Thursday, October 10, 2013

Cultural Differences Within Latin America

By now, I am extremely invested in my telenovela, Hasta que la Plata nos Separe. The more I watch it, the more I realize just how much the Colombian culture shines through the characters, the slang, everything really. It is easy to understand (after being 39 episodes deep now) why it was so successful when it aired in 2006. For me, it has become a little reminder of home, my family, and my culture. Out of curiosity, I decided to take a look at the Mexican version of my telenovela that aired between 2009 and 2010, Hasta que el Dinero nos Separe. Just the title shows a little cultural difference between how each country refers to money.

Tuesday's lecture about music in telenovelas was awesome. It is insane how much of a difference music makes in setting the mood for each scene. The entradas for each version of the telenovela are completely different. The Colombian version is a lot more upbeat, and it sounds like music you almost want to dance to, while the Mexican version uses a typical Mexican ranchera. Picking the music for telenovelas comes down to a total science because from watching both entradas each one fits in perfectly with the intended audience. Although I only watched bits and pieces of the Mexican version, I noticed many of the cultural differences and it was simply fascinating.

Both versions of the novela actually won awards for best telenovela in Premios TVyNovela and they were both successful in their own way. Even after looking at some message boards, it was clear that both telenovelas were extremely successful and did a great job in capturing the audience. Production must have played a big role in this, because this doesn't always happen. Sometimes, a different version of a novela just doesn't work or isn't as successful. However, for this novela the adaptation made in Mexico was just as successful!

Here is the music of each entrada so you can get a feel for the difference yourself:


Did anyone else look at the different versions of their telenovelas and notice anything interesting? 

3 comments:

  1. Why do you think they changed the referral of money from one novela to the other?? How do the two words 'plata y dinero' differ? I wonder if it could be that one is a synonym for silver (correct me if I am wrong with the definition) and referring to money as plata instead of dinero has a less harsh feel to the word?

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  2. Well I think they changed the name of the telenovela because "plata" is the common way of referring to money in Colombia, you rarely hear the word "dinero" there. However, Mexico uses the word dinero when talking about money so it made more sense to change the name of the telenovela. Maybe there's a deeper meaning behind it but I think it is mostly to just be able to relate to the particular audience better!

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  3. I think the change in the name is just a cultural thing too. Kinda like how the word "tetas" was changed to "senos" in the remake of "Sin tetas no hay pariso." Although this change was done in order to refrain from "offensive" language, it is still just a cultural difference.

    I'm glad to see how successful this telenovela was with it's culturally rich aspects since telenovelas these days are becoming more and more "neutral."

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