Caray, Caray!

Urban, thank you for this post. I think, yes, they have declared a competition on perversity. It's as if someone has decided that they are going to serve us depravity and make us like it. Implied incest is not new, incestual rape, what's next? Pedophilia, necromancy and bestiality? Am I being extreme? No, they are! There is enough human drama and angst in love stories without making rape and sadism an unopposed star of the show! This is sick and I can't wait to see your comments on tonight's Sombra, Urban. I had to recap that crap and I not only feel dirty but furious!
 

I watched. I was angry, I was pissed. I thought about what I would say.I didn't want to offend anyone with my comment. I didn't want to come off like I was blaming the victim, cause I 'm not. What the hell are these writers/directors thinking? This character is vile, nasty,contemptible to the lowest degree of sexaul abuse. Thats the way I felt watching that. Are they going to allow her fight back? This is evil. And it ain't funny.

I'm hoping that they give this young woman the strength she needs to rise above this, and fight back. I wanted her to scratch, bite kick, do something. He got his nasty finger In her mouth, he's licking her face.they need to come up with something better than this cause I'm about ready to quit watching this telenova. After this she don't need no DNA TEST!!!!

I'm hoping I didn't over do it, if you feel the need to delete this cooment its ok.
 

Nina, I don't think you over did it and I agree with your wanting to see some fight in Aldonza. To want that is not blaming the victim. WE are the ones being victimized with the way the villain IS portrayed as all powerful and the victim as submissive and even denying any harm was done. That is vile and vicious!
 

Urban thank you for, I want to say recap, it's a post. Thank you. Wow.


 

OMG!! I have watched tonight's episode and I too was like Aldonza who just lost her energy and slumped on the stairs. Can there be any justice and sympathy for her in this cruel town and its inhabitants? No wonder her own mother committed suicide. It's despairingly oppressive even to watch this fiction. Anne
 

In Que te Perdone Dios, Fausto is not the only pervert. In tonight's episode, Lucio forced Teodora to break it off with his son Max by threatening to rape her AGAIN, then when he left he slobbered her fully on the mouth ... disgusting! She slid to the floor in tears, an emotional mess, and now Max is angry at her (of course, he didn't know his father was in the other room) and she won't have his protection.

Are these writers all men? I would hate to think a woman would write such drivel.

I can't even talk about the trash on La Sombra.

Really, writers?
 

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Nina, you have not overdone it. I could have written your post.

FeVier of PSMA seemed to be the worst of the worst for a while, seducing his son's girlfriend and almost murdering his own son while going after the two women who got his number and had him put behind bars. I wasn't really satisfied with his Karmageddon because it still left open the possibility that he could escape from prison again and I felt that death would have been the only way for Isabel and Andrea to have any peace of mind that he couldn't do anything to them again.

As to Anon at 4:04AM's question, it seems that most of the writers of all three series mentioned so far are men:

LSdP: 5 out of 6
QTPD: 6 out of 8
PSMA: 4 out of 7

There are no common names on the IMDB listings for these three series among the writers or producers. The first two series are based on original stories by Caridad Bravo Adams, who may be cursing from her grave as I type this. She created a few perverse villains but I'm sure she never envisioned that their perversity would be this blatant in future productions.

IMPORTANT: Please confine discussion here to this general issue and not get into the other elements of LSdP #74. That would not be fair to Lila and I don't want to be kicked off this blog.

Deleted, revised, and reposted to correct an important statistic.
 

Thank you for posting this Urban!

I stopped watching LSDP because it's very depressing & disgusting at what Severiano is doing to Aldonza. Plus, Candela doesn't seem to give an expletive about him attacking her!

On PSMA: You're right about how Feo/Javier, whose reign of terror. He even got one of his co-conspirators to sabotage Isabela's car, which resulted in Miguelito's death.

Plus, other people who got in Feo/Javier's way were killed too.

On LSDP: I'm getting this bad feeling that Aldonza might be driven to either leaving the country or suicide.
 

Steve, please let's not get into issues specific to this series. This discussion concerns the escalating perversity of novela villains.

In my post above I pointed out how male-dominant the writing teams currently are. That was not always the case; novelas used to have a much higher percentage of female writers in the past.

