Friday, August 03, 2012

Weekend Discussion: Telenovela Villains; Peer(less) Evil


Dirty Dozen #3:   Femmes Fatales

Now we get to a particularly lethal species of female viper, the femmes fatales, the women who think they're the gods' gift to the men from whom they demand gifts. Not always clad in plunging necklines, stiletto heels, and red lipstick, they demand everything and get it... until Karmageddon gets them.  Always involved in one-upwomanship competitions with the female characters in their peer groups – and sometimes beyond that – for the attention of any or all of the males, they will use seduction as the primary weapon and deception as a close second. Frequently as sadistic as seductive, they are motivated either by pride, revenge, or greed. Whether toxic relative or false friend, the femme fatale is a typical narcissist and often a vile sociopath. Most are succubi and emotional vampires in other ways and – fortunately – few ever live to become the toxic mothers of future protagonists.

Who is the most evil of them all?




Character (Actress): Aimée Altimira (Ana Colchero)
Series: Corazón Salvaje (1993)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Aiding and abetting a prison escape
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Marrying for money and position, attempt at seducing sister's husband, prevarication
Interim Punishment(s): Rejection by husband and man she intended to seduce
Karmageddon: Death (back broken through riding accident caused by foreman)


Character (Actress): Deborah Falcón de Rivera (Nailea Norvind)
Series: Abrazame Muy Fuerte (1999)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Murder, accessory to murder
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Incestuous Adultery
Interim Punishment(s): Accident (thrown from horse), accident (automobile, resulting in death of one twin son)
Karmageddon: Murdered by Federico


Character (Actress): Cordelia Portugal de Ibañez (Yadhira Carillo)
Series: La Otra (2002)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Criminally negligent homicide
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Rejection of daughter
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Death (drowned by Adrian)


Character (Actress): Marcia Montenegro (Angelica Rivera)
Series: Mariana de la Noche (2003)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Murder, kidnapping
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Attempted seduction of niece's lover, prevarication, confessional abuse, incest
Interim Punishment(s): Loss of Ignacio (whom she never really had)
Karmageddon: Murdered by Atilio


Character (Actress): Karina Sanchez de Soriano (Mercedes Molto)
Series: Niña Amada Mia (2003)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Business fraud, attempted murder
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Adultery, attempted seduction of stepdaughter's fiancé
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Death (trampled by horse in stall)


Character (Actress): Joselyn de Cervantes-Bravo (Edith Gonzales)
Series: Mundo de Fieras (2006)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Attempted murder (first husband), murder (3 counts), child neglect
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Adultery, psychological abuse
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Suicide (jumping off high terrace)


Character (Actress): Ruth Uribe (Susanna Zabaleta)
Series: Fuego en la Sangre (2007)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Fraud, accessory to murder
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Attempted seduction of another woman's lover, adultery, psychological torture, possible intent to kidnap three children
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Death (stabbed by Fernando during sexual relations)


Character (Actress): Barbara Greco (Lucero)
Series: Mañana es para Siempre (2009)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Murder (several counts), kidnapping
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Adultery
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Disfigurement and madness


Character (Actress): Renata Valencia (Jessica Coch)
Series: Mi Pecado (2010)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Manslaughter (1 count)
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Attempted seduction of cousin's lover, prevarication, complicity with toxic aunt to control cousin
Interim Punishment(s): None
Karmageddon: Death (gunshot wound)


Character (Actress): Maripaz Lomieli Curiel (Laisha Wilkins)
Series: La Fuerza del Destino (2011)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Vehicular homicide, child abuse, grand theft (Carlota's jewelry)
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Seduction of sister's lover, adultery, prevarication
Interim Punishment(s): Being grounded (however temporary)
Karmageddon: Died during complications of transplant surgery (donating a kidney to her mother)



Character (Actress): Sinthia Montero de Durán (Susanna Gonzalez)
Series: La Que No Podia Amar (2011)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law (to date): 2nd degree murder (multiple counts), attempted murder, feticide (Ana Paula's 4-month fetus), escape from jail, auto theft, arson
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law (to date): Adultery, prevarication, psychological torture, familial treason
Interim Punishment(s): Unrequited love, arrest
Karmageddon: Disfigurement (fire), prison


Character (Actress): Carmina Bouvier de Castañon (Sabine Moussier)
Series: Abismo de Pasión (2012)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law (to date): 2nd degree Murder (2 counts), theft
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law (to date): Adultery, bearing false witness, document theft and forgery
Interim Punishment(s): Accidents (loss of infant after first, crutches after the second)
Karmageddon:  Serious leg injury followed by double amputation.  Commits suicide in her hospital bed (using scissors left behind by a nurse).



