A new world of Telenovelas

Wow. At this point in time that is literally all I have to say. There are so many things that I have learned in the past few weeks that it is honestly hard to start this post. I think the biggest thing that I’m shocked about is the melodrama of telenovelas in general. As we studied the different types of telenovelas I was more and more intrigued by the structure of each story. The good guy. The bad guy. The evil step mom. The prince charming. The Cinerella. The love triangles. The twists and turns of each telenovela were so captivating.

Although I was intrigued by this class, I was not to the point of being completely hooked until I began watching La Tempestad, the telenovela that I have chosen to study this semester. I watched the first episode and was more and more curious about the characters. Who loved who? Who was the good guy? Why was the hot guy who I thought was going to be prince charming such a jerk? How was everyone somehow related? What happened to the baby that had been kidnapped? By the 2^nd episode I was absolutely hooked! The characters gained so much depth in such a short amount of time. Everyone was connected somehow. The liars and deceivers and malicious people were all sneaking around back stabbing each other and it suddenly had sucked me into a whole new world.

I felt so invested. I wanted the main character to fall in love with the attractive man and the mom to find her lost daughter and the evil father to just go away and never come back. There were moments when I wanted to scream at a character and then cry with another. I was honestly shocked how invested I had become in such a short amount of time and how every day I looked forward to that 49 minutes of chaos, drama and unexpected twists and turns.

Although I was skeptical of the influence a simple television show could have on an entire culture, society and nation, I now see it so clearly. These telenovelas have serious impact. I love that there are no seasons. I was shocked to discover that multiple telenovelas play at the same time. I had no idea that they played every day and that a large majority of people religiously watch them…EVERY DAY! Instead of waiting a week to watch one episode, the characters in telenovelas soon become a part of daily life. It now makes so much sense that the underlying messages and topics covered in a telenovela can stir into society and influence the entire nation that watches.

My last thing I must rant about is how interesting it is to learn about the different telenovelas in each country. My mom is Colombian so I was immediately interested in Colombia and its culture and telenovela history. I soon was fascinated by the Rosa Mexican telenovelas known as the “criers” compared to the De Ruptura Brazilian telenovelas known as the realists. Each country whether it was Venezuela, Argentina, Colombia or even Miami (since we are including Miami in the Latin American world) has their own twist or form of telenovelas. I can’t wait to learn more and more about the differences in culture, media and society in my newly discovered telenovela world.