What I think is going on here is that Televisa is looking to increase male viewership without going over the line into the full-blown narco stories that Telemundo and Mundo Fox are doing. These writers probably think that increased perversity is the way to go and the way to make the villains even more despicable is to have them abuse women in the worst possible way.

I didn't mention LQLVMR because Pedro couldn't commit the crime of rape for lack of equipment. I asked myself why the writers didn't have him do so with an inanimate object but just checked the IMDB page and saw that the writing team had three women as well as three men. Four of them (one female) are now writing QTPD. He raped the minds of all his victims, the privacy of his wife-in-name-only, and endangered several children. All from a position of authority. I was satisfied with his Karmageddon because I felt he would end up dead in prison within a year or so after being raped in the cellblock the last time we saw him.

If anyone knows what people in Mexico are saying about this, please post it here.
 

Thanks UA for this outlet.

Seeping through and blatantly portrayed in many of the TN's (even comedies) is the perpetuation of a patriarchal society brainwashed. A woman asserts herself or gets out of line and rape is used as punishment. Step out of line again and be raped again.
 

That is what I'm wondering about.

I don't know if you remember the 1980s series Beauty and the Beast. Its heroine was kidnapped, possibly raped, and cut on her face. The "beast" rescued her when she was dumped in Central Park and after she went home, got most of the scar fixed, and (presumably) some psychiatric care, she took a major self-defense course in street fighting and went after the low-lifes who did this to her.

This is something novelas need to do, especially after the recent spate of misogynistic sociopaths. I have trouble deciding which is the worst of the lot.
 

I've been watching and following the recaps but had not commented until today. The degradation, humiliation and perverse actions of Sev were sickening. I hope the writers will give Aldonza the strength to literally fight back. Fer/Jav was disgusting and perverse but I was not as affected as I was last night.

DC
 

Telemundo has obviously crossed the line like millions of times with regards to villains using sadistic & heinous methods!
 

I hate to see this disgusting, awful stuff in a telenovela. The book I'm reading on sociopaths is lighter fare, right now. (The Sociopath Next Door.

I keep telling myself that I, as a viewer, am not a victim If I continue to watch a show after something so awful, because that makes me a willing volunteer.

There have been some telenovelas I dropped after the first few episodes because a rape happened right away before I bonded with characters and/or the story. I vote with my remote.
 

Doris, my wife, Alicia refuses to watch LSDP!

She can't stomach the show!
 

I too cannot stand the violence of women in the novelas but its unfortunatly a common part of the "modern" novelas so we are kind of forced to tolerate or find some other stuff to watch. I still cannot shake off the fact that in a certain novela the PROTAGONIST managed to rape the " love of his life" just because he felt like being an possesive asshole.

The violence in Que Te Perdone Dios is hideous, disgusting and straight unnerving.I am only sticking to the novela bcause of the actors and because i have to recap the show. It's not just rape, its straight beating the flip out of women and mental torture. The body counts are violent too. Our villian has no name but I like to call him Satan, Leviathan, Reptile. His terror and conquests at the expense of others have no name!

I havent seen much of La Sombra but she should have stayed in Mexico and live happily after.She should have never bothered coming back to Hell Town.
 

Note: The "she" is Aldonza
 

Sad to say but this extreme graphic violence in all media isn't going anywhere soon: too many people watching it. When the advertisers start getting hit in the pocketbook the novelas, tv shows, movies, etc. will change but not till then.

Jarifa
 

I realize that violence is a major part in most of the shows but when its the main point of the show it simply begins to suck balls.
I would like to see more deep villians that have a shred of decency instead of full blown psychopaths.I have always liked interesting villians in other shows.
 

Most novela villains have no shred of decency at all. If they love their children, for example, they are still usually obsessed with controlling them.

The perversity of villains who develop sexual obsessions with step-daughters or whomever whom they have known since birth are particularly creepy to me.
 

I think i like villians who become villians due to social pressure but still have a certain respect to someone. The ideas of psychos and sexual obsessions are getting tame. I am wondering how much time will have to pass until all the viewers get tired of the same schemes over and over again. But of course any actor would love to play a psycho for a big paycheck since everyone loves psychos.
 

Urban
Glad to tune in and see your Weekend Discussion page. I have said many times that the male characters in this latest novela trend have taken their evilness, sick sexual obessions, perversions, depravity, etc.,etc. to the absolute lowest level mankind can reach.

