MY FAVORITE TELENOVELA QUOTES

Through the years I've been studying telenovelas I've read my share of pages and authors about the topic. Here are my translations of some of my favorite quotes about this TV genre. These are my favorites because they illuminate with honesty and intelligence the intrinsic codes of the "show of sentiments" (Cabrujas):

Because it's so quotidian, because we watch it on television, we don't ask where does it come from, where is it grounded, what are its conceptualizations, what is there that is universal and human?
--Cabrujas, José Ignacio (2002). Y Latinoamérica inventó la telenovela. Caracas: Alfadil.

Telenovelas are part of Latin America's sentimental education.
--Gaitán, Fernando (2006). Interviewed in Los Imposibles: conversaciones al borde de un micrófono. Caracas: Aguilar.

The writers are the hidden protagonists of a telenovela, even though the majority of viewers don't know their faces or read about the decor of their homes in the entertainment magazines. It is the writer who defines the fate of the characters that gather multitudes in front of the TV screen on a daily basis.
--Alvarez, Valentina (2007). Lágrimas a pedido: así se escribe una telenovela. Caracas: Alfa.

It is true that a telenovela is a carrousel of melodramatic clichés. But it is also true that, as Umberto Eco would say, two clichés produce laughter, but 100 are moving.
--Vilches, Lorenzo (1997). La fuerza de los sentimientos. En E. Verón y L. Escudero Ch. (comps.) Telenovela: ficción popular y mutaciones culturales. Barcelona: Gedisa.

A telenovela is a "Great Love Story" administered in easy installments.
--Espada, Carolina (2004). La telenovela en Venezuela. Caracas: Fundación Bigott.

He or she who places words in the gut of a telenovela knows this very well: love without rating doesn't last.
--Barrera Tyszka, Alberto (2002). Desde las tripas de un culebrón. Revista Bigott.

This isn't a genre, like film, that goes from the heads of the writer and producer to the head of the spectator. Here, it goes from heart to heart, from gut to gut. And when the spectator's heart starts to get cold, it's time to twist the storyline.
--Gaitán, Fernando (2006). Interview in Los Imposibles: conversaciones al borde de un micrófono. Caracas: Aguilar.

The spectator know what's going to happen. But, I still have to surprise her or him when it finally happens.
--César Miguel Rondón in Lágrimas a Pedido de Valentina Alvarez. Caracas: Alfa.

This job, of course, is filled with failed attempts. There are many dignified intentions that never made it. But, there is only one possible commandment: to insist. This is why I don't accept the argument that says that telenovelas can't be improved, that they have a chemical formula that cannot be corrected, that it needs a high dose of stupidity. Every genre has a process and an evolution. It would be easier to resign ourselves to the headstrong ignorance and proverbial lack of risk of our television executives.
--Padrón, Leonardo (2002). La telenovela: ¿género literario del siglo XXI? Revista Bigott.

But, what kind of love are we talking about in a telenovela? We're talking about a love that isn't like ours, but still resembles it. Its apparent incoherence and unreal nature can also be its coherence and realism. The sense of truth and falseness in a telenovela is only given by its ability to move its audience. What is real is what is deeply unreal, what is felt.
--Barrera Tyszka, Alberto (2007). Una intimidad. Prologue to Lágrimas a Pedido de Valentina Alvarez. Caracas: Alfa.

Venezuelan television can now change, redoing what already exists. The important thing is that its roots dip into the humus of popular culture as it is, with its preferences and trends, that it feels passionate about its past, and that it doesn't avoid its creative spontaneity. Only in this way will we be able to have the lyricism of the intimate, the daring of liberty and the value of truth.
--Rondón, Alí E. (2006). Medio siglo de besos y querellas. Caracas: Alfa.

But whatever is the path for telenovelas, they have the ability to reveal the cartography of both feelings and social tensions, cultural imagination, and the secret and explicit aspirations of those who follow them with fervor.
--Martín-Barbero, Jesús y Rey, Germán (1999). Los ejercicios del ver: hegemonía audiovisual y ficción televisiva. Barcelona: Gedisa.

TELENOVELAS: THE AUDIENCE AND THE WRITERS

The semester began and with it my lack of time to write. This term I'm teaching Graphics Communication and a doctoral seminar on Qualitative Research Methods. At the same time, I continue the analysis phase of telenovela Ciudad Bendita. Both the analysis and writing stages of any research study are lonely and particularly introspective times for a researcher.

In this brief post I want to highlight three fascinating interviews that appeared in the message board TVVI (TV Venezolana e Internacional). In these interviews, the questions were asked by board participants. I've written before about the quality range regarding discussion and information that we can find in Internet message boards.

These interviews are jewels worth reading since exchanges between the audience and telenovela writers are rare. And even though the quality and tone of the questions have a wide range, we can find facets of these writers that we probably didn't know:


Pilar Romero (Mi Prima Ciela, Elizabeth, Maite, Toda Mujer, Drama de Amor en el Bloque 6, Días de Infamia)
Alberto Barrera (Aunque Mal Paguen, Géminis, Nada Personal, Demasiado Corazón, La Calle de las Novias)
Leonardo Padrón (Amores de Fin de Siglo, Contra Viento y Marea, El País de las Mujeres, Amantes de Luna Llena, Cosita Rica, Ciudad Bendita)

VENEZUELA ES UNA TELENOVELA

It's been a while since I wrote in my blogs. I have an excellent reason for my electronic absence, though: the presentation of my book in Venezuela: Venezuela es una Telenovela.

