Amor Real

The first telenovela I began watching was Amor Real. From the beginning of the theme song they show the two protagonists together in a field. Things are happy, they are in love, and everything is moving in slow motion. When the scene changes, so does the music. A more fast-beat song begins to play with a sense of danger arriving. This lets you know things aren’t going to be easy in many aspects for these lovers. It is set in the 19th century so the problems that arrive match the time period and the typical problems that happened during that era. Also, the telenovela corresponded with the culture and setting the show and makers portrayed.
I watched it with a few friends and they enjoyed it as well. However, they appreciated it in a different way. Latino people and watchers of the show understand what sort of feelings and emotions should be happening based on what’s going on. Besides facial expressions and music leading you to those feelings, other people don’t exactly understand how big the events may be. For instance, although my friends knew something intense was happening, they could not stop laughing. It may have been because usually when someone is that dramatic people in our society find it entertaining and humorous. The character’s situation and level of infortune added to the crazy story line.
Furthermore, within the first five minutes, the telenovela contained many of the story topics you told us about. There was a young couple in love. However, the woman was wealthy and the man was not. At the same time her mother was trying to marry her off to a wealthy gentleman. The mother did not know about the relationship, but would most likely not support it. At the same time, with another family, a father died and his son inherited all of his money. It did not show their interaction, but you can assume their social class (and possibly her mother) is what will bring them together. In such a small amount of time so much happened. And you can feel that so much more is about to unravel. Like you said the story leaves you wanting more and I’m so excited to see what’s next! (:

Eva Luna

I must admit, I can now see why my mom gets addicted to watching soap operas.  Eva Luna, the telenovela I chose, is non-stop entertainment.  As I mentioned in class, in the first episode alone, the character Eva, must have met eyes with her future love at least four times.  And every time these connecting moments happened, romantic music began to play.  The story is a bit hard to follow at times, maybe because of the language barrier, but with subtitles and the constant twists, the story pulls me in.  The classic moment of a woman slapping a man in anger happened as well, a thrilling moment haha.  I look forward to continuing to watch my telenovela, for the captivating story of course, but the sexy looking telenovela actresses are an added bonus.  

Telenovelas

I was so excited when I found this FYOS. I love Hispanic culture and the language and it is one of my goals to become fluent in the language. What better way to help out than to take a class on Spanish soap operas? I hadn't really seen any. I watched a Rebelde episode in high school one day but other than that, I just knew they were very dramatic. From what Dr. A has told us in class, I can tell that I was right. I chose to watch this series for my paper so hopefully it will turn out well.

My Mom aka Telenovela Lady

I am already very familiar with telenovelas because my mom was (and still is) a telenovela fan. Growing up, I remember sitting with her in the living room and watching a couple episodes of what ever novela was popular at the time. I would often think that my mom was too easily entertained by the over-dramatic love stories they would air but I think that is what made them so alluring to watchers. Because without fail, telenovelas would offer strong feelings of excitement, despair, and passion that capture people's emotions.
The going-ons of the telenovelas would also get my mom gossiping to me about what she thought was going to happen and what should have happened, etc. I thought it cute for my mom to be so enthused about telenovelas--that's her thing. They are a part of her and she is a part of them. Telenovelas are dramatic and exaggerated in just about every aspect and so is my mom. When she gets happy, she gets HAPPY. When my mom gets mad, she gets MAD. I could swear that my mom's expressions have been shaped by the many novelas she has watched over the years.Telenovelas and my mom go hand-in-hand and it mainly for this reason that I signed up for this FYOS class.
As far as choosing a novelas goes..I'll probably pick Teresa. This novela interests me because the female protagonist isn't the typical good-girl. She has a very selfish and cunning personality that she masks with a pretty face. I have seen parts of episodes last year when it first aired but never actively followed the story. I would like to watch it and see how it unfolds in the end because I imagine it to have an ending different than the lovey-dovey telenovelas.

When I first signed up for this class it was because it was the only thing that fit in with my schedule. I also assumed that telenovela was just the Spanish word for soap opera. I have never really been hooked on a particular soap opera before, so I was curious to see how this would go for me. However, after watching the powerpoints in the two classes we've had so far, I quickly discovered that telenovelas were in there own realm of television, and that we were actually comparing them to the typical American soap opera. I am a little nervous that my Spanish will not be good enough to watch one and fully keep up, but I am definitely excited for the challenge to improve my Spanish. Also, many of the clips we have watched in class have interesting story lines so I am excited to pick one to watch. I have never really thought about studying a show in depth and think this will be a neat opportunity.

Telenovela?

