Caray, Caray!

Extracts from
Bust and boom: TV tale of breasts, drugs a hit
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- In a nation obsessed with soap operas, it's the hottest telenovela in years.

Airing nightly in prime time, "Sin Tetas no hay Paraiso" -- "Without (Breasts) There's No Paradise" -- revolves around a 17-year old call girl who agonizes that her flat chest is a barrier to deliverance from poverty and a life of ease as a drug trafficker's pampered plaything.

In real life, 25-year old newcomer Maria Adelaida Puerta, the actress who plays the series' protagonist, Catalina, is nothing like her airhead character. Most importantly, she vows to never follow the example of her buxom co-stars and go under the knife.

Colombia's passion for implants is almost unmatched. According to the Colombian Society of Plastic Surgeons, more than half of the 450,000 operations performed last year were breast augmentations costing an average $2,000-$3,000 per procedure -- more than half a year's salary for the 58 percent of the country living below the poverty line.

That would seem to support not Puerta's view but rather what Catalina's catty antagonist in the series, Jessica, tells her: "What matters today is having a good pair of tits -- no matter if they're made of rubber, wood or stone."

Recently, the mayor of Ibague, a city 80 miles west of Bogota, agreed to finance tummy tucks, butt lifts and other aesthetic operations for the city's secretaries and public employees. To date, more than 400 women have taken advantage of the offer.

"It's overwhelming in Colombia the pressure on women to have a voluptuous, artificially perfect body," said Puerta.

Not everyone is convinced of the show's merits. Said Florence Thomas, a researcher of gender issues at Bogota's National University: "The only thing producers were after in showing so much cleavage was a higher rating."