Honorary Members (because their Karmageddons were inadequate)



Character (Actress): Bárbara Guaimarán (Edith Gonzáles)
Series: Doña Bárbara (2009)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Murder (multiple counts), Embezzlement
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Abandonment of daughter and husband
Interim Punishment(s): Loss of Santos
Karmageddon: Self-banishment. Repented, did charitable work, died of natural causes.


Character (Actress): Rubi Pérez Ochoa de Ferrer (Bárbara Mori)
Series: Rubi (2004)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: Criminally negligent homicide
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Abandoning lover to steal another man, greed, prevarication, adultery
Interim Punishment(s): Temporary imprisonment (legal and domestic)
Karmageddon: Disfigurement and poverty, but with a new revenge plan


Character (Actress): Teresa Chávez Aguirre de la Barrera (Angelique Boyer)
Series: Teresa (2011)
Crimes Punishable by Man's Law: None I remember
Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Greed, disrespectful toward family, potential adultery
Interim Punishment(s): Shot by client's widow, paralyzed for a year
Karmageddon: None; she made a show of redemption by donating a fortune to charity and got Arturo (and his potential future fortune) back

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Comments:
UA once again thank you for your new list. I can't wait to see some of these villainesses. My conflict w/Teresa was I disliked the fact that one of the few female characters that was written as intelligent and not weak (always crying) was a villain. It seems most TN heroines are often stupid and cry all the time. The galans can be very flawed and I wish the female heroines could be allowed to act out more and not cry so much.
 

Karen- Valentina in Soy Tu Duena acted out, in a BIG way! Like, burning down the man's property. LOL! And that got on people's nerves too. She for sure acted more like a male galan-- hot headed, lashing out, jumping to conclusions, whipping things, shooting at people, and making the man who loved her cry. She even took a mariachi band to his house in the middle of the night to serenade him and appologize for acting like a dumbass. Yep, just like a galan.
 

Thanks Urban for this great post. I recognize many of these villainesses. More tomorrow. I am fascinated by the trampoline competition! Most fun Olympic sport I think. :)
 

I once came to the conclusion that you can get typecast as a villain if you can't cry on cue. You don't even necessarily have to cry prettily, just be able to cry on cue.

However, that doesn't prevent writers from having villanas cry manipulatively.

Had I practiced what I took the degree for I would have ended up a villana if I could act in Spanish at the time. I am so Anglo I refuse to cry in public, but that could also be due to 20+ years in business.
 

I immediately think about Carlota Espinoza de Los Monteros in El Nombre del Amor. She deserved paralysis and prison!
 

Urban, thank you for your entertaining weekend posts.

What about Ivana on STuD? (Gaby Spanic), She plots against her own cousin to take her money by having her boyfriend seduce and marry her cousin in order to divorce her, get her money and marry Ivana. She kills some guy, she tries to get her cousin's new boyfriend. I know she did some other despicable things but my memory fails here.
 

Emarie- Ivana also killed her nana (Ana Martin). We were all up in arms about that one.
 

Thanks, UA, for an entertaining list. I'm relatively new to TNs (I think En Nombre del Amor was the first one I saw unabridged), so most of the villains on your list are new to me. But I definitely agree with the suggestions to add Carlota from ENDA and Ivana from STuD. (To be honest, I had mostly given up on STuD even before Ivana killed the Ana Martin character, but I did see that episode, as well as Ivana's earlier evil deeds.)
 

Juanita and Anon- Tia Carloca made it to Urban's earlier Novela Villains post: http://caraycaray.blogspot.com/2012/06/study-of-novela-villains-part-one.html
 

I agree that Ivana deserves to be on this list. She will lead the next one of this type. I just couldn't remember all the details of her crimes.