To be honest, I initially signed up for this class for my skeptical reasons: it ends early, and I get to watch movies all day (it was just an hopeful thought). However, after the first day I realized that this was actually an interesting topic with a heavy load of historical and cultural background, and that I should never consider the class as a joke. I began to find interest in Telenovelas, and gained respect for it.

I never watched American Soap Opera, so my knowledge in that area was very poor. However, I am a film major and am very interested in any kind of films such as movies, TV shows, YouTube videos, etc. Therefore when we started to watch many example clips of Telenovelas in class, I quickly began to understand how the plots were set up and how the production came about to be.

I watched a couple of Telenovelas in the past while aimlessly flipping through channels on TV. I didn't even know that what I watched was a Telenovela until I took this class. I thought it was some Spanish Dramas (which is partially true). I recall my first impression of Telenovela as very dramatic, love-oriented, and predictable storyline. Another observation from Telenovela that I personally appreciate is that there are ALWAYS extremely attractive actresses in it, which further boosts my interest in Telenovelas.

All in all, I look forward to watching more Telenovelas with an analytic mindset, and gain more knowledge and appreciation on it. Maybe it will somewhat help me find a beautiful Latina girlfriend.

¿Qué hora es?

Before this semester, I really never had any interest in watching telenovelas. I watched maybe a few minutes when I was flipping through channels to see how much of the Spanish I could understand, but I never followed any of the characters or really cared about the outcome. I always assumed that telenovelas were just like American soap operas. I find soap operas to be dry, shallow, and overall not very entertaining. (When I'm at my grandparents' house, I get my fare share of soap operas because they watch about 4 hours of them every day.) I got very sick of soap operas very fast, which is the reason that I never tried actually following any telenovelas. Telenovelas were to me just made of over-dramatic, bad acting in Spanish instead of in English, kind of like this "telenovela" called ¿Qué hora es?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WckCw_-7e3M

But in the past two classes, some of the clips of telenovelas the Dr. A showed us actually sparked my interest. Some of them seemed to me like real stories with real characters that I would enjoy watching and finding out how they face the challenges of life. Juana, La Virgen really stuck out to me. After seeing la entrada, I wanted to watch it to find out about Jauna, how she felt when she was pregnant with a child that she shouldn't have had, how she was treated by others, and how she fell in love with the father of her baby. I didn't think that I would be very interested in the life of a fictional character from a telenovela, but seeing all the different types of telenovelas, and seeing that they are much different from American soap operas, I'm excited to start watching the telenovela I choose, and following the ups and downs of the life of the protagonist.

Samantha Peykoff

Take One

Telenovelas were first introduced to me in my childhood, when I was living in Romania. There were several channels on Tv dedicated to showing a variety of telenovelas, wether they were Mexican, Brazilian, Columbian etc. From what I noticed, they were quite popular with the older people, however since many of them had children and grandchildren, telenovelas trickled down to the younger generation as well. For example, I remember all my friends being obsessed with Betty La Fea, and actually knowing the opening song by heart. Despite not being as obsessed with telenovelas as the rest of my childhood friends, when I moved here and started taking spanish in 6th grade, I already knew how to say : "te odio", "te amo", and "estoy embarasada"(meaning "I hate you", "I love you" and "I'm pregnant"). Those three phrases were obviously prevalent in many of the telenovelas I stumbled upon. I came to the conclusion that the prevalence of these words show how dramatic and intense telenovelas are. But why did people get so hooked on those telenovelas? What did those telenovelas mean to them? For us kids, it romanticized life. We thought of telenovelas as ferry tales and always rooted for the two protagonists to end up together. Despite the obstacles that were in the way, love always prevailed. The hook was enabled by the characters' relatability. Being able to identify with the characters encouraged us to thrive in their drama as if it was our own. Of course as a child many obstacles in the telenovela did not carry the weight they should have. Now that I am older, I look froward to watching a telenenovela from a different perspective.

Telenovelas: What I'm Currently Thinking

I've been thinking a lot about what I should write in this first blog. I would like to start off by stating that I was a little nervous about taking this course because I do not know how to speak nor understand Spanish fluently nor do I watch Soap Operas.On occasion I use to watch Days of Our Lives with my mom when I was little up until the show got canceled and since then I have not really watched any sort of Soap Opera. After the first class session I became a little more excited and satisfied with my decision with taking this course because I'm learning about different cultures and I'm pretty sure once this course is over I will continue to watch whichever Telenovela I choose to write about and many others. I must admit that I have not started watching a Telenovela yet because I honestly do not know how to search for something to watch, but one thing I do know is that I would rather buy a DVD from Amazon instead of trying to find one to watch on television or the internet. From the class discussions I'm really interested in a Rosa-styled  Telenovelas because they seem like they will consist of acts that are so overly dramatic that I won't see them as logical, which I find very entertaining. So does anyone have any suggestions about what I should watch? I hope to pick a Telenovela by this weekend and start watching so I can be fully on track with the rest of the course.

