Caray, Caray!

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Labels: telenovelas, weekend

I'm in step with those who are watching Amores Con Trampa but still catching up to La Sombra del Pasado (cap 25) and Que Te Perdone Dios (cap 34), but the sexism is getting to me.  I totally get that rural environments are often more sexist than urban ones and what's going on in ACT makes a certain amount of sense.  However in the 21st century are the other two even close to reality anymore?

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Labels: que-te, sombra, telenovelas, weekend

I have to admit due to my tech issues I haven't seen most of these and there were two I bailed on during the first week, one of which has me scratching my head.  What are your picks this year?

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Labels: telenovelas, weekend

Don't you just love it when casting directors get it right?  I love how novela producers often match up actors who look like they could share DNA as family members.  This can't pretend to be a whole archive, but merely a first installment.

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Labels: Fuego, malquerida, robo, telemundo, telenovelas, triunfo, weekend

What are some of the 2014 faves of my Caray Mates? Some things like Lo Que La Vida Me Robo or Que Pobres Tan Ricos may come to mind. I will remind you guys about Mentir Para Vivir before it frayed haywire for the last few capitulos. My favorites were Por Siempre Mi Amor, De Que Te Quiero, Te Quiero, Quiero Amarte so far, Amorcito Corazon, Pasion and Las Vias del Amor during their repeticiones.

Labels: telenovelas, weekend

Evidently you all have been longing for a definitive list of the best telenovelas and now, thanks to Victoria (Vikki) Gomez, you have it! Here is the link: List of the Greatest Telenovelas. I have also put it in the sidebar where it will lodge forever. Thanks Vikki!

Labels: telemundo, telenovelas

I think this is well written and dead on. Comments?

Is America Ready to Fall in Love with the Telenovela?

Labels: telenovelas

Labels: telenovelas, weekend

What would you rather see again vs what's happening now?  What do you miss about novelas of 20 years ago?

Let's not get into discussions about series length; we have done that to death.

I personally would prefer scenes to be longer.  Sometimes when watching novelas now I get whiplash from the quick scene changes after two or three lines of dialogue.  It gives the illusion of more action happening when in reality no more information is communicated in that episode than in an episode shot 20 years ago.

Let's have fewer situations about pregnancy entrapment or at least demonstrate that it mostly doesn't work,  We have all witnessed at least one example of this in real life and all know that the consequences aren't pretty.  The Isabelas of this world don't usually get what they want.

Force producers to make up their minds about the period of the story.  It really annoys me when they can't make up their minds and we have no idea whether it's 1950 or 2010.

Add yours, my friends.

Labels: telenovelas, weekend

Telenovelas have been breaking a few taboos in recent times and the comments in this blog indicate that people's buttons are being pushed by some of these.  What does it for you?  What would you rather see?

Labels: telenovelas, weekend

Some recent discussions are provoking this question.  What are viewers learning from novelas and what are they meant to learn instead?

La Malquerida is treading into some dangerous territory regarding misogyny and incest, La Gata is perhaps more heavily into class-consciousness than any of the others, and Mi Corazon es Tuyo shows us a large family about to explode over a marriage contracted for the wrong reasons which will have a domino effect on everyone in the entire household.  Since that series is popular in Mexico we can anticipate a long period during which a wicked stepmother will reign supreme over a previously controlling (but loving) father.  Nothing new, but this will be the largest-scale example to date.

What effect do you think this has and what should be instead?  Sound off, amigos.

Labels: gata, malquerida, mcet, telenovelas, weekend

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Labels: robo, siempre, telenovelas, weekend

Some people seem to be bailing out on Lo Que la Vida Me Robo because of the turn the story has taken. As long as Televisa (and other production companies) are in cost-cutting mode we can expect story extensions that do things like this one.  I certainly will agree that doing this to a series that begins as a comedy without an advance set-up (such as we are probably getting in Mi Corazon es Tuyo) is completely wrong, but when novelas depend on suspense, we need to deal.  I'd much rather have this than filler scenes that just attempt to inflate the original story.

Personally, I'd like to see more mystery-oriented novelas if we're looking for more male or younger viewers. The gratuitous violence and gore in narco stories is something I find as unappealing as the glorification of their lifestyles.

I mourn the absence of a good novela de epoca, but I guess the networks think they're too expensive a risk against the bleeding of younger and male viewers.  Que lastima.

Be verbose, my friends.

Labels: mcet, robo, telenovelas, weekend

For the benefit of any newbies who want to catch up on novela classics, what are your favorites and why?

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Labels: amor, no-podia, por-ella, telenovelas, weekend

Narcissism is one of the most common mental disorders of telenovela villains.  Many people have a very simplistic definition of it:  Muhammad Ali.  His "I am the greatest" is how many people see narcissism.  The sad truth is that it's far more complex than that.

