This is a class blog run by Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru and her students in the course "Telenovelas, Culture and Society" at the University of Georgia during Spring 2011

Saturday, April 9, 2011

Part-Time Job

It has occurred to me that telenovelas are truly more than just a form of entertainment and past time to its viewers. I’m not so sure if I’d be correct in saying telenovela fan-hood is a way of life but for lack of better terminology, let’s go with saying that it is a way of life. The commitment that goes along with watching a telenovela honestly is no walk in the park. It very different from the typical TV show fan-hood in the U.S. where you only have to donate an hour of your time, once a week, for maybe 5 months to be a true and die hard fan. Oh not so fast my friend. In el mundo de telenovela, it’s a week long, possibly one hour a day commitment, trumping the die hard fans of American Television shows. So all you The Office fans out there, don’t even try to trump on the fan-hood of those La Mujer Perfecta fans out there. After a week of putting in work in front of the tube (Television), La Mujer Perfecta viewers have seen five times the episodes that American TV Series viewers have. And to be truly honest with my peers, I never committed to a show/series like I did for our mid-term paper. I watch tons of Donde Esta Elisa? and maybe watched as many episodes of that as I have ever seen of the HBO series Entourage.

The commitment does not stop with just merely watching the episodes and tuning in daily. With social media ever so important in all industries in our current era, posting comments on blogs, on Twitter, and Facebook are now a major part of the viewership of telenovelas. This is where, in my opinion, viewership is taken to the next level. This separates the minor leaguers from the major league right here. The seriousness of the telenovelas and their fans are expressed through these interactive beacons of opinion and concerns. As we heard from one of the presentations last week, people express true feeling for characters of these shows through these social media. In a way, social media helps to further develop the characters in these telenovelas into real figures for its viewers and those who read these comments on social media. I’m not sure if viewers of Soap Operas have the same kind of passion when it comes to expressing opinions on social media. I did check out a couple blogs for Soap Operas and from my initial visits I can say it didn’t quite have the same affect as some of the comments we have read in lecture and presentations.

2 comments:

  1. I like how you bring up the social media aspect of the fan base. It is so interesting to me that Soap Operas in America have not caught on as telenovelas have in Latin and South America. I literally don't know one person who watches a Soap Opera, and I'm pretty sure I never will. In my opinion, the fact that telenovelas are so viewed and so up to date on current events and trends really helps them have such dedicated fans. When fans can constantly unite on such sites like Twitter and Facebook, it makes the bond between them and the telenovela stronger, making them continue to turn on the TV each and every night.

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  2. It really is a huge commitment, and I cannot for the life of me see a large population of Americans getting all fired up over One Tree Hill. TO the point of threatening the writer. Maybe in the US, this kind of committment is made to things like Fantasy Football or Jersey Shore.

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