Final Thoughts

I really have loved our skype conversations in class this week!! You should have heard me try to explain this concept to my mom over the phone. This is a condensed version of how it went:

My mom: “sky?, skippy? what did you say?

Me: “no mom, Skype”

(then my father in the background) “Honey, its like Twitter”

My mom: “oh, Twitter! Cool!”

Me: “um… no its not like twitter at all actually”

When they finally let me explain, they thought what we are doing in class this week is really amazing. I am not just making fun of my parents here, I think it is really amazing what technology lets us do as students now that my parents didn’t get to enjoy when they were in school. And I, like my parents, also think it’s been really amazing to get to talk this week with our guests.

I really enjoyed our conversation with Alberto Gomez because it got me once again thinking a lot about the consumption side of telenovelas. Gomez mentioned that he needed to make Telenovelas that the audience will enjoy and receive well and I immediately wondered if it was as simple as that in terms of audience consumption. I definitely agree that audiences play a huge role in the success or failure of a telenovela, but I also wonder if writers and networks, who so often play it safe with telenovela themes and plotlines, can really know if an audience would reject a more daring telenovela.

It seems like such a never-ending circle between production and consumption that it is difficult, or maybe impossible, to discover who shapes who more. Do audiences choose their plot lines or are their preferences dictated by what is available on TV? I know its not that simple but I wish I could dissect this relationship further. I want to know if one of Leonardo Padron’s telenovelas would be successful in Mexico or in the United States, even though the telenovlea tastes of these countries are labeled as more rosa. I think that Ruxi proved to us in our discussion on Monday that these more daring telenovelas are not just a Venezuelan taste and that people all over the world enjoy a telenovela that is as ruptura as Padron’s telenovelas.