There definitely are more I couldn't think of, but one thing we can be sure of: The producers will always provide more of them!
 

Thanks, UA, for a wonderfully entertaining post. I took a trip down TN memory land.

I'm so glad that you started with Aimee, a villianess truly worth her salt in such a marvelous novela.
 

Vivi, yes you are right Valentia was allowed to act just as badly as the boys. Though I want acting out, I don't want stupidity and Val & most other male galans lived in that realm at least for a while. Both her and Ivana and the death of poor Nana made that TN more challenging to like.

OMGoodness, yess the trampoline competition was fascinating!

Yes UA you should add Ivana as she was quite the femme fatal. In addition to Vivi and Emarie's list, she seduced an older man, whose ghost haunted her - that was great (wish that would happen to Agent Orange on Abismo) - and I think she made a few passes at the main villain as well (but he wanted Val in that crazy way most villains do).
 

Fedra on LLena de Amor??
 

Thanks for this excellent list!

One fine femme fatale who deserves to be remembered is Sara from Querida Enemiga. Her first crime was embezzling from the very orphanage in which she had grown up - stealing from nuns and orphans. After she discovered that she'd been left in a garbage can as an infant by her birth mother, she moved on to eviller and awfuller things, including seducing a bunch of guys for money, help with her crimes, and jealousy-motivated revenge against her former best friend.

And that's just scraping the surface of all the bad things she did. Murder. Identity theft. Cheating and plagiarism. You name it. She was spectacular. Her karmageddon was to end up in a prison where the alpha bitch bragged that she was so cold-hearted, she once left her own baby in a trash can. Yep, it was Sara's mom. What a coincidence. As for their reunion - let's just say they were all choked up (literally, by each other, hands on throats, outcome unknown.)

STuD's Ivana was also a notable villainess and femme fatale - but only because the script allowed it. Most of her schemes were too ludicrous and/or stupid to take seriously, even though they worked in STuD.
 

Julie, I never saw Querida Enemiga, but that definitely is one for the books.

Karma is a b1tch with PMS.

Juanita, the Wedding Album thread has the link to the 1993 Corazon Salvaje, which is an absolute classic. Aimee is not over the top the way some of these others are, so a bit more believable. Whatever you do, don't settle for the DVD of that one because you miss too much of her bitchiness.

BTW, when LQNPA and AdP are over, the lead post will be updated with the relevant data.
 

UA:

Very nice list indeed. I have to give my overall vote to Barbara Greco of MEPS. I keep saying that I think that this is how Cinthia of your current show, LNQPA, will end up as well,even though Cinthia is not in Barbara's league in terms of evil.

Barbara gets that extra 'boost' because she was a patricide very young and then recruited/exploited into her 25 year long scheme of evil from there.

Shudder.

Carlota of ENDA was quite scary though, I must admit.

Thanks, Urban for making our weekends more amusing with these posts.

Elna June
 

Anytime! I don't have many people in the F2F (face to face) world to discuss these things with, so I'll create opportunities for it when I can.

Since I posted this I've been wondering which countries saw which ending to Teresa and how they felt about it. I'm also wishing Telemundo would show Dona Barbara again. That was an amazing story and they were so lucky to sign Edith Gonzales for the role. Nobody else could have done it better.
 

Urban- They just replayed Dona Barbara late last year. That's when I saw it.
 

I know, but it wasn't on at a convenient time for me.

Telemundo reran PdG twice, so I hope they run this one again.
 

Thank you, Urban, for the list! Barbara Greco, La Hyena, gets my vote as most evil; her patricide and matricide clinched it for me. She certainly deserved her heinous Karmageddon.
 

Great choices UA! Yes, I agree, Barbara Greco was the worst villainess that I have ever seen, but I've missed a lot of novelas. In Gancho,La Monita's mother(Isabel?) was terrible, she was intent on making her daughter miserable, couldn't stand her. She just slipped off a cliff at the end.... good riddance!

Wonder why there are so many really terrible women in novelas, are these horrible gals rating magnets? It seems to be a role reversal to real life statistics.

