IN MY TELENOVELA CLASS: My students present IV

Fourth installment of my students presentations regarding the consumption of specific telenovelas.

Presenter: Alicea Glover

Topic: The reception of Amigas y Rivales

Sources: Social media and webpages





Presenter: Ashley Rosado

Topic: The reception of Amarte es mi Pecado

Sources: Social media, message bards and webpages





Presenter: Beth Palevitz

Topic: The reception of Lola...érase una vez

Fuentes: Imdb, social media, message boards and webpages






Presenter: Bridget Goodman

Topic: The reception ofRubí

Sources: Imdb, social media, message boards and webpages

IN MY TELENOVELA CLASS: My students present I

I organize my Telenovelas class using the same theoretical tool I deploy in my research: the Circuit of Culture. Hence, the course is divided in the following sections: Representation and identity, consumption, production and regulation.

After several weeks studying representation and identity, the students wrote papers analyzing the telenovelas they were watching.

In the second part of the class, we focused on reception and consumption. In this section, students make short class presentations (10 minutes) about some aspect of the reception of their chosen telenovela. And, like the last time I taught the course, I'm going to share here visual summaries of their presentations.

Here's the first installment.

Presenter: Harper Bridgers

Topic: The reception of Sin Tetas No Hay Paraíso

Sources: IMDB, blogs and telenovela message boards

Presenter: Caroline Smith

Topic: The reception of Dame Chocolate

Sources: IMDB, social media and telenovela message boards

Presenter: Danielle Sender

Topic: The reception of Rubí

Sources: IMDB, blogs, social media and telenovela message boards

TELENOVELAS IN THE CLASSROOM: MY STUDENTS' TIME TO PRESENT II

Here's the second installment of my students' class presentations about telenovela consumption/reception. Today I feature two presentations about Amor Real and a small study about four telenovelas produced in four different countries.


Presenter: Bryan Perry

Topic: The consumption of Amor Real

Sources: Univision message boards

Objective: To understand the reception of the broadcast of Amor Real in Univisión.

Findings and conclusions:
- The audience believed that the scandal between actors Mauricio Islas and Génesis Rodríguez marked the broadcast of Amor Real in Univisión.
- The telenovela generated a battle between the characters of Adolfo Solís (Mauricio Islas) and Manuel Fuentes Guerra (Fernando Colunga) that was present in the audience's messages in the Internet.
- Amor Real's immense success seems to be related to how it differentiated itself from other telenovelas that were on the air at the same time. For instance, in Amor Real there are several mature characters, and since it was set in the 1800s, costumes and dresses were beatiful, but didn't show a lot of skin.

My thoughts: I believe that the fact that the main love triangle "rotated" (Matilde is at first in love with Alfonso, but ends up passionately in love with Manuel) kept the public's attention. There is a particular chemistry between Matilde and Manuel. The careful and lavisth mise en scene also contributed to the telenovela's wonderful ratings.






Presenter: Fiorella Montalvo

Topic: The reception of Amor Real

Sources: Several Internet message and bulletin boards

Objective: To explore the reasons behind the success of telenovela Amor Real.

Findings and conclusions:
-One of the elements that seems to underpin the telenovela's success is the "surprise" factor. The fact that Adolfo, who seems to have a good heart and be the protagonist, ends up being the antagonist. While, Manuel, whose behavior isn't always the best, is the true protagonist.
- The mise en scene is widely approved and applauded by the audience who lauds its realism. Actually, the number of comments regarding the mise en scene are more numerous than those focusing on the protagonists' physical attributes.
-In spite of their devotion for Amor Real , the audience underscored what they perceived as contradictions between some of the characters' vocabulary and behavior, and the time period in which the telenovela takes place. In particular, the public criticized that Matilde only had one child.
- Because Amor Real is a remake of Bodas de Odio, there were many comparisons between the two.

My thoughts: It's interesting that production values are many times equated with the "realism" of the mise en scene. In the case of telenovelas "de época" (depicting a long-ago time period), this equation is more obvious, since the audience's knowledge of that historic visual "reality" is not acquired directly, but is the consequence of other media products and some works of art. However, when exposed to a lavish production, with beatiful sets, costumes and exterior locations, we feel it is "real."








Presenter: Megan Ward

Topic: The consumption of telenovelas among Hispanic students in the U.S. and Mexico.

Sources: Internet survey conducted by Megan

Objectives: 1.- To examine whether these students watch telenovelas produced in countries other than theirs. 2.- To determine if certain telenovela themes carry over across countries.

