A hit Netflix series has upset people in Tenerife with a quip about one its best-known exports.
Adolescence is a Netflix crime drama miniseries starring Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper. It follows a 13-year-old boy who is arrested for the murder of a classmate.
In one scene, when visiting psychologist Briony Ariston asks him if he went to Tenerife on holiday with his family, the teenager sarcastically suggests the trip was for banana-picking – but this small reference seems to have brutally backfired.
But the Tenerife comment has caused anger in the holiday island – super popular with Brits – where anti-mass tourism demonstrations took place last year and walls and benches were daubed with graffiti targeted at holidaymakers.
Leading Tenerife newspaper El Dia has labelled the banana reference “unfortunate” and claimed it showed what “King Charles’ subjects” think of locals.
It said in an article published overnight: “What could be a casual anecdote, even harmless, hides a perception of how the subjects of Charles III of England see us.
“What could a boy come to Tenerife with his family for? From his perspective, only for tourism, because if it’s not for that, the only other reason to come would be to plant bananas.
“It should be noted that bananas are the primary export of the Canary Islands, and the United Kingdom has traditionally been one of the main recipients of a product that has positioned the archipelago internationally and feeds hundreds of families on the islands.
“In this, practically the only time it does, the series succumbs to cliché and overlooks the many other reasons why an Englishman or a Scotsman might visit Tenerife. We are tourism and bananas.”
The newspaper insisted “few Tinerfenos” – what people who hail from the island are called – would look favourably on the banana reference.
Referencing the debate about the number of holidaymakers Tenerife can cope with, it said of Adolescence: “Being a British production, it is not surprising that there is, as is common in many others, a reference to Tenerife or the Canary Islands, given the historical relationship between both territories and the vast number of tourists who visit the archipelago throughout the year.”
Mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands are the main destinations for banana exports from the Canary Islands. Tenerife’s weather and altitude conditions as well as its soil make it an ideal place for the fruit to be grown.
The island has become synonymous with anti-mass tourism protests over the past year, with thousands marching in the capital Santa Cruz and other Canary Island cities last April to call for a change in the tourism model.
In October hundreds of flag-waving protestors stormed a beach in Playa de Las Americas beating drums and blowing whistles during a new march to highlight problems including the lack of affordable housing blamed on Airbnb-style holiday rentals.
Graffiti in English left on walls and benches in and around Palm Mar in southern Tenerife at the start of last April included messages saying ‘My misery your paradise’ and ‘Average salary in Canary Islands is 1,200 euros.’
In an apparent UK backlash, a response left in English on a wall next to a ‘Tourists go home’ message said: “F**k off, we pay your wages.”
Anti-tourism groups claimed an arson attack on hire cars in southern Tenerife earlier this month was the work of people “exhausted” by the huge numbers of holidaymakers flocking to the island.