Caray, Caray!

Jane, thanks for the very interesting article. "Jane the Virgin" is a little gem and one of my faves this fall.

Jarifa
 

I just don't think the typical telenovela can be translated or transferred to US tv. The cultures are too different and all things Latin are what make the telenovela a success.

But I know Korean telenovelas are very popular, so maybe my opinion is way wrong.
 

My friend Anna Rosa's Cuban aunts have been calling them "sopapas" all their lives.

I can understand wanting to differentiate for the uninitiated, but novelas are indeed sopapas.

They are melodrama in a serial form and have sold a gazillion bucks in soap in the last 50 years.

After people understand the difference in format, I think we should be able to call them as such.
 

Telenovelas are more like a mix of three US genres. They are on five days a week like a US daytime traditional soap opera. They are primetime and have the glamour, gloss, and glitz of a nighttime serial. And they have a defined story timeline/trajectory/arch with a planned ending, like a miniseries. But at the end of the day, the easiest way to describe them to Americans is as nighttime soaps.
 

Oh, and I'm enjoying Jane the Virgin. It's a cute, quirky show. Not sure how long they can keep it going, but they managed to keep Ugly Betty going for many seasons.
 

Great article. I'm watching Jane The Virgin and am hooked. It is campy fun and I'm loving Jaime Camil in it!

And yes, Americans best understand the term " soap opera" so this is really the best translation.
 

This made me chuckle
"Days of Our Lives has been on the air since 1965 and nobody knows what it's actually about."
 

I watch Cristela when I remember to change from Mi corazon es tuyo on Fri night, it is cute.
 

I enjoyed the article--thanks for spotting it!

Jane the Virgin is definitely on my watch list right now. (Truth is, once a week shows are much better for me.)

And I think this is the role that Jaime Camil was born to play. (As always with telenovelas I now want to take a look at previous versions--was the Rogelio character always exactly like this or was this role rewritten with Camil in mind?)
 

Good article.

I love Jane the Virgin. It is so, so funny! I have a lot of friends who watch it and I've never been able to talk them into watching a regular telenovela.

A few little errors in the article: Rafael's wife's name is Petra, not Olivia...although Petra may not be her real name. Jane's father's name is Rogelio, it's the character he plays on the telenovela within the show who is El Presidente.

I think Veronica Mars also had a lot in common with the telenovela structure, in that each season was a well-defined plot arc. It didn't wander plotwise like most American shows tend to do. It also showcased a lot of the class struggles which are a common telenovela theme.
 

I read that Jane the Virgin is so successful that they renewed it for a second season.
 

I have not watched this show, but I will give it a try. Watching the telenovelas has definitely cut down on my other TV watching. I do watch DWTS , The Voice, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, Pioneer Woman, and Homeland.
 

I must admit I thought it was a dreadful article that propagates many misconceptions about telenovelas while upholding the US media status quo of barely hidden contempt for the format and their audiences.

The article is littered with factual errors, including misidentifying characters and claiming JANE THE VIRGIN has been renewed for a second season - it hasn't yet.

Shaky stats - the article claims telenovelas are more popular than American soaps and the article puts American soap opera audiences at 2.9 million, but Young and the Restless alone last week was watched by an average of 4.7 million. The most watched telenovela in the US right now, MI CORAZON ES TUYO, averages about 3.5 million viewers a night.

There are far more than 2 types of telenovelas and it is over simplistic to reduce them to ranchera and Cinderella stories. As is typically the case when American journalist examines telenovelas, their view seems limited to Mexican productions from Televisa, ignoring the wide scope and variety when you also account for productions from Telemundo, Argos/Cadena Tres in Mexico, and national telenovelas from Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela and of course, Brazil.

Biggest misconception propagated by the article: Telenovelas are NOT targeted toward "child-bearing women." They are targeted toward both sexes equally and are watched almost equally by men and women. And they are NOT targeted toward housewife/mother cliches, they are targeted and most watched by young people, ages 18-34, the demo where Univision last Thursday finished second behind ABC, beating out first run programming on NBC, CBS and Fox.

The author betrays a special kind of cluelessness to cite J-Lo in MAID IN MANHATTAN for a cheap crack about the ubiquity of its airings on TBS but not seem aware of UNA MAID EN MANHATTAN, the Telemundo telenovela based on the movie from just a couple years ago.

The article claims JANE THE VIRGIN is a telenovela for a modern age, but most of the evidence for that modernity are things that have been happening on telenovelas for years now. HD, text-bubbled dialogue and pop culture references have all been used for years in telenovelas. JANE is said to satirize telenovelas, but telenovelas have been satirizing themselves for decades. How often do we hear a character say that only happens in telenovelas or something to that effect. On MI CORAZON ES TUYO, the bad biddy played by Carmen Salinas gets an wicked idea to frame Silvia Navarro's character via watching an episode of CORAZON INDOMABLE - you can't get more self-referential than that.