If as someone has commented regarding Televisa's wishes dedication to increase its male audience, I don't think they will be successful at all.

Mainly, because at least 30% -- 40% of married female audience, would find such a change in typical novela convention unsupportable and wouldn't be on board letting their their male spouses watch such a dark telenovela. RAPE, INCEST, ETC, ETC

Urban,
looking so forward to seeing you again on QTPD. Please post soon.
 

"I am wondering how much time will have to pass until all the viewers get tired of the same schemes over and over again."

IIRC, telenovelas are losing viewers in noticeable numbers, both here in the U.S. And Mexico. These same tired old plots, rerun to death and more over the top each time, might be why. Just a guess.
 

I think I'm going to keep watching new novelas for me on Youtube, even if I end up repeating them over and over: and I'll watch only the really interesting ones, or promising ones, on YouTube.

Only new novelas with great casting and believeable storylines will I watch on Televisa. I'll try more Telemundo and Azteca with Edith Gonzalez on board.

And back to Law and Order. I'm sure I've seen each episode at least 1/2 dozens times throughout the last 20 some odd years


 

Clarification

Anything but Narcos. LRdS, fantastic !!!!! but no more of this genre for me.
 

Victoria, I'd love to be commenting there but I'm so far behind!
 

Urban, interesting topic.

I once saw an interview with Angélica Aragón, who is a fantastic actress, and she said that she had lost the interest in telenovelas when more and more males began writing them, she felt that they were losing the female perspective and she prefers a telenovela with a more balanced writing team.

I don't think La Sombra del Pasado generated any particular shock or outrage here, it did great when it started, then it lost steam and recovered in the end when it comes to ratings (but the football season stopped it from getting back to the early ratings). This is the third version of this story, the first one with Adela Noriega didn't create that talk either 15 years ago. I can't explain why, it just didn't.

I don't think there's any tragic event that has upset Mexican audiences in that way in years. I think in Mi Pecado there was a moment when people were shocked at the reveal of Lucrecia being a product of incest for example, but that had more to do with how well hidden that part of Rosario's life was while giving hints of something bigger than Cesar's death being the reason of her disdain for her daughter. It was how well designed that reveal was what caused the emotion, the fact that the writers kept that not just from the characters but from us viewers the whole time, unlike in other stories where we know what they don't and we are just waiting for them to react.

About males, they already watch telenovelas. Many of them just don't like to talk about it.

Jarocha


 

Thanks UA, this topic is well over due. There is really no excuse for the perversity on these TNs, especially knowing that the majority of their audience are female. Men can be macho without raping and carrying on the way TN villains are portrayed. In a world where 50 Shades of gray is acceptable, TN writers aught to make their shows family friendly. We keep getting slime because we keep watching. I started watching TNs for the Spanish but over the years I have gotten much more than I bargained for. There is enough filth out there in the real world, we certainly don't need it here. QTPD, I can only watch if I fast forward all of Fausto's pervertions. This is not only limited to men, women characters have been known help in the rapes of other women. Mac on QTPD for example, was offering Abi to Fausto as a play toy. Even he had the 'decency ' to refuse. There was a character, ( i forget which show) who produced the rape drug for the rape of an innocent girl. Turned out to be her daughter but at the time the possibility wasn't considered. Why can't men be strong without violence against women in TN world? I guess they figure we will stop watching if we are sick enough of it.

Hanna
 

The increasing use of perversity stacked on top of evil is a distressing trend. I don't know if the writers are trying to balance increased women's rights with more powerful villains? There have been some super-evil women villains, but don't recall the perversity factor with any of them. If this is an effort to attract more (male) viewers, it feels very discouraging to me and kills my desire to watch.


 

Since 'Caray, Caray' has such a far reaching and extensive numerous audience is there anyway we could put together a petition with, say, our 3 to 5 top requests, such as "stop repeating novelas hardly in the ground". Hundreds of thousands of people join 'Caray, Caray' everyday. If we could start a petition and get a lot of signatures, would it be naive to think that Televisa would listen to us?
 

I don't know, Victoria.

However, I am not in favor of making all novelas G-rated. I like ones that have an adult and intelligent approach to sexual matters and ones that don't shrink from these subjects. It would be ridiculous in 2015 to insist that everyone refrain from sex until marriage, like in Barbara Cartland novels.

