessary to disguise it?

Merlí: Well, in short, Machiavelli de-

fends evil to save the State. Tell me,

Gerard.

Gerard: There’s something that doesn’t

make sense to me: Why is it important

to save a State that can harm its citi-

zens? Is it worth saving if the end justi-

es the means? What justies the end?

Merlí: That is the most intelligent re-

ection that a student has ever made

to me.

Merlí (TV3: September 28, 2015). Sea-

son 1. Chapter 3: Machiavelli

The theme of happiness is introduced with Ar-

istotle. It is explained that without friendship,

eudaimonia, i.e., happiness, is not possible, al-

though achieving it has become an obsession

for society. This is considered a right for them,

although it is at the end of life when one can

take stock of whether one has been happy.

124124

Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

passive being, incapable of making de-

cisions, incapable of living his own life.

Merlí (TV3: November 2, 2015). Season 1. Chap-

ter 8: Guy Debord

With Epicurus, we speak of hedonism, which

is living for and to achieve pleasure and mon-

ey. He explains it with the term ataraxia, which

means the absence of any disturbance. Howev-

er, he argues that it is dicult to achieve hap-

piness without money. On the other hand, with

the skeptics, the apogee is exposed.

Merlí: Apogee. Suspension of judg-

ment, to be attentive to the things

that happen, but not to pronounce

on reality (...). The skeptics aspired to

nothing more than silence so as not to

have to separate themselves from the

reality of the things that happen. They

limit themselves to observe them. The

skeptic looks carefully, examines, con-

siders the facts, and remains silent. He

does not make judgments, apogee.

Merlí (TV3: 9 November 9, 2015). Season 1.

Chapter 9: Epicurus

With the sophists, the relationship between ed-

ucation and work is exposed, dealing with the

current academic overqualication and the lack

of job opportunities, where work is understood

as a means to achieve a goal through sacrice.

On the other hand, perceptions and feelings

are taught through Hume, which shows that

the reception of a habit does not explain the

truth of things since it is necessary to base

knowledge on experience.

Through Nietzsche, the theme of death and

God is presented.

Merli: Nietzsche speaks of death, spe-

cically of the death of God. He says

that we have all killed him because

we men do not need him to live. Until

now, we have lived under the shadow

of a protective father who has told us

how we should behave. He has made

us feel guilty when we have not done

things right, but now we can break

away from this father; we can build

new values that have nothing to do

with the idea of God.

Merlí (TV3: December 7, 2015). Season 1. Chap-

ter 13: Nietzsche

With the pre-Socratics, young people are en-

couraged to question the origin of things and

not to conform to what the rules dictate, asking

what the main element that makes things the

way they are, known as argé, the principle of

everything that surrounds people. To work on

demagogy and chaos, Hobbes is studied, who

explains that man is usually a wolf for the man

himself since he is a selsh being by nature.

Therefore, a government capable of organizing

and ensuring the security and order of society

is required.

The Stoics discussed the world of passions

since they spoke of apatheia, which is the ab-

sence of any kind of passion. They let them-

selves be led only by reason to overcome de-

sires and means. Kant introduced the subject

of lying, arming that one should not lie under

any circumstances, even when one believes it is

justied. This exposes that truth must be above

the physical integrity of any person.

With Hipparchy, austerity and the superuous

are discussed:

125125

Aurora Forteza Martínez

Merlí: Hipparchy led a life far away

from her loved ones. She believed that

to reach happiness, we had to elimi-

nate everything that was superuous.

From the most absolute austerity, she

wanted to expose the artice of our life

(...) For her, happiness did not consist

of living following the crowd. In the cyn-

ical philosophy, there is no dierence

between the image we project and

who we really are. (...) Hipparchy only

wore four rags and had a very simple

law: to satisfy only the most elementa-

ry needs.

Merlí (TV3: October 17, 2016). Season 2. Chap-

ter 5: Hipparchy

Truth is also discussed with Mointagne through

the term aretheia, which refers to everything

that is shown to people as they are. There, truth

is beyond contradiction since it exists by itself.

Upon the arrival of a transgender teacher, the

topic of sexual freedom is discussed with the

philosopher Judith Butler.

Merlí: Judith Butler, one of the great

feminist theorists of the queer mo-

ment. According to her theory, our

sex, that is, that which supposedly de-

nes us as men or women, is nothing

more than a social construction. The

fact of being a man or a woman is not

determined by our birth, but instead,

we have been taught to be so. We have

learned to be men or women in a cul-

tural and educational context that has

heterosexuality as the norm. Anything

outside this norm is excluded. (....). She

argues that we do not necessarily have

to perceive ourselves as men or wom-

en; that is, in the same way we con-

struct gender, we can also deconstruct

it by going beyond its limitations.