Narcissists see themselves as the center of the universe.  Everyone else exists for their purposes and once they cease to satisfy them, they either become evil or non-existent.  They are incapable of dealing with their own faults and assign them to others as a way of ridding themselves of them.  In extreme form they can be diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

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Labels: amor, bravio, Fuego, QBA, robo, telenovelas, weekend

One of the things inciting constant comment here is the fashion felonies committed by many female characters in novelas (or by the fashion consultants for the shows).  It seems that femme fatale rivals and villanas are the biggest offenders, although heroines can be guilty, too.  For our purposes today we will cover the villanas, particularly since we have such a stunning example in our current prime time.

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Labels: abismo, amor, familia, no-podia, robo, telenovelas, triunfo, weekend

By CorazonSalvaje:

Ignacio Sada Madero has a Simplemente Maria remake in the works (He is one who is capable of writing good novelas which are often overlooked but honestly mentioned with affection. La Intrusa comes to mind and I think the ONLY reason(s) Bajo Las Riendas del Amor was rebuffed at the Premios TVyNovelas is because Mejia was associated with it. That and Destilando Amor robbing everything cough-Pasion-cough. I think the only awards I agreed with that year were the ones going to Lola Erase Una Vez and Pasion albeit 2 each. I think-
TBLMOE or Ed. Santamarina deserved best homme lead (but let's be real, all three leads were worthy of the prize. The only other lead was Gabriel Soto whom I can't stand.)
Angelica Rivera or Adriana Fonseca deserved best femme lead (Tie please!)
Adamariz Lopez deserved best femme fatale (but Daniela Castro was worthy as well. Keep in mind I include Bajo Las Riendas since it WAS  a Carla Estrada refrito which was harassed by Mejia. So in a way, she has 2 things for her LOL)
Bouffy or Alexis Ayala deserved best homme fatale)
Ana Martin deserved her award but I'm a sucker for Silvia Mariscal.
Marisol and German from Pasion deserved their awards.
Direccion de Camaras- Lola Erase Una Vez just because.
Escenas-Destilando Amor (was there a love scene in a barn? I remember one that was hot. Either that or Pasion because of Bouffy's decapitation scene.)
The revelation award does deserve to go to Eiza but her nominee Ariadne deserved it as well. Maybe a tie (in 2012, there was a tie for it with Laura Carmine and Alejandra Garcia.)
Best kid role went to Octavio Ocana which I agree with just because I wanted Lola Erase Una Vez to win in all it's 3 nominations LOL. (Danna Paola could have begged for a tie however.)

What is your opinion on these shows?

Labels: telenovelas, weekend

Let's start with a theme song for this (which in another sense is Pedro Medina's anthem).

We've had discussions in the past over this essential Televisa element.  They always include elements of satisfaction or dissatisfaction we have with the writers' decisions.  If the original audience in Mexico (Televisa) or the US (Telemundo) isn't satisfied with the villains' final ends I'm sure they're vocal about it.

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Labels: Karmageddon, telenovelas, weekend

We've referenced this before, but with the recent incidents in Lo Que La Vida Me Robo, Mentir Para Vivir, and even the attempted rape in De Que Te Quiero Te Quiero we can't help but wonder whether novelas in general are going down a slippery slope that can't be tilted back.

In a previous discussion on this issue we seem to have come to the consensus that the rise of the narco stories came from the networks' desire to get more male viewers.  I don't know whether that's been working for them, but edgier has been the order of the day in all television and we need to ask ourselves whether there should be a limit.  In the US there is an irrational fear of sexual content in ad-supported television which until relatively recently hasn't affected the Spanish-language networks very much.  We're complaining here -- and justifiably -- when we become aware of hot love scenes being censored because they are censoring mostly scenes that show couples who actually love each other and actors who have the right chemistry to do scenes like that.  Why are television networks so afraid of the conservative moral watchdogs who -- if they were truly what they say they are -- aren't even watching these programs and theoretically shouldn't care about them?  These people don't control all the money in this country although they are trying hard.  We should not allow them to get a foothold into our private lives.

Why instead are they not censoring violence?  Violence is the real obscenity in modern society and the constant exposure to it takes away much of its shock value.  The occasional violent scene with bruises, bloodshed, etc., can be powerful; too many such and people will begin to shrug it off.  Is this some unconscious Darwinian element nobody has identified?

Villains are also becoming more perverse as we continue down this path. Porque el Amor Manda gave us a female villain who emotionally abused her own child (as in 5 years old in the opening of the story), Amor Bravio had a male villain who raped his own niece, even planning it so that it happened just as she became mayor de edad, and a sexual blackmailer forcing the heroine into her Tosca moment (as an opera fan I sometimes wish she would have taken the same action).   LQLVMR and PSMA are currently giving us villains of such extreme sociopathy they're making our flesh crawl.  Not an episode goes by on this blog that someone doesn't comment on that.

At the moment in a series like LQLVMR violence is the price tag we're paying for the otherwise good writing and the chemistry of the two leads.  I'm not ready to walk away from such a situation, but if Televisa reads this blog, this is to let them know that there is only so much violence we should be able to tolerate in the name of ratings.

Sound off, amigos.

Labels: bravio, Manda, mentir, robo, te-quiero, telenovelas, weekend

Labels: telenovelas, weekend