Un Maid en Manhattan

I watched a few episodes of “Un Maid en Manhattan.” The first thing I noticed when watching were the appearances of the actors. The females are pretty. They have long hair and perfect skin. The guys appeared to be physically fit and appealing to viewers. The first episode of the season showed the essence of love within ten minutes of the show. Just like Dr. A discussed in class, telenovelas are simply love stories with an arising conflict. The main plot of the story included the main character named Marisa. Marisa was very determined to raise her son the right way. She would go above and beyond to ensure that her son was safe and satisfied. Marisa fell in love with a guy named Victor. She gave up her hotel in which she owned to move with the love her life and avoid the drug trafficking to which she didn’t want her son around. Marisa’s dreams were to live a happy life with Victor and her son. When Marisa finds Victor cheating on her on their wedding day, she moves to New York with a longtime friend. She accepts a job as a maid in Manhattan where she disapproves of the image she is portraying as a “maid.” She went from being a manager to a maid and wanted to keep her identity hidden from the outside world. In my opinion, this telenovela presents the image of single parenthood. The main character, Marisa is determined to provide the best for her son which is clearly seen throughout the episodes. I personally viewed the telenovela as simply a love story with conflicts with a cheating husband. The love story leads toward Marisa liking another man named Christopher in which she hides her true identity, a maid away from him. For viewers, this explains how the outside world is a competition. Everyone wants to be the best, and surely better than others. This telenovela represents the gender role of single parenthood, infidelity, and hidden identities centered on love. By watching Un Maid en Manhattan, I could definitely see it as really melodramatic. Emotions were all over the place. One minute Marisa would be happy with her son, and then an act of sadness would sporadically appear. I enjoyed watching Un Maid en Manhattan because the music was dramatic which fit perfectly with the drama within the story. Even though I did not understand exactly all that was said, I could figure it out based on common knowledge of certain words and actions of the characters.

Telenovela decision

The major obstacle that I have encountered in this class is deciding which Telenovela I should watch over the course of the class. I have no experience with Telenovelas and have never watched one before but I was very excited to get the chance to experience a piece of Latin American culture.  The only issue was that I had no idea which Telenovela to choose! In class we discussed the different types of Telenovela programs. They are generally placed in two categories: rosa, which are the more tradition and melodramatic shows, and rupture, which are the realistic and less melodramatic shows. Once you have decided which of these categories to watch you then have to decide from which country you want your Telenovela to be from. Each Latin American country creates distinctly different Telenovelas. Some are humorous while others are meant to bring tears to the viewer’s eyes. After debating all of these elements I chose La Reina del Sur as the Telenovela that I will watch for the next couple weeks. It was made by Telemundo, in Miami, so it is supposed to be more melodramatic. This would place it in the rosa category. It looks like a dramatic and action packed Telenovela that I am sure I will be hooked on immediately.

La Fella Mas Bella

For my televnovela I have chosen to watch the Mexican version of a telenovela we spoke about in class; La Fella Mas Bella. The first thing that I noted about this telenovela was the upbeat appearance of the set, background music, and humor used in the first episode. This surprised me due to the fact that Mexican telenovelas are well know for their drama. Immediately after the start of the first episode I was able to see a common theme used in many telenovelas. Fernando, the future president of a commercial company, is a very handsome and stunning character who is way out of the league of the other main character; Leti la Fea. The two characters meet for the first time whilst she is spying on him behind a clothes rack. This provides both a humorous first encounter and the stage for their first obstacle. Soon after introducing Fernando and Leti, we are introduced to Alicia, who is the "sexy and seductive," woman who is to be hired as Fernando's secretary. Behind the major plotline, however, I noticed a subplot with one of Leticia's friends whose husband walked out on her and is now in danger of losing her job because she has no one to watch over her kids. From the beginning of the telenovela the plot quickly thickens and leaves me wanting to watch more.

¿Que es una Telenovela?