Merlí (TV3: 31 de octubre de 2016). Season 2.

Chapter 7: Judith Butler

Thanks to Freud, the unconscious and its con-

sequences on the actions of human beings are

explained. The unconscious is shown as that

which forces us to do inexplicable things or to

have feelings that we do not know very well why

we feel them. Likewise, Descartes presents as-

pects such as existence and doubt:

Merli: Descartes, unlike other thinkers, does

not begin by establishing truths about how

the world is and, what the human being is, and

what the soul is. He wonders how we can arrive

at a truth we can be entirely sure about.

Merlí (TV3: November 14 2016). Season 2.

Chapter 9: Descartes

A relationship between money, love, and fam-

ily is established through two phrases by the

philosopher Engels: “In the history of mankind,

there are two great businesses: the business of

having money and the business of making love”

and “The family is an instrument of the ideolog-

ical apparatus of the State”. Love is analyzed

with Zyzek, explaining that in any love relation-

ship, it is essential to love the person with their

imperfections and accept them with all their

defects. Taoism explains life and the risks it en-

tails, where the art of living is more like sailing

than war, and taking risks is necessary because,

without risk, there is no freedom.

On the other hand, happiness is introduced

with a phrase by Boethius: “If you want to be

happy, do not base your happiness on such

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Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

fragile foundations as those of luck.” It is made

clear that, for Boethius, there is the possibility

that people’s destiny is controlled by God. If this

is so, one comes to think that it automatically

nullies men’s capacity for freedom.

Adam Smith discusses success and envy. He

expresses that, on most occasions, knowing

that a person succeeds in any aspect of his life

provokes society’s envy.

When discussing Karl Marx and what he ex-

posed as the fetishism of merchandise, it is

about capitalist society, consumption, and

money.

The conditions of production, where the hu-

man being is a simple instrument in a produc-

tion chain, are hidden.

Hannah Arendt questions the limits of forgive-

ness and whether anything, such as the Nazi

extermination, should be forgiven. According

to this philosopher, all those unwilling to think

cannot be forgiven, and there can be no for-

giveness without repentance. Kierkegaard ex-

plains decision-making since one is alone and

each one is responsible for his decisions, which

generates fear and anguish due to making

one’s own decisions.

As expressed by Plotinus, beauty is associated

with knowing oneself, which generates a de-

bate on beauty and its subjectivity. To this end,

it is explained that it is necessary to understand

the two possibilities of beauty: that of the body

(sensible world) and that of the soul (intelligible

world).

Merlí: True beauty does not reside in

matter, in the body. Matter is gea, it

is evil. Plotinus says: “Turn your gaze

inward and through reection and

thought make the soul beautiful, for

when the soul is reective it is beauti-

ed. But when it is not, then it is only a

slave of its own body”.

Merlí (TV3: November 13, 2017). Season 3.

Chapter 8: Plotinus

Thanks to Bauman, uncertainty and deci-

sion-making are also visible in the series. To-

day’s society is shown as precarious and chang-

ing very fast, where we are forced to make

decisions more and more quickly and rapidly.

At the same time, we have less capacity to make

decisions. We live in a liquid society where mak-

ing sensible decisions is practically impossible.

Death, an aspect that makes the students un-

comfortable, is explained by Heidegger:

Merlí: We know perfectly well that we

are condemned to die, but we behave

as if we did not know it. According to

Heidegger, we live in the mode of not

yet; I am so far from dying that I don’t

bother to think about it. And that is the

paradox. I know I will end, but that does

not prevent me from making plans for

the future (...). Heidegger distinguished

between two types of existence: what

he called authentic existence and in-

authentic existence. We could say that

inauthentic existence is you, those of

you who make those faces when they

talk to you about death (...). The inau-

thentic non-existence is that of those

who live pending plans for the future

to try to deny that they will die. And

authentic existence is that of those

who know they will die, but that does

not prevent them from living. They can

even live with more joy because what

provokes anguish is not death itself

but pretending that it does not exist.

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Aurora Forteza Martínez

Merlí (TV3: November 27, 2016). Season 3.

Chapter 10: Heidegger

With Hegel, dialectics are approached to reach

knowledge, where the way to absolute knowl-

edge is explained. This concept is worked

through an association of knowledge. The mor-

als of the master and the slave are used, and

some people tend to exercise power while oth-

ers are subjected to it.

