TELENOVELAS AND REALITY: PREMIERE OF LIBRES COMO EL VIENTO

Last night RCTV began broadcasting in Venezuela its new telenovela Libres como el viento, written by Pilar Romero (Mi Prima Ciela, Elizabeth, Maite, Toda Mujer), inspired in Rómulo Gallegos' novel "La Brizna de Paja en el Viento".

In the telenovela's synopsis, it is emphasized that this is a love story "marked by the current happenings in university life". This context is a clear reference to the reality of the student movement in Venezuela, which became a political protagonist after the government did not renew RCTV's broadcast concession in May 2007:

It's too early to assess this telenovela. For the moment, I'm interested in its context, which we can see represented in the following promotional:



I can't help but to notice that these days Venezuelan telenovelas are living a moment that is the opposite of the one I studied in the year 2003. At that time, RCTV and Venevisión competed for the first place. Both networks were on the same political side: opposing Hugo Chávez's government. Their novelas, however, offered two very different options. Venevisión represented and editorialized the harsh political reality in successful telenovela Cosita Rica, written by Leonardo Padrón. For his part, José Simón Escalona, RCTV's dramatic chief, believed that at the time Venezuelans didn't want to see more reality on their tv screens (Acosta-Alzuru, 2007, p. 34). Hence, RCTV broadcast La Invasora, written by Iris Dubbs, followed by Estrambótica Anastasia, authored by Martin Hahn.

Today we're in a completely different situation. RCTV can only broadcast via cable, is dedicated to producing remakes and versions, and places its wagers on a telenovela with a context linked to reality. Venevisión, without a strong competitor in Venezuelan TV, nevertheless is keenly aware of the delicate situation regarding freedom of expression in Venezuela. Therefore, this network prioritizes international sales and asks its writers to author telenovelas that are more "universal", devoid of local flavor, and avoiding any references to the country's controversial reality.

And, even though the telenovela industry always begs the question: "what do audience members want to watch in their telenovelas?", it's impossible for me to think of that, when I'm sure that we're doing much worse in my country. In every sense.

REFERENCE
Acosta-Alzuru, C. (2007). Venezuela es una Telenovela. Caracas: Alfa.

HUGO CHAVEZ AND TELENOVELAS

Todotnv is one of my favorite telenovela blogs. Today there's a  post about how easy it is to blame telenovelas for all sorts of things. This post, of course, brings about the eternal controversy of whether media reflect reality, or reality is influenced by media content.

In Latin America, where telenovelas were born, we also blame telenovelas in a variety of ways...even if we watch them religiously. But, last week President Hugo Chávez attacked telenovelas in his weekly speech to the nation (he also attacked the Internet):

"Be careful with those capitalist telenovelas: they poison (...) They have an ideological intention: to destroy a child's potential, to induce the youth to a life that is plastic, and to induce them to violence, prostitution and a loss of values."

Here's the video:

Chavez y las Telenovelas
by noticias24

President Chávez seems to have forgotten that the origin of telenovelas can be found in the feulleton literature (Dumas, Balzac, etc.), and that the cradle of telenovelas is Cuba. He seems to have forgotten also that his own network  TVES purchases and produces telenovelas.

These and other arguments were aptly expressed by Venezuelan telenovela writers in an article in daily El Universal on August 26:

Leonardo Padrón: Telenovelas Cosita Rica and Ciudad Bendita "were entirely Venezuelan. They constitute  400 hours of television that speak of the people who habit Caricuao or La Bombilla in Petare and how fragile are their living conditions, those hours aren't about the natives of Texas or Arizona.  "In my telenovelas, I've spoken about domestic violence, teen pregnancy and irresponsible fatherhood. Tell me how is it that I'm inculcating there capitalist values!"

Pilar Romero: "A telenovela is a love story. The only one that had a different slant, but wasn't 'capitalist' at all, was POR ESTAS CALLES. The rest are love stories with a moralizing intention. Evil is punished and good is rewarded."

Martín Hahn: "I've never thought about writing a telenovela that is capitalist or socialist. I only think of writing an entertaining telenovela with a positive message. The struggle to keep families together, forgiveness, reconciliation and personal betterment are the themes I like to touch on my telenovelas."

Benilde Avila: "I don't understand why Chávez said that. He must not watch telenovelas. It's a contradiction to say that telenovelas are poison when TVEs, his social television network, produces and broadcast them."

Personally, I'm quite surprised about this attack on telenovelas by President Chávez. Up until now he has been a shrewd communicator who knows how to respect and use the Venezuelan people's popular culture tastes and consumption. At times, he has even use that knowledge to manipulate Venezuelans. To attack telenovelas with empty arguments in a country in which people consume on a daily basis the same number of telenovelas as meals is a foolish mistake. 

We can criticize many things about telenovelas. But, we can also say positive things about them regarding the health messages they can transmit, etc. And, we'll never know for sure if Hugo Chávez would be president if there hadn't been a telenovela called Por Estas Calles. 

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)