Elite creators are Dawson's Creek fans, but that doesn't mean they intentionally Americanized their Spanish series

Entertainment Weekly

In discussing Season 2, which dropped Friday, creators Carlos Montero and Darío Madrona discussed how Elite came together. "We are not very avid watchers of teen dramas these days — we’re pretty old, we’re Dawson’s Creek fans, you know — but we definitely are aware of what’s being done and have seen a bit of all the great teen shows out there, mostly in order to not do what they do, to bring something new to the table," says Montero. "I think the show is Spain-focused for sure, but we also wanted the themes to be universal and understood in every culture. One thing that I found very interesting is that after the release of the first season, I read a couple of comments from people saying that the show presented a very 'Americanized' reality, with the posh uniforms, the lockers in the corridors, the school dance at the end of the school year, the trophy… things that admittedly are not very common in Spain. But that came all from our research — it’s not that we were trying to be American, it’s that some very posh schools in Spain are doing things the American way because parents and students have all seen those U.S. movies and TV shows and that is their idea of a 'cool' education. It’s their way of attracting customers/students, almost as if the brochure for the schools had a 'As seen on TV' sticker in it. A lot of things 'American' about our show are in there because in Spain we also take a lot of things from American culture in our everyday lives."