Finally, we work on the passage of time with

St. Augustine of Hipona. An hourglass is used

since it graphically represents the passage of

time. This term is complex for young people

to dene. For this reason, a phrase the philos-

opher said is an example: “If no one asks me

what time it is, I know it very well. But if they ask

me and I try to explain it, I do not know what to

say”. St. Augustine delimits it by saying that the

present is a point without extension between

two nothings: the past, which no longer exists,

and the future, which does not yet exist. For

this reason, time is associated with happiness

since we cannot enjoy things forever because

once we have them, we fear losing them.

4. CONCLUSIONS

AND DISCUSSION

Once the results have been presented, it can

be seen how they respond to the objective pro-

posed for this study to know the relationship

between philosophy and the daily life of ado-

lescents in the Merlí series and the two specic

objectives proposed.

In responding to the rst specic objective,

to study the characters that appear in the se-

ries, the philosophical teachings are carried

out through its protagonists thanks to the dia-

logues and debates that are generated among

them when they talk about a philosopher and

relate to some aspect that young people are

interested in. About the second specic objec-

tive, to identify the teachings of Merlí and its link

with the conicts of young people, it is observed

how the series presents philosophical content

related to the problems and situations that can

arise in adolescents’ daily lives.

It has been possible to see how, through Mer-

lí, questions are posed that are of interest

to young people, which conrms what Ma-

teos-Pérez (2021) stated when he explains that

the series poses “contents that seek authentic-

ity, stories, and characters linked to reality (and

that) use a youthful, reiterative, spontaneous

jargon, typical of the social class they represent

(p.154). It can be armed that this type of se-

ries presents real situations that occur in so-

ciety. (Rincón, 2011; Martínez-Lucena & Cam-

bra-Badii, 2020).

As far as the characters are concerned, the

cast is stable throughout the series. Regarding

the socio-demographic prole, it can be seen

that, in the rst and second seasons, men are

the majority gender, while in the third season,

women are the majority. Throughout the se-

ries, the most represented age range is that of

those between 30 and 55 years old, considered

to be of adult age; the most common nationality

is Spanish; the predominant sexual orientation

is heterosexual; and, nally, the most common

level of studies is that of university students.

Even though the prole shows a greater rep-

resentation of adult characters, the specic

weight of the interpretation falls on the young

protagonists. However, it is observed that in

the series, there is no great diversity among the

population analyzed, something already point-

ed out by López-de-Lara-Marín (2019), who ex-

plains that this series is a clear example of the

so-called white society.

128128

Teaching of Philosophy through television series: a case study of Merlí

Several investigations have been carried out

on the characters in television series for ado-

lescents, including those related to their sexual

orientation (Platero, 2008; Fellner, 2017; Cal-

vo-Anoro, 2017) and the roles and stereotypes

that are reected in them (Guarinós, 2009). In

the words of Lacalle (2013), the young charac-

ter is shown as a young, good-looking person

who follows the dictates of fashion.

In Merlí, teachings related to the problems of

young people are developed, all linked to the

approaches of dierent philosophers. These

themes are platonic love, beauty, power, friend-

ship, happiness, mistrust, desire, questioning

things, suering, social networks, hedonism,

money, education, work, perceptions and

feelings, death, God, questioning the origin of

things, demagogy, chaos, passions, lies, aus-

terity, the superuous, truth, sexual freedom,

human actions, forgiveness, decision making,

fear, anguish, uncertainty, dialectics to arrive at

knowledge and the passage of time.

In addition, among the themes most often

shown in this series are the rebelliousness and

nonconformity of young people, uncertainty,

and opposition to parents and teachers. Anoth-

er strong theme relates to relationships, where

platonic love is shown based on myths, stereo-

types, and uncertainty about the future. This

shows how this series raises the need to think,

reect, and express one’s own opinion, all from

a communicative and respectful point of view

(Echegaray & Expósito, 2021). Educational cen-

ters are seen as spaces where the exchange of

ideas and dialogue is encouraged (Martignoni

& Giovine, 2020).

Television series for adolescents present a se-

ries of characteristics that identify them through

the stories they tell (Fedele & García-Muñoz,

2010). Likewise, these series are structured

around two large blocks: family and friends,

where the stories generated in a social con-

text stand out (Guarinós, 2009; García-Muñoz

& Fedele, 2011). There, themes related to love

and friendship prevail (Lacalle, 2013).

129129

Aurora Forteza Martínez

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