From Cinderella to Soldier: Flipping the Norms of Telenovelas in La Reina Del Sur

What is so interesting about La Reina Del Sur is that its name gives away the succession of its plot; the moment we first see Teresa Mendoza, we know she will eventually become the top of the drug trafficking world. Everything from advertisement photos of Teresa sitting atop a throne to the commercial breaks singing of her glory points to this