La Academia (Spanish for "The Academy") is a long running mexican reality show produced by TV Azteca.
The show's premise revolves around 14 to 49 young people who can sing and dance being chosen to join the titular "Academia", which is a sort of singing academy where they're prepared for concerts each weekend during the duration of the program, all while being watched by a panel of judges who give their opinions on their performances; meanwhile, the audiences watching at home usually vote for their favorites of the night, with the one with least votes being kicked out of the program;. When the contestants are not practicing or doing said concerts, they spend most of their downtime in either the bedrooms or common room, with some of their antics being caught on camera and being shown in one of the presentations. The goal of the show is that five of the contestants have to make it to the finale, with the first place winning a certain amount of Mexican Pesos and a recording contract, with the other two places simply getting the latter prize, while the last two contestants simply being finalists.
In short, the show could be best described as "American Idol meets Big Brother", though it has been noted that it has a similar format to the french reality "Star Academy".
First aired in 2002, the show became an instant hit, becoming something of a Cash-Cow Franchise for TV Azteca during the early 2000's. Like American Idol, the show is well-known (and generally has been slightly more succesful) for launching the careers of many important aritistic figures in the Spanish-speaking community, such as Carlos Rivera (the winner of the third generation) and Yuridia (third place winner in the fourth generation), with many of the contestants who didn't make it to the finale also mananging to find success later, such as the late Hiromi Hayakawa (during the third generation) and Melissa Barrera (during the ninth generation). However, it's also pretty infamous for also a lot of controversies taking place, such as the time when one of the judges, Lolita Cortes, asked the viewers to stop voting for one the contestants, Jolette, as she found the latter as not deserving of her place in the show for her rather lackluster singing abilities (which rather hilariously didn't work and Jolette kept participating until she left on her own terms), or when one of the contestants supposedly being the child of famous singer Pedro Fernandez due to their supposed similar apperance.
La Academia provides examples of:
- Manchild: In the thirteenth generation, Emilio and Santiago played a joke in where the former put a small microphone over the latter's butt when when he farted, which was recorded and shown in the second concert. Lolita Cortes pointed out that it made Emilio come out like this due t the joke being immature, while Alexander Acha, the director, wasn't pleased with the joke.