    That was the exact question I had before taking this seminar. From all my years of taking Spanish in grade school and high school, I just assumed that a “telenovela” was a Spanish soap opera. All I could picture was beautiful, dramatic, Latinos passionately arguing with each other in fluid Spanish over the latest scandal. Although my assumptions were partly correct, Dr. Acosta gave the class a full rundown on the history and composition of las telenovelas. She said a telenovela is connected by three important pieces: mass media, culture, and society. She also said that if a telenovela were a star, the five points would be representation, identity, consumption, production, and regulation. I had never seriously thought about the breakdown of a telenovela, but each point of the star made me understand how the work is divided to produce a successful show. Representation refers to skin color. If I remember correctly, this pertains to either the skin color of the actors and actresses in the telenovela, or of  the people viewing the show. Dr. Acosta mentioned that most of the actors and actresses in the telenovelas tend to have light skin, which is usually associated with wealth, power, and beauty in the Latino culture. Identity refers to “what is created,” as in the entire show, but delving deeper, I think identity is how the audience relates to particular characters. While representation and identity can sometimes have ambiguous meanings, I believe the latter is more straightforward. Consumption refers to the people who watch the show, production is the collection of writers, producers, and actors involved to make the program a success, and regulation refers to broadcasting restrictions.
    I also learned a new term in Spanish: despechar, a word used to describe the emotional and physical reactions to the pain of heartache. Picture despechar and it will usually consist of two men accompanied by their horses drinking away their feelings in a bar. When they both become lugubrious from the alcohol, they break out in song about their lost lovers. While the names for despechar vary from region to region (in the Caribbean, it’s called Bolero), the image of two sorrowful singers is still the same.
    The most interesting thing I learned about telenovelas was the formulaic aspects. Dr. Acosta told us that a telenovela is a love story in installments. It airs about 5–6 times a week in the afternoon and prime time, adding up to 120 episodes or more. Telenovelas are best known for their dramatic, fictitious plots and for making a spectacle of emotions. They are produced in Latin America, but are watched all over the world. There are various love triangles and plenty of tension between the protagonists and antagonists, but the ending is very predictable. At the beginning the protagonists fall in love and, despite innumerable obstacles, will undoubtedly end up together living “happily ever after.” Besides this simple format, what makes telenovelas so compelling are the obstacles and conflicts the protagonists face in order to be together in the end. With each episode ending in a cliffhanger, it’s obvious why so many people enjoy watching these melodramatic stories unfold.

Rebelde: Thoughts on the 1st episode

I just began watching Rebelde. I have only watched the first episode but so far I have seen many things which we have talked about in class. The first thing I analyzed was the theme song to the show. First of all, the song that was chosen was very uplifting and youthful, considering this particular telenovela's main audience is teenagers. The theme song also introduced all the characters in their homes and settings that tell the audience a lot about the character themselves. For example, one of the main character's, Mia, was shown with her wealthy father to demonstrate her wealth and distance between her and her father. Another aspect that I noticed during the first episode is that each character has their own period of introduction where you can see who the characters are as they begin their journey. Another aspect that I noticed within the first few minutes is the moment where the two protagonists' (Mia and Miguel) eyes first meet. This moment was very dramatic and extended. Mia locks eyes with Miguel and then they both turn away, then she stares at his back, he turns around, and she turns away again, and then they lock eyes one final time before Mia runs away dramatically. You can already tell that Mia is a dramatic and girly character (the female protagonist). As we learned in class, this moment begins the telenovela and the protagonists' journey to being together.

First Impressions.

So far, I am loving this Freshmen Seminar. Telenovelas are truly an interesting topic, more interesting than I first assumed it would be. Learning about the different types of telenovelas has made me more intrigued by them. I remember watching a telenovela in my high school spanish class and had no idea that there were so many more out there to watch. I hope to find a very good telenovela to watch for the duration of this class. Learning the different types and categories of telenovelas has helped me to start thinking about the type that will interest me the most. I like to laugh, so choosing a Columbian telenovela might be my best bet. However, "Juana la Virgen" seemed very interesting as well, so I might just go with that one. I'll just have to see what else is out there and take advantage of my many choices.

Welcome to More than melodrama: Telenovelas

In this blog you will practice the fundamentals of critical thinking via blogging about telenovelas. Your blog entries should reflect your thought process and your learning experience as you go through the course. In other words, your posts should be a thoughtful (and creative) expression of yourself. If you wish, you can complement your entries with images, videos or other media.

Blog entries will be of two types:

• Open topic entries: You are free to analyze, comment and/or reflect on any of the topics and readings we will cover in class. You can also write about the telenovela(s) you are analyzing for your class assignments. Be warned that mere description won't meet my expectations. 
• Responses/comments to entries: A good blog builds a community. In that spirit, you should comment on the entries posted by your classmates or by me, be those open topic entries or responses to others’ posts. Your comments must be substantive and add to the conversation. In other words, merely stating “I agree” or “good point” is not nearly enough.

You must write at least three open topic entries and four responses/comments before the course ends. These entries should be spread out. Therefore, I expect to find at least one new open topic entry written by each of you by:

• January 27
• February 10
• March 2

There are no predetermined deadlines for responses/comments. All are due by March 5 at midnight. (I highly recommend you also write your comments through the weeks and not leave their writing for the last day).

Again, welcome to our seminar!