a gentleman called Diego Bonet It was bought on Sunday night. If you have no proof but no doubts, you were also abducted by Luis Miguel. Who didn’t see that soap opera he hardly had anything to talk about on a Monday. Good sufferers, very bad bad, Romance, intrigue and those songs that we all know came together once a week and although the street was not deserted like when “The Strange Lady” summoned the whole family in front of the television, in that distant 1989, the spirit was quite similar. The soap opera in Spanish was back in its best form.
The renewed fascination for a format that is as classic as it is archetypal raises the eternal question: why do we like soap operas so much?
Facts, not opinion. In a recent survey conducted by Netflix Based on the adult online population in Argentina, the spectators they left no room for doubt. When asked about their preferred way of looking drama on screen, 89% of those surveyed said they watched “some or all of the episodes in one sitting.” The new ways of consuming entertainment created an audience eager to reach the end. As for what they consider the best part of a telenovela, 53% of those surveyed answered “the mystery” in a technical tie with “the emotion” closely followed by the “drama”. An impossible podium to refute.
Let’s talk about favorite characters. The Argentines surveyed gave the vigilante first place with 27%, followed closely by the villain with 24%. The heroines, apparently, stayed for another conversation. 85% of those surveyed proudly admitted that they watch soap operas, something that was once almost a guilty pleasure, reserved for that clichéd housewife.
Today, soap operas have such a widespread cultural presence that Netflix organized “Qué Drama”, a virtual event to announce its new genre productions and unite fans with their favorite soap operas. since it premiered “The Queen of Flow”production does not drop from the top positions among the most watched, the new version of “Woman-fragranced coffee” crowned its protagonist William Levy as the king of “clickbait” of all websites and “Pasión de Gavilanes” or “Ugly Betty” They are undying successes. The irruption of new spectators who share codes with the old novel lovers renew their faith in finding a more just, romantic and polarized world, where there is always a reward in the end.
If you want to cry, cry. doWhy, in a society where devices, virtuality, the multiverse and post-truth reign, do soap operas have such an impact? With so many options, is there a clue to why the novels are still relevant? Virginia Martínez, screenwriter of “La Caída”, “Supermax” and “Edha”, among other fictions, outlines this theory: in a universe with infinite possibilities, the structure of the soap opera appears almost like a lifesaver. “I can venture some hypothesis, trying to imagine what the new generations can find attractive in this genre. I am 46 years old. When I was a girl, going to the kiosk was a fairly simple exercise: Tita or Rhodesia? Jack or Holland? And the pocket solved. A little older, already a teenager, the world was still bipolar: Soda Stereo or Redondos, Beatles or Stones. If clarification is needed: Los Redondos, always, ”says Virginia, who surely went to the kiosk with her parents, the actors Cristina Lastra and Oscar Martínez. “Today’s world is different. I have a son who is about to turn fifteen, but the day we went together for the first time to the kiosk I thought he was going to give me a surprise, really, the amount of sweets there were to choose from left me on the verge of an intellectual collapse.
So, if there are so many options, why did we choose to go back to formats as recognizable as soap operas? Martínez says: “The illusory offer that exists is obscene; because what is really important to choose is closed, and what is unnecessary, disguised as urgent. In today’s world, then, what can make soap operas attractive for new generations? Several things. But above all it provides relief, entertainment and fun. Fun because the schematic and homogeneous universe presented by the telenovela is today so implausible that it competes with the absurd. Entertainment because identification with the characters works almost instinctively, they are so archetypal that the acceptance or rejection they generate is powerful, instantaneous and very emotional. And relief, finally, because in the soap opera there is justice and it is very easy to choose which side you are on: the bad guys are humiliated or die, the good guys are saved, the lovers fall in love. You know how it starts, you know how it ends; the important thing is what happens in the middle, as in life”, concludes Virginia.
One thing is for sure, in soap operas the villains will suffer and they will not get away with it, even if we only follow them to see the evil deeds of Luisito Rey, Dinora Rosales or Soraya Montenegro. Luismi’s father, the bad madwoman who shakes “Passion of Hawks” and the despicable antagonist of “María, la del Barrio” have been claimed by pop culture, they became a meme. They are already immortal.
Villain stories. The Argentine actress Lorraine Meritano She trained at the mythical Televisa School of Telenovelas and, there, she understood the keys to the perfect villain with which she triumphed in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and the United States. Dinora Rosales, the lousy one from “Pasión de Gavilanes”, is one of her most remembered roles. “I must admit, with one hand on my heart, that I have never seen a novel in my life,” she confesses to NOTICIAS, with her deep and unmistakable voice. “But I guess the compelling appeal of soap operas lies in the ‘Cinderella-like’ story. A story of empowerment and overcoming, where regardless of social class or impediments to being together, a couple can go through adversity so that in the end love usually wins. It’s like an illusion.”
So, how is that character that we love to hate built and why can’t we get rid of it. “Basically they are all stories with their complications in the middle and love as the final touch. And in this development the villain is fundamental -explains Meritano, who has had his hair pulled out in a supermarket or has been shouted to leave the hero of the novel alone in a shopping mall-. If it is a good soap opera we can read the fine print, the subtext of the script in the interpretation of the actress. To be a good villain you need a very wide arc. Sometimes you play nice, you lie, you’re a hypocrite. I have been crazy paralyzed, murderous. And that love-hate relationship that develops with the public is very special, because a villain unleashes the lowest of passions and also the most sublime.”
by Marcela Sovereign
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