by andy knight

“Em Busca da Felicidade,” a Brazilian radionovela that premiered in 1941, led to expanded artistic and commercial opportunities in the country.

In the early summer of 2016, residents of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, host city of the then-upcoming Olympic Games, braced themselves for disruptions to all aspects of their daily lives in the months ahead. One thing, however, would remain essentially unchanged during the international sporting event: the city’s primetime television schedule. Instead of broadcasting the games on weeknights, Rede Globo, Brazil’s premier television network, promised to air its regularly scheduled telenovelas throughout August. The nighttime programs were simply too popular to put on hiatus. Without telenovelas, “the country would stop,” Monica Albuquerque, Globo’s head of artistic development, told The New York Times in June 2016. “It’s cultural. It’s part of life. I can’t imagine Brazil without its soaps.”

In this regard, Brazil is no exception to the rest of Latin America, where telenovelas are, by far, the leading form of entertainment. Each night, millions of viewers across Mexico, Central and South America, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic tune in to watch these serial dramas. While the style and content of telenovelas differ based on their country of origin, the genre is defined by its approach to storytelling, which is rooted in the conventions of 19th-century melodramatic literature and theatre. Telenovelas have fast-moving plots that rely on an abundance of twists and turns; they draw a clear line between the moral and the immoral; and their characters experience grand, unrestrained emotions—like love, lust, betrayal, and jealousy—that appeal to the emotions of an audience.

The telenovela’s more modern ancestor, however, is the radio soap opera, which American companies like Colgate-Palmolive and Procter & Gamble brought to pre-Castro Cuba in the late 1930s. Over the decade that followed, these radionovelas spread across Latin America, and then, like radio soaps in the United States, jumped to the small screen in the 1950s. But despite their shared lineage, telenovelas and U.S. soap operas have evolved into distinct genres in both form and appeal. Soap operas can run for decades, while telenovelas usually span only 180 to 200 episodes (known as “chapters”). This allows telenovelas to have a clear story arc and a definitive ending, while soap operas often eschew narrative closure by introducing a variety of plots and subplots to serve their longevity. Telenovelas are primetime television: they appeal to a broad audience, and the performers are national stars. Soap operas are daytime television: they have a smaller, more specific demographic, and the actors don’t have the star caliber of their primetime or film counterparts.

“Yo Soy Betty, la Fea” aired on Colombia’s RCN Televisión from October 1999 to May 2001 and became one of Latin America’s most famous telenovelas.

The popularity and primetime status of telenovelas make them highly profitable. Most air five or six nights a week, a boon for local and national advertisers. They are lucrative exports as well, a trend that began in the 1970s and has grown steadily since. Today, countries in Latin America export their programs to nations across the globe, including the U.S., Great Britain, Spain, France, China, Russia, and Serbia. Networks also remake foreign telenovelas for their national audiences. Colombia’s “Yo Soy Betty, la Fea,” for example, first aired in 1999 and has since inspired 17 different adaptations, including the American comedy-drama “Ugly Betty.” In recent years, the telenovela’s influence on American primetime television has only increased. The sitcoms “Jane the Virgin” and “Devious Maids” are both loose adaptations of telenovelas from Venezuela and Mexico, respectively. And in 2016, the USA Network premiered “Queen of the South,” an adaptation of “La Reina del Sur,” a popular series produced by the U.S. Spanish-language network Telemundo.

But the international appeal of telenovelas should not overshadow their significance in Latin America, especially now. Although the serial dramas might have started as romantic diversions, today many set personal stories against political backdrops, thus aiming to reflect the current experiences of their citizens and, by doing so, encourage change within their countries. Like their swift plots, they keep moving things forward. And so it’s no surprise that the telenovela—with its flexible aesthetic but unmistakable identity—remains impressively popular across Latin America.

Reprinted with permission from South Coast Repertory.

Photo (header): “Betty, la Fea” has been adapted many times: (from left) Ana María Orozco in “Yo Soy Betty, la Fea,” America Ferrera in “Ugly Betty,” and Elyfer Torres in “Betty en NY.”