Last Tuesday, September 18, Editorial Alfa presented its new collection Homo Videns which focuses on the study of television. For me, it is a real privilege that Venezuela es una Telenovela and
Valentina Álvarez's wonderful book, Lágrimas a Pedido, are the inaugural books in this new collection.

The event was quite significant for me. I had the opportunity to share it with people that I love and admire deeply. Family and friends who are the constants and pillars of my life, and some of those who have participated in my research studies. Without them, the book wouldn't exist.

In short, my universes--the personal and the academic--collided for once, and the result was that I saw some colorful and joyful fireworks. It was a very personal celebration for me and for many of those who were able to be there for the presentation. Almost one week later, I still struggle to find the right words to describe it. Therefore, I rather share with you the words and pictures that were written and taken by some of the people who were there. (The writings are in Spanish).

Press:
Olla de Grillos, opinion column written by journalist Marlene Castillo
Cara y Cruz, opinion column written by actor Carlos Cruz

Blogs:
Utópico Real I
Desenterrando Artes y Más...I
Desenterrando Artes y Más...II
Blog TVVI

Pictures:

Original Stories or Remakes?

This week I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Luis Clemens, a freelance reporter who covers Hispanic marketing and media for trade publications such as Multichannel News.

In his blog, Clemenseando, Clemens wrote a post titled Too Many Telenovela Remakes? in which he describes the current telenovela landscape in U.S. Spanish speaking networks:

All three of Univision's primetime telenovelas are remakes. "La Fea Más Bella" is a Televisa remake of Fernando Gaitán's "Yo soy Betty, la fea." "Destilando Amor" is the Mexicanization of another Gaitán novela "Café, con aroma de mujer". In the new Televisa-produced version, Colombian coffee has been replaced with Mexican tequila. (The original setting of a coffee plantation has been replaced with an agave plantation and agave is the basic ingredient of tequila). "Duelo de Pasiones" is yet another Televisa remake. This novela is a remake of "Flor de las Nieves", which first aired in Cuba in the late 1950s.

To be sure, remakes aren't exclusive to the U.S. telenovela landscape. Remakes ("refritos", as they are commonly called in Venezuela) are present in many television stations across the world which, like Univisión, purchase their telenovelas from Mexican giant Televisa.

In Venezuela, remakes also have a place in television production. In the last few years, RCTV re-made as single shows some of its most successful telenovelas like La Señora de Cárdenas, Natalia de 8 a 9 and Silvia Rivas, Divorciada, all originally written by José Ignacio Cabrujas. In 2006, RCTV broadcast to low ratings a remake of Julio César Mármol's El Desprecio. And before being taken off the air by the government's cancellation of its license, RCTV was airing Mi Prima Ciela, written by Pilar Romero as a remake of her two successful telenovelas Elizabeth and Maite. Venevisión has also produced remakes of variable quality and degrees of success. (By the way, the question why remakes aren't always successful in Venezuela merits a separate post).

As I told Clemens, when he interviewed me, I'm not against remakes. But, I am against producing an excessive number of them. I also disagree with those who see the remake as the only production option, or as their preferred production choice. I firmly believe that it isn't healthy for the telenovela industry that one of its crucial players--Televisa--produces almost exclusively remakes. This focus on remake production will gradually asphyxiate creativity, diminish the generation of new plots and the possibilities of Latin Americans telling the stories of who we are and how we love. In the long term, remakes may produce fatigue in the audience as the genre will lose its freshness.


Last summer Produ.com published on its website a collection of videotaped interviews with key producers and writers discussing the issue of remakes. In his interview, Colombian writer Fernando Gaitán, whose marvellous Yo soy Betty, la Fea has been successfully remade in many countries, and is the inspiration for ABC's Ugly Betty, states that "television can't continue repeating itself, they're going to kill the genre", and adds "the remake is eating up the telenovela".


Award-winning Venezuelan author Alberto Barrera Tyszka hits the nail on the head when he states that the current emphasis on remakes "is related to one of the telenovela industry's strongest anxieties: how to guarantee success".
Certainly, the percepction among many networks executives is that remakes are sure successes. This is particularly true in Mexico.


And, even though Mexican producers like Salvador Mejías argue that they are the ones taking risks "because the issue is that people don't feel it's a remake", it seems obvious to me that the preference for remakes is a telltale sign that the "business" aspect of the telenovela is paramount and more important than any of the other facets of this media/cultural product that so defines Latin Americans.

I alway say that telenovelas have a little (or a lot) of Cinderella, Romeo and Juliet, The Count of Montecristo, The Prince and the Pauper, The Man in the Iron Mask and Ugly Duckling, among other classic plots. Notwithstanding this common ground, Latin American creativity has produced wonderfully diverse love stories with characters we know and recognize. These are stories about ourselves, and as such they must evolve with the social formation and not get stuck in a vicious cycle of repetition.

(Note: Here you can find several video interviews with Fernando Gaitán in Spanish, including the one in which he discusses remakes. Also, through the link Ver más opiniones del Remake, you can access other interviews on this same topic).