Latin American soap operas as a cultural phenomenon

TV instead the home fireside

The number of viewers of telenovelas, of those who lead the parallel life through misfortune of Kassandra, Lovisna and Esmeralda is bewildering. At the recently held out panel at the Student Culture Center in Belgrade, PhD Maja Volk and MA Katarina Šmakić talked about the reasons for the great popularity and the cultural phenomenon of Latin American soap operas. The platform was held out within the series of lectures "The Contemporary Culture of Latin America", as a part of the project The Rhythm Culture


By IVANA JOVANOVIĆ
Cooperation with the magazine "REFLEJO"
Translation: IVANA JELENKOVIĆ


PhD Maja Volk, a dramatist, a screen play writer, a vocalist, a guitar player and a teacher at The Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, reminds us that the telenovela, which had "the effect of the first kiss", and as such marked our conscience, was aired in 1998. During the period of complete culture, economic and social mess appears the anti-depressive, nowadays well-known as "Kassandra". This anti-depressive offers the escape from reality, gives us hope that with love class barriers can be surpassed, and that good always overcomes evil. The Latin American telenovelas became an excellent source for learning Spanish language. However, Šmakić points out that the amount of vocabulary is very poor and identical in all of them. In addition, each Latin American telenovela sends the message: "Do good and good will follow you".

- When we speak about imagery phenomenon, only Catholicism is truly represented. Everything else is the matter of production, which is getting better every day- said Katarina Šmakić, a philologist, a translator, an arts and media theorist.

Maja Volk raises the question of great viewer rating of telenovelas in spite of their similarity.

- The answer is simple: they give us happy end, no exception. There is also an effect of easy predictability, and the pleasure is in recognition. Through fear and sympathy the viewers are able to clear their emotions, in a way we can refer to as catharsis. In the end, they make erotic and sexual fantasies, offer beauty and show the fulfillment of a dream - explains PhD Volk. She adds that the Latin American telenovelas attract the audience so much because of the love plot which is the essence, and it is the same for 99 percents of the movies ever made, and of course the motive of revenge. The dominant emotions are love and hate.

- It is interesting that no one mentioned that the same emotions and plot are the essence of "Cinderella", "Titanic", librettos of many operas, which appeared in the 19th century, and which are not above the telenovelas, and in the end ancient Greek tragedies - says PhD Volk. She explains that Cinderella is a good, poor girl who ends up with a beautiful prince, and their love overcomes class barriers and misdeeds of the stepmother and half-sisters. As such she defines the telenovela as the modern fairytale about Cinderella, only "re-painted".

- On the other hand, Titanic is the second movie in history which won 11 Oscars, the most profitable movie ever and the first one which earned more than a billion dollars. The same as "Cinderella" and the telenovelas, Titanic is also based on strong emotions and overcoming class barriers. It is a romantic story about a rich girl and a poor young man. They see each other and fall in love - explains PhD Volk.

Beside all of the things mentioned which contribute to popularity and ratings of the Latin American soap operas, Maja Volk points out the power of distributers. She denies their statement that audience dictates the taste: "Audience watches what you give them". She also points out the importance of TV in every household.

- TV became, after stove, the home fireside around which the family gathers. The buying of furniture and its reordering is due to TV set. Distributers enters there. They influence on "the making of the public taste", and people become the means of manipulation of distributers. This is due to people's everlasting need for story telling and listening.

This "infatuation" is present from the time of "Don Quixote". Don Quixote was crazy about reading chivalrous novels, and the contemporary man is the slave of TV novels - telenovelas. Those who watch them live parallel lives and they are active participants in the lives of the characters in Latin American soap operas. They run away from reality, unprepared to face it.

The need for true love, good, justice, hope, and the faith for better future in the time where real values are in disorder, got its place. You can create your own opinion whether these contemporary anti-depressives, Latin American telenovelas, are really helpful or they just have a placebo effect.


(Published: 15.01.2010.)