I know that men in Latin America watch novelas, but always suspected that the local audiences skewed slightly female. The audiences in the US have been more female-skewing until the introduction of the narco stories. I wonder how this is in other countries, because all television production companies that export their product must be considering foreign sale in their business model.
 

I just read this article on the season finale of Outlander. You don't have to know anything about the show or have read the books, because the article focuses on how rape in portrayed on television. It's a good read and relevant to our discussion: http://tinyurl.com/ozqr7g8
 

This is what telenovelas are in competition with. At least there is a discussion of the male character's rape in the season finale of Outlander all over the net as there was earlier with him beating his wife in the same series as well as all the rapes in Game of Thrones. People are talking and debating, but will it result in a change? Would be nice, but I won't hold my breath. Thanks for the link, Urban, and the discussion topic.

Jarifa
 

For me, I think what makes these storylines most disturbing is that 1) the comeuppance rarely seems enough for the crime 2) the we rarely get to see the victim work through the trauma (often it seems like they just accept it with little more reaction than if the person had back handed them and called them by a curse word) 3) we rarely get to see the victim fight back.

In CME, we did get to see a victim escape from a tormentor, but even then the tormentor was not nearly as hurt and was able to mentally torment her afterwards.
 

The rape stuff is the choice of the sponsors.As long as sponsors desire to promote sexual violence, nothing will actually change.
 

CountxAlacran, ITA. As long as advertisers are getting money from their sponsorship of shows that promote sexual violence, nothing will change. Only when people stop watching these show and sponsors/advertisers aren't getting the return on the money they have invested in these shows, will anything change. It all comes down to $$$.

Jarifa
 

The extreme cruelty (sexual and otherwise) turned me off to dramatic TNs several years ago. When the violence against women overflowed into the comedies, it became difficult to watch those too. The last TN I watched wasn't like that, but between the sadism and the recycled storylines I just couldn't watch any more.

TNs are supposed to be about human beings trying to find happiness and overcome obstacles together. Neither the stories nor the characters have to be perfect, but it's important that we like and admire our protagonists for the way they cope with and learn from their struggles. But that's impossible when they are repeatedly being deceived and harmed by the same old tactics, failing to recognize obvious warning signs, and meekly offering known evildoers a third or fourth chance to harm even more people.

After the gran final, you wonder how long the happy couple's bliss can possibly last before the next troublemaker rides into town, cons them out of their money and splits them up. And gives them a fatal disease.

Admittedly, there's always been at least a little of that in most of the TNs I've seen, but it seems to have greatly increased in just the last couple of years. These are not stories of empowerment. They're the product of writers/producers who have forgotten that there is any kind of fantasy other than the sick kind.

I don't even particularly mind certain types of sickie shows, in small weekly doses. But watching even one TN at a time is a five-hour per week commitment, and more if I want to hang out at Caray to talk about it (which is the only reason I would watch a TN any more). I had to make a conscious decision not to watch something that I knew would just depress me night after night.
 

Watching rape stories is tough when someone in QPD raped a person THREE times yet there is given a second chance to the violator but still the violator is now after the victims daughter. But there is still not much outrage instead the violator is applauded as he turned overnght into the man everyone trusts and loves WTF
 

Like yall said it wont change any time soon. These networks want what brings in the big ratings. unfortunately this kind of story telling brings in the ratings which brings in sponers and the audience Is rather large. People (some people) like this kind of stuff. In plain English and Spanish, "SMUT SELLS".
I'm saying use your own discretion people, you can always use the clicker and go "click click", that's what I do when theres a scene I don't want to see.
 

Honestly, I'm sometimes more bothered by the reactions (why didn't she fight more?) than the event itself.

Even though we are talking about fictional characters, comments like that continue to harm women I the real world.
 

In novelas the thing i mostly hate about rape drama is that the women do not fight back after the rape. I would have expected the gal to go ballistic on the perpetrator or the most proffesional thing if a rape drug wasnt used: Call the doctor. Not giving the violators more chances to commit the acts again eww.
 

CountxAlacran, in my earlier post I said shows "promote sexual violence" what I really meant to say is that they "depict" sexual violence because nobody would "promote" something like that.

