After talking about censorship in telenovelas, I wish the networks in Venezuela wouldn't censor so much of the scripts. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with addressing social/economic issues in telenovela episodes. Why not push the limit and see how far they can go instead of act in fear and change the scripts. Especially when today we saw how tiny the statements were. None of the statements came out and said "I dislike Chavez and his government." All the statements did were talk about how sometimes food can be scarce or that cities can have crime. They would be so much more real if they would stop beating around the bush and not edit the scenes they think will cause controversy.
I looked up the topic of censorship as it relates to Chavez and found an interesting newspaper article. This particuar article, "Chavez denies TV, license, stoking censorship debate" by Simon Romero, talks about the television company RCTV. Apparently, RCTV was a very popular, well known station in Venezuela. However, in early 2007, Chavez shut this network down by choosing not to renew their contract. The article talks about how Chavez thought RCTV was personally attacking his government with their programming and shows, and this is ultimately why he decided to shut them down. I guess he felt that they could influence the people, and did not like how he and his government were being portrayed. He caught a lot of controversy, because many thought he was abusing his power and acting unjustly.
Instances like this could explain why networks are hesitant to include material that may offend the government. I guess it goes to show that maybe pushing the limits isn't always the best idea, especially with someone like Chavez in charge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/01/world/americas/01iht-venez.html
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I really like that the writers are working their way around censors instead of abandoning topics altogether. I do wish networks would lighten up on writers and assert themselves politically, but I do understand their concerns - food on the table is priority one.
ReplyDeleteIn this environment of censorship, however, the writers have to address topics in creative ways (like analogies to cheese in Sweden)and honestly, I think that can be an even more powerful way to address political concerns. It forces people to think about the topic on a new level - analyze it more objectively once it's compared to a hypothetical situation from another country.
It seems almost like a caricature from the way Dr. A explained the writer's evasion of censorship - like a political cartoon instead of simply incorporating the facts of daily life into the scenes of a telenovela.
Censorship is unfortunate, but it definitely inspires clever means of overcoming it!
I agree, the way writers like Padron are able to still get their messages across is incredible! I thought the end of La Vida Entera was an excellent example of this. I've heard songs from groups who preformed during dictatorships, when the government was censoring EVERYTHING. the groups sometimes would write over the top lyrics or praise everything that was wrong. It would be pretty transparent, but somehow they got away with it. I think its amazing that regimes will often just take things at face value, yet the network is censoring its self in a much more complex and detrimental way.
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