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.