Thanks UA, this is always fun!
 

Yeah Aimée! I love Ana Colchero.

About the endings of Teresa Urban: This question was asked at the univision boards sometime ago, from what I remember Mexico, Colombia, Central America and the US (and I think all of the Eastern European countries that I've heard of) had the Arturo returning to Teresa finale. Venezuela had the Teresa returns to her bad ways finale (and some other country that I can't remember) and I think it was Perú that had the Teresa is murdered finale. Most countries went for the Mexican finale.

Jarocha
 

Gracias, Jarocha.

I hated the Teresa finale. I couldn't buy the idea of her reforming and Arturo being fool enough to take her back. I also felt that the idea of Fernando killing her didn't have adequate build-up. The only one of the three choices that made any sense was having her start over and go back to her greedy ways.
 

The problem with the “Mexican” Teresa ending is the same problem most novelas have, with the exception of Doña Bárbara, the antagonist is unreasonably horrible for years, novela time, and then changes in 24 hours. If Teresa had changed at the time of her father’s death, suffered the shunning, then worked her way back into her family and career, with a few años despues thrown in, her redemption would have been palatable and “Teresa” might have been considered a great classic novela. It certainly isn't on my list of "great classic novelas!"
 

Thanks, UA! I haven't seen many of these, but you've certainly got your finger on the pulse of the prototype.

The only actual crime I could think of for Teresa was making a false police report (theft of the euros.) Doesn't seem like much, does it?

What about Jessica Coch in CME? Worst. Sister. Ever.
 

Indeed. Roberta will be in the next edition of this list.

If anyone else would like to provide others from past productions or Telemundo ones I'm not seeing these days please feel free to e-mail me the details for future lists.

For myself, I thought Aimee despicable for attempting to ruin Monica's relationship with Juan but she certainly held her own against Sofia in the early episodes.
 

Urban: I loved the Sofía/Aimée interaction in CS93. I thought it was very real and both actrecess were excellent there. I have to give it to Sofía, she clearly prefered Mónica as a daughter in law but she went with her son's wishes instead of being a domineering mother clished character.

I don't have a problem with the Mexican finale of Teresa, because I don't really believe Teresa changed all that much, she just decided to not screw over the people she actually loved and to prove herself she gave away Fernando's money. I think Arturo would have always loved her no matter what, so I was fine with his choice to go back with her because otherwise he would have been very unhappy and I think he deserved to be happy even if she didn't. I think redemption for Teresa will come later, after the finale, meanwhile, she won't have any other form of support but a probably weary Arturo.

Jarocha
 

Sofia was sensible enough in the early part of that series to not want to alienate her son. However, her later manipulations were not good for either him or herself.

My take on Teresa is that she never loved Arturo in a real sense and would eventually hurt him again. I don't think she deserved to get him back.
 

I loved Aimee and IN YOUR FACE villain Barbara Greco... both had a faccade of innocent victim to their spouse but scheeming at will inside.
 

Barabara Mori as Rubi was my very first villainess and, though there have been some really GOOD ones since, she has remained my Favorite of All Time. My brother was the one who started me watching Rubi (he was so hooked), and Rubi is what hooked me on novelas.

Yeah, "Root" bought the farm really good (Fuego en la Sangre), but I really hated the evil matriarch, ugh! LOL And right now, I'm having an incredible hate-on-hate relationship with Carmina B. (Abismo de Pasion).

Thanks for this great post, U.A. :)


 

Surprised not to see # 1 Gaby Spanic, #2 Catherine SinAndChokeYou, #3 Maritza Rodriguez.

"Crimes Punishable by Divine Law: Marrying for money and position, attempt at seducing sister's husband, prevarication." Prevarication? Everyone lies all the way thru telenovelas, villains, heros, & 2ndary characters! Did you leave fornication off the list? Fornicators & liars go to the Lake of Fire!
 

you should put rubi from angel rebelde or crystal from angel rebelde . i want to see roxana de la o from amigas y rivales
 

put roxana from amigas y rivales
 

i think Maura Duran from Tormenta en el Paraiso is the best one next to Carlota and all them since she is just a complete psycho. SHe is such a bitch though.....
 

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