And while JANE THE VIRGIN is explicitly based on a telenovela, there are tons of US programs which are thinly veiled telenovelas at their core like PRETTY LITTLE LIARS, GREY'S ANATOMY and SCANDAL. or look at REVENGE, which is just THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO which has been adapted countless times as telenovelas, most recently as AVENIDA BRAZIL and Telemundo's LA PATRONA.
 

When & where is Jane the Virgen on?I like Jamie Camil.
 

Variopinta- The network is the CW. I think it's on Mondays. I'm not sure of time and day because I only watch it On Demand.

RG- Thanks for your insight. Anyone who actually likes the tn genre could feel the barely concealed condescension of the writer, and the factual errors made that even more clear. But if you read many of the comments it's even worse. The writer was pandering to the mostly non-tn-watching readers.
 

It's on Mondays at 9 pm (at least here) on the CW.

I think think the biggest negative stereotype of telenovelas that can keep people from watching is the notion that they are grossly overacted and the plotlines are ridiculous. In that sense, I think Jane the Virgin is doing a great job of translating the genre for a more mainstream American audience. They EMBRACE the ridiculousness and make it compelling and show that a wild plot arc, however contrived, can be really fun if it sets up a lot of good moments between the characters and snappy dialogue. It also knows when to tone things down. Jane isn't a penniless orphan working as a maid in Rafael's house. She's middle class, getting an education, working part-time at his hotel. And even the rich women aren't improbably hanging around in cocktail dresses all the time and sneering about nacos.
 

thanks Jane for posting this. i will save it for tonight to read the article itself, but i agree with Vivi, a lot of the criticism is based on the 'stereotype' and the little i have seen of Jane the Virgin i liked... its just been too busy for me to watch it all the time. but i will try.

 

Thanks for posting this Jane. I have watched novelas pretty steadily for coming up on 10 years and I LOVE them! I love the big, raw, emotionality of them, I love the high-drama and silliness of them, I love the often very fine acting and getting caught up in them. Novelas are unrivaled as a language tool and I wish I could get them in Portuguese too!

RG love your analysis.

I'm just learning about Jane the Virgin through this article and will definitely be checking it out. It's on hulu+. LOVE me some hulu+.
 

I don't think the novela idea would work here since they are mostly for child bearing female.

Someone in the comment section of the article compared them to our reality shows. I agree.

On Caray, Caray we're an elite group who enjoy, in fact thrive on mocking the telenovelas and their writers. Our comments would sound to others like constant criticism and relegate them to "trash TV". To others we don't seem like serious viewers.

We would want them changed to meet our laws and culture. Besides, I think a lot of English speaking people would feel threatened by a language they don't understand and have no intentions of learning.

Novelas may be an idea for the future, but for the present time I think the only way they would be popular is if the are geared to the large population of Latinos living in the US.
 

RG there might be some truth in your lengthy critique but its way to long. After awhile I couldn't tell which side you were on. I read the first paragraph or two before running out of time and interest about whatever point you were trying to make.
 

Anon 1:04- I think you will find that yes, there is mocking and snark here when the storyline gets silly, or characters do something stupid. But I hope you have also seen that there is equally admiration for good writing, neat plots twists, GREAT acting, favored actors, and swoon-worthy romance. And some of the most serious examination and discussion of plot developments that you will find anywhere in the online universe. In fact, if most people read how seriously we appear to take these tns on this blog, WE would be the ones mocked. As the banner on the main page states, don't mistake mocking for hate. We LOVE tns on this blog. Otherwise, most of us would not spend time here.
 

RG
I for one read your whole post and appreciated every single word you wrote and each single critique. I also thought your comments were well thought out and well presented.
Please keep blogging. Your viewpoint was appreciated.
 

thanks for the article Jane
I've called tns soap operas before too when explaining them to people who don't watch them, but I find I get a better reaction when I don't, maybe that's why the author of the article was trying to distance them from soap operas.
Apropos to this, I found this telenovela themed comedy sketch on you tube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOPiF7PN_6o

It's over the top silly, but I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe

enjoy
 

Sneaky Two Shoes

That YouTube video was so funny!!. I sent it to all my Latin in-laws and my adult son who makes fun of my Novela addiction.

Where do you guys find these YouTube videos? Do you surf all the newly posted YouTube videos every single day? I'm so old I don't understand all the available Internet stuff.

Thanks for helping to end my day with a great laugh!!!