Sunday, September 13, 2009

If it aint't broke then don't fix it

What is it about telenovelas that keep people watching week after week? Plots are recycled over and over again in telenovelas but people keep watching. There’s the typical Cinderella story of unlikely love, the Romeo & Juliette story of forbidden love, and the ever-popular twins of different economic statuses switching lives. I can’t help but ask myself with such predictable over the top story lines, why do people continually and devotedly watch telenovelas?

Telenovelas not only recycle plots and story lines but they also recycle whole scripts. Even when telenovelas are remade their audiences are still just as engaged as if they are watching the story for the first time. Sometimes the audience is even oblivious to the fact that they are watching a story that they have seen before. In America, we are always looking for the next big new and ingenious idea, but in the telelnovela world if it’s not what people are accustomed to then it’s not a hit. When writers try to break the mold their new ideas are often unwelcomed by the audience.
The basic components of a successful televonela include a whole heap of drama, good must defeat evil, and above all love must prevail. The plots that people use over and over again contain all of these components making them a sure fire recipe for success. I suppose that telenovelas containing these components are so popular because we live in an age where these ideals are hard to come by. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and with the divorce rate at 50% in the U.S., clearly love does not always prevail. I suppose telenovelas give people comfort because we can depend on them to always come on the same time everyday with the same entertainment that people love, and they give people hope. They give them hope that love is enough to overcome all the odds.

1 comment:

  1. I agree that it's pretty crazy how successful they are in recycling ideas, plots and whole scripts. But I have to disagree that America's entertainment troupe strives for "the next big new and ingenious idea." While this does happen from time to time, U.S. mainstream TV falls in line with their counterparts in Latin America.

    OK, so scripts aren't completely reused, but it gets damn close. Doctor dramas? Crime Scene Investigator dramas? Police dramas? The exact same ideas are regurgitated over and over, only with different characters, quirks and story lines (sometimes).

    And that's not even delving into reality TV. Weight loss contests... home-makeover charities... personal makeover torture chambers... Under each of these ideas is a borage of shows that have aired. Which celeb has their own reality show, merely shadowing him/her/them around creating senseless drama in a silver-platter kind of life? So how many lust-laden women does this multi-millionaire have to choose from? Wait, now they're rockstars? And some chick named Tequila?

    Telenovela producers may be a bit blatant in their reproduction, because they can get away with it. The same goes for American TV producers. They just slap fresh faces on the screen and call it a day, because they can get away with it.

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