Jarifa
 

They actually do "promote" it but its in the hidden. Violent shows do affect certain people in making them more agressive and disrespectful to others aince people sometimes make a model in everything. Sponsors may have even begun to like the drivel that they spent their $$$ on promoting

To me La Sombra merely depicts it but QPD just seems to love engraving the terror inside of us all. Besides we have already heard the message that rape brings million and million times in our novelas, its about time they try moving to more exotic stories.
 

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Sometimes make a model out of everything *
Pardon for the silly typos
 

Is there a kind of brainwashing going on with this?

I have previously stated that I've become less affected by certain kinds of violence and gore in slasher movies and "cult" films. Are these storylines coming from some motive to make women accustomed to the possibility of rape? Are they meant to make us more fearful or accepting of the notion that "this is how men are and you are nothing"? We know that pornography and violent things can provoke such behavior in someone who has never been guilty of it before and we also know that mob mentality can encourage such behavior in those who would never think to do it individually on their own.

While fighting back is not always the answer, this series seems to be going in the direction that it is not possible.
 

Urban , It's all divide and conquer. Horrible things happen to men too and you also have feminists claiming men are trash. In this case they are making the woman look like garbage. It's an endless circle of circuling hatred & disgust like a boomerang while the Entertainment Industries are bathing in the $$$.
 

By "they " i meant the Men not the Women*
 

So let me preface this b saying I am not Catholic, so Im not sure how this comes across to Catholics and if the TNs I have seen had depicted more religions, I think my post would apply to them as well, if they played out the same way.

I'm not sure how far the religious model plays in to this, but when I first started watching novelas, the heroines were almost universally child like. A big part of this for me was their ability to forgive, which, imo, seemed heavily rooted into their faith. It was the idea that it was not their place to judge the person that had done them wrong and even to forgive that person to the point of acting as though nothing had ever happened seemed synoymous with being a good Catholic.

I'm all for giving people second chances, but often I think the producers go over the line in making the heroines so forgiving as to seem dumb. Forgive them, but don't allow them to keep hurting you. Remove them from your life because they are toxic. The villains lay these cruel guilt trips on protagonists, basically equating the protagonists' attempt to remove themselves from the villains circle of infuence as "punishing" the villain, judging them where only God should and/or not providing them with a good Catholic example to follow on their new, often overnight journey to be a better person.
 

We've discussed the concept of forgiveness in the past; it's one of my pet peeves. I don't believe in it until and unless the other person is in no position to hurt you again.

Martyrdom is not healthy.
 

My understanding and way I live is this --- Forgiveness is not about the other person who wronged me.. It's about me. Forgiving someone does not mean I have to let them hurt me again, or even get near them again.
 

Beautifully said, doris.
 

I'm annoyed by the way forgiveness is sometimes portrayed in TNs because it is contrary to what I was taught as a child (by nuns, in a Catholic school). I was taught that if you are sorry, you have to apologize, AND you have to do something to show that you're sorry. (Replace what you broke/stole, or turn yourself in, or agree to stay away - whatever.) THEN I can forgive you.

I don't think we ever discussed what to do if this protocol is not followed, but I always assumed that if you don't do something to show your contrition, or if your subsequent actions show that you don't have a contrite bone in your body, I don't have to forgive you. You can work out a penance to God in Confession, but I don't have God's power to see into your heart and it's your responsibility to show me that your intentions are good.

And I was certainly never taught that forgiveness means giving someone a free pass for future transgressions, or forgetting what that person is capable of. What a terrible concept.

So yeah, it's infuriating when a TN character (not all of them have been women) will forgive someone after receiving a really lame apology. In some cases they'll forgive with NO apology, and I even recall some characters who made excuses for what someone else did to them. It's a thousand times more infuriating when this character is our protagonist(a) and is portrayed as a virtuous person. Making excuses for people and giving them a free pass isn't forgiveness. It's not virtue. It's irresponsible and potentially dangerous.
 

Yeah, Julie! Thanks for reminding me that sometimes our galans fall prety to these manipulations too. It's so frustrating when the villain asks for a second chance, but they haven't changed, but they "need" the chance in order to demonstrate that they've changed. It's this almost cyclical logic that forces the character to "turn the other cheek" and "wipe the slate clean". Ugh.