My wife is Brazilian, and she loves the telenovelas, which she watches on TV Globo.
For those of you unfamilar, “telenovelas” are mini-soap operas, which are written to appeal to Brazilan housewives. They differ from (American) soap operas in the following:
-they run for 6-8 months (unlike the American SO’s which go on for years
-they utilize a lot of nice sets, and do a lot of on-location shots
-the themes are more interesting (in my opinion)
Typical ones feature conniving women, who commit mayhem to further thir agendas-which usually include : taking over a family-run business, stealing children from ex-spouses, while husbands have multiple affairs.
The acting quality is very good, and the stories are engaging.
I have often wondered if dubbed in english, these shows could be broadcast in the US. Would they have a chance in the wasteland of daytime TV?
Well, Ugly Bettie was based on a Columbian show, so it seems possible. The US market would likely stretch the series as long as they could when they did the remake, though.
When the WB & UPN joined to become CW a few years ago, the station that didn’t get the real network became MyNetworkTV and showed telenovela type programming (the show would air M-F at 8pm for 13 weeks.)
It failed miserably in the ratings; the channel revamped its format.
My wife is also Brazilian, and we both love “novelas”. They are a million times better than any U.S. or German soap opera. If I lived in Brazil, 8PM - 9PM would be reserved for watching the “novela das oito” every damn day (now we pay 13 Real a month to watch them on the internet). Nobody goes out before 10PM anyway.
I think in most other countries (especially if dubbed) they just won’t be successful. They require a longer attention span (some story arcs take weeks to resolve and involve a lot of characters). What I love is the fact that they are basically written on the fly, except for a general framework that the authors stick to. That means they can deal with current events and can give popular characters larger roles or get rid of unpopular characters as the story is developing.
In their current state, I doubt it. Most Americans don’t like dubbed shows and they aren’t going to sit through a subtitled series. They had to reshoot Ugly Betty with American actors.
In some ways, a Brazilian style telenovela would be nice in that the series ends after a period of time so you avoid the eventual degeneration of the show.
A few years ago, Telemundo used to show a Brazilian telenovela called “El Clon,” dubbed into Spanish. It was so popular they remade it this year (don’t know which country, but now it’s done with Spanish-speaking actors.) It was actually pretty good, to the point that I started watching it, and most of the time I hate telenovelas.
I doubt they’d catch on, although I concur that they are much better-produced than any U.S. or Spanish-language soap I’ve seen. (Assuming we aren’t categorizing HBO series as novelas, which they kind of are…)
On a related note, I wasn’t aware there were so many other Dopers with Brazilian spouses.
What’s the difference between Brazilian and Spanish-language Latin American telenovelas? I used to watch both occasionally, dubbed into Bulgarian, but I not often enough to be able to discern a difference. (Also, my language skills weren’t so hot at the time. It was often easier for me to follow the story by listening to the Spanish under the dub, which made it less appealing to watch the Brazilian telenovelas because I don’t speak Portuguese at all.)
My wife claims that the Brazilian ones have better plots, acting, sets, etc. She’d watch them (dubbed into Spanish) on Telemundo but her favorite one ended and she sort of fell out of the habit.
I clicked the thread to say this. It’s been tried and it did not turn out well. I doubt another network will try anytime soon.
Brazilians novelas are translated into Spanish and transmitted all over the rest of Spanish-speaking Latin America, and also air in various Spanish channels available in the US (Univisión, Telemundo, Gems). They’re quite successful.
In the more or less hierarchy of telenovelas, going from better acting to more hysterics and weird, out-there plots:
- Brazilians
- Colombians
3+. Venezuela, Argentina, a bunch of other countries
Last place: Mexico
Now, Mexico also makes a lot of telenovelas. Which is why most of the bad ones that air internationally are from Mexico. When their novelas are not so bad, they either tend to rehash the plot of another novela (for example, they remade Betty la Fea, the original Ugly Betty) or be very simplistic, fairy tale-like. If the fairy tale thing goes too far, they’re truly a trainwreck.
Brazilian and Colombians tend to have better plotlines, better costumes, and better acting, especially if they’re going for period pieces.
The MyNetworkTV stuff wasn’t a real attempt at what the OP is proposing – it was a U.S. remake of some existing telenovellas. But they were shot on a budget of $15 and they “toned down” some of the melodrama because they didn’t think it’d play with American audiences. And maybe they were right, but the proposition has never been tested – what failed was the watered-down stuff. As for the budget, I know the originals aren’t exactly multi-million dollar spectacles, but from what I’ve seen they do at least sometimes feature better production than the sad imitations that appeared on the former UPN stations.
Plus, the chicks are hotter, Natalie Martinez perhaps excepted.
Browsing Wikipedia, I’m reminded that the one thing they did have was really great logos/opening titles. Whoever that guy in the Fox graphics department basement was, he did a yeoman’s job.
–Cliffy
I think one of the problems was scheduling.
From what I understand, in Brazil (or other telenovela countries), all of the networks schedule their shows M-F at 8pm, it’s a choice between telenovelas.
Americans who are willing to schedule 5 hours of TV a week are already scheduling 5 hours of TV each week. They have one or two appointment shows at 8, 8:30, etc. and even with the semi-repetitive nature of soap operas/telenovelas and the weekly recap show that MyNetworkTV offered, I can’t imagine a lot of people going into a show, knowing they’re going to miss 40% of it every week because it conflicts with other shows they’re already watching.
Good point – although that’s going to be equallly true of imported originals.
I do wish Telemundo or Univision would offer the originals with English-language subtitles (you could put them in the secondary closed captioning track so as not to bother those who can understand the langauge of origin.) I understand there were abortive attempts at broadcasting them with the Secondary Audio Program in English, but it wasn’t well advertised to English-speaking audiences and I missed it.
–Cliffy