Maspalomas, where the air is heavy with melted plastic and cheap ambitions when Pride is celebrated, has been the stage for one of those farces that only the 21st century can produce with such efficiency. The Drago Gran Canaria party and Drag Eiko have descended south, not as celebrants, but as anatomists of a decadence that they themselves, in their political and artistic existence, help to perpetuate. Their denunciation of the "touristification" of LGBTQ+ Pride possesses the bitter lucidity of someone who looks in the mirror and sees only an export product. It is the lament of the outcasts of the capital who, after decades of fostering the monoculture of leisure, discover with biological horror that the mechanism they fed has ended up devouring them.
The scene is straight out of a Luis Berlanga film. Luis de la Barrera and Echedey Fernández argue that Pride has ceased to be a community and has instead become just another cog in the globalized pleasure industry. They lament that the diversity of the Canary Islands is treated as mere "video fodder" for Promotur, a cardboard set where the locals are just annoying extras. In this ecosystem of all-inclusive hotels and prepaid urges, local artists are displaced by foreign DJs and dancers, imported like spare parts for a machine that no longer needs the soul of the islands, but only their sun and their institutionalized tolerance.
It's ironic that those who promote identity as a political banner are now surprised that the market has done the same: turning identity into a commodity. Drago Gran Canaria proposes a "change of course" that sounds like impossible nostalgia. They talk about protecting the space from overcrowding, but they do so using the same language of mass management. They criticize the islands for being treated like a "theme park," ignoring that all of Gran Canaria, from the dunes to the neighborhoods of the capital, has been redesigned to be precisely that: a space for consumption where authenticity is just a label that increases the price of the service.
Drag Eiko's complaint is perhaps the most tragic. The artist who feels "a foreigner in his own land" describes the final stage of cultural globalization. When Pride becomes an international business, local artists become redundant labor. The public administration, they denounce, funds a model that ignores "our own" in order to buy the empty prestige of what's foreign. It's the victory of the bottom line over the feeling of belonging. In this market of flesh and glitter, the Canary Islander has gone from being the host to being the leftover of a party to which he's no longer invited.
The conflict that erupted in southern Gran Canaria transcends mere festive incidents, placing it at the heart of the debate about the exhaustion of the island's economic model. The Drago Gran Canaria group has filed a formal complaint that, for the first time, directly identifies the LGBTQ+ entertainment industry as a factor of social displacement. The group's spokesperson, Luis de la Barrera, along with local drag icon Echedey Fernández (Drag Eiko), denounced that Maspalomas Pride has crossed the line between social activism and aggressive tourist exploitation.
The event's infrastructure, largely financed with public funds, has been geared, according to Drago, towards attracting international revenue, sacrificing the local cultural fabric in the process. The systematic hiring of artists, technicians, and promoters from outside the archipelago has created an ecosystem where Canarian professionals are relegated to secondary roles or outright excluded. This practice not only represents a drain of public capital abroad but also erodes the islands' own artistic scene, which is unable to compete with the international agencies that now control the stages in Maspalomas.
From an economic perspective, the "touristification" denounced by Drago Gran Canaria has tangible effects on the cost of living. The organization emphasizes how the event's overcrowding artificially inflates accommodation and consumption prices, displacing the local population who traditionally participated in these celebrations. The concept of "community" has been replaced by that of "market," transforming a landmark in the fight for civil rights into a highly profitable financial product for large hotel chains and tour operators.
The criticism of the Canary Islands' institutions is direct. Drago's spokespeople insist that the regional government and local councils are allowing the Canary Islands to be used as a mere backdrop for Promotur's promotional videos. This exploitation of Canarian diversity aims to sell an image of a tolerant paradise while, behind closed doors, the cultural sector is being undermined and the islands are becoming overcrowded to unsustainable levels. Fernández has been unequivocal on this point: the administrations are funding a model that makes Canarians feel like strangers in their own emotional landscape.
Ultimately, Drago Gran Canaria's complaint raises an uncomfortable question for the islands' future: is it possible to maintain a world-renowned event without it ultimately eroding the identity that gave rise to it? The political group's answer is no, under the current model. They demand a radical reorientation that prioritizes the participation of residents and local professionals over the volume of visitors, a proposal that clashes head-on with the inertia of a tourism sector that measures success solely by the number of overnight stays.
