A Pleasant Surprise

No offense Dr. A, but I will admit that upon signing up for this class I was pumped to be taking a class about telenovelas, but I wasn't all that sure about how much you could actually learn about and study from telenovelas. I think part of that feeling came from my previous view of telenovelas, which I blogged about before. I was comparing the study of telenovelas to the study of soap operas, which I think would be somewhat of a joke. I am really loving everything I've been learning in this class. There is so much more to the genre of the telenovela than I expected.

Something that has really stuck out to me is the writers' use of the telenovela to get social and political messages across to the public. It amazed me to learn about Por Estas Calles, and significance of it in daily informing the public of the real-life events going on around them. The concept seems strange to me, to think about watching a fictional television show every night that replayed things that actually occurred in real life. I think that is a great way to keep the public informed, but I also think it would have its downfalls. The confusion of reality and fiction must have come alongside the show, as it daily mixed them together.

Another example I love is Cosita Rica. The metaphor of the woman representing the country is brilliant, and I think it would be so neat as a citizen of a country to watch a show like this and be able to make the connections between your country and this telenovela character. The writers of these telenovelas must be extremely creative and intelligent.

I was hoping to be able to watch Kassandra, the telenovela that stopped a war, but I am unable to find the full episodes or a DVD of it anywhere. I am going to order and begin watching Corazón Salvaje in the next week and am really excited to get going on it. As I get into that, I will post more reflections on what I'm actually watching. I can't wait!