Without a doubt, I can say that if you grew up in a full-fledged Latino household, you've already familiarized yourself with the concept of a "telenovela." You have probably come home after a long day of school to find your grandmother parked in front of the television yelling obscenities because she does not like the way the narrative of her favorite novella is turning out. I think that encapsulates the childhood of several Latinos worldwide.
I can be the first to admit that I too fell for the romance tales they were selling. The fact that two outrageously good looking people would always find their way back into each other's arms was entirely too enticing for my 15-year-old heart. I fell for the entire plot that two people were "always meant to be" and that for every relatively good person, there is bound to be a bad character willing to end everything and everyone in order to get what they want.
What did not dawn on me at that moment was the damaging role some of these women took in the grand scheme of things. Not only were they stereotypical and sexist, but they were constantly the same character, telenovela after telenovela. Don't get me wrong, the overall message masculinity was sending out wasn't all that better.
Let's begin with the protagonist. Almost always, it will be some distorted version of perfection and completely one-dimensional female character that her only purpose in the narrative is to find her way into the life of one true love. This is literally the center of the plot of every single telenovela written for a Spanish-speaking audience. This has been the main plot of every telenovela ever since I can remember watching them. I recently watched one, and I am here to tell you they have not changed. The female lead is this one-dimensional being whose sole purpose is purely male driven. That's it. The same goes for the male lead. The intricacies of a human being never seem to filter through in either of these two lead characters because they will always be portrayed as being "pure of heart" and "kind" who can never do "bad." Novellas do love to play on the whole good vs. bad theme.
Perhaps the most frustrating part of this way of writing is the villain of the story, who is always a woman — a woman, whose once again, sole purpose and drive in the plot is to sabotage the love between the two protagonists because she wants the lead male character for herself. That is it. She only serves as the wedge between the two leads and whose entire backstory is left unknown because she only matters on the here and now as the "evil" woman who wants to break them apart.
Honestly, after one or two telenovelas, the entire concept behind them gets pretty tiresome. People begin to crave characters who are fully fleshed out and seem almost human. Human enough to portray every emotion on the spectrum and seem flawed to the point of writing a character that resembles someone who can embody any form of feeling or emotion. Multidimensional characters that represent more than the cookie-cutter nonsense these novellas want to shove down their audience's throat.
I will say this: there is potential. There is potential in contemporary telenovelas to make a conscious effort to write well-written plot lines (aka stop remaking the same old novellas that were made 30 years ago), invest in their actors (give them well-written scripts and rich characters that will display their great acting skills wasted in these one-dimensional characters) and keep their grand productions. End the stereotypes and the marginalization of women and write novellas that are worth watching and tell the stories of human beings in a way that truly resonates with the audience.