Findings and conclusions:
- Telenovelas made in Mexico are the most widely consumed in the U.S.
- All the telenovela themes explored appear in the four telenovelas studied, and were recognized by the study's participants.
- When asked about a telenovela not produced in their country of origin, the participants ignored which was the producing country.
- Of the four telenovelas examined, Rubí was the most watched by the participants.

My thoughts: It's important to mention that Megan's study isn't statistically generalizable. However, it suggested things that we already know: that Mexican telenovelas are the most watched in the U.S. This is mostly due to the fact that Mexicans constitute a majority of Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. But Megan's sample also determines the findings. And since more participants watched Rubí, it isn't surprising that the theme most widely known is the "evil protagonist", even though this finding isn't consistent with the number of evil protagonists that we see in telenovelas. An evil protagonist is still an important exception.






To be continued...

TELENOVELAS IN THE CLASSROOM: MY STUDENTS' TIME TO PRESENT I

After two weeks of readings and discussion regarding telenovela consumption and reception, it's my students' turn to do class presentations regarding this topic. The assignment was pretty open:

Prepare a 10-minute presentation regarding telenovela consumption. Focus on a particular telenovela, country or target audience. To prepare, you can conduct interviews, informal surveys, and/or examine blogs, message boards and social media. Any approach is valid as long as the presentation is located under the large umbrella of "Telenovela consumption".

And my students have been great. The variety of topics and findings is really fascinating. Hence, I've decided to share them via this blog in a series of posts meant to show telenovela consumption from an unusual viewpoint: the U.S.

(Due to space concerns, I will only share some of their presentation slides).


Presenter: Ashleigh Speir

Topic: The consumption of Rubí

Sources: Internet message boards

Objective: To explore how the audience read Rubí's behavior and ending.

Findings and conclusions: Given Rubí's behavior, Ashleigh expected a negative reading of her character. She was surprised to find that two thirds of the posted messages that she analyzed suggested a positive reception of Rubí, and expressed a desired that the character would have had a happy end.

My thoughts: Rubí's case seems to indicate that when two of the strongest telenovela codes are in conflict (the protagonists' happy end and the principle of crime and punishment), the first code dominates, if the evildoer happens to be the protagonist.







Presenter: Lauren Kowan

Topic: The consumption of Pasión de Gavilanes

Sources: www.terra.com, www.serials.ru, www.publispain.com

Objective: To understand the international reception of Pasión de Gavilanes

Findings and conclusions: With the notable exception of Brazil, Pasión de Gavilanes was an unqualified success in every country where it aired. People from nations as different as Croatia, Israel, Spain and Argentina expressed a marked preference for this telenovela. An important factor in its success was the physical beauty and sex appeal of the three male protagonists (Mario Cimarro, Juan Alfonso Baptista and Michel Brown), and the character Rosario, interpreted by Zharick León. There were audience members who complained about the Mexican overtones, (the music, tequila consumption, some supporting actors' accents) of this televenovela that was supposed to take place in Colombia, where it was taped.

My thoughts: What should be more important in a telenovela? The actors' physical beauty or their talent? The readings of Pasión de Gavilanes that Lauren found suggest the dominance of beauty. And this is the criterion generally used when protagonists are chosen. It's a pity that sometimes the talent and trajectory of actors isn't valued becaus of this emphasis on the physique. There's also the question of why this telenovela didn't work in Brazil, where its broadcast was suspended after 60 episodes. Was this precisely because of the emphasis on beauty? Or was it something in the story that didn't "hook" Brazilians?







Presenter: Tia Capps

Topic: The audience and Pasión de Gavilanes

Sources: Message boards, blogs, chatrooms, Youtube, Facebook

Objective: To use the Internet to understand the reception patterns of the telenovela Pasión de Gavilanes.

Findings and conclusions:

1.-The main love story, Juan (Mario Cimarro) and Norma, (Danna García) was eclipsed by the other two love stories--Oscar (Juan Alfonso Baptista) and Jimena (Paola Rey), Franco (Michel Brown) and Sarita (Natasha Klaus).
2.-A popularity battle is established between the last two couples and their storylines. If we judge by the number of videos found in youtube featuring Oscar and Jimena, they were the most popular couple. In addition, there are many comments in the Internet about their "chemistry." On the other hand, Franco and Sarita grabbed the public's attention because they had a love/hate relationship whose outcome was difficult to predict. Furthermore, of the three couples, they were the last ones who realized they were in love.
3.- People who participated in Tia's small study, expressed two main reasons why they watched this telenovela: that the protagonists were "hot", and the presence of humor.

My thoughts: What are the elements that make a telenovela couple "work?" Why is it that even though the codes of the protagonists' storyline seem to be quite strong and steady in the public, it is relatively frequent that the protagonists' story is overshadowed by another love story present in the telenovela? (One that is less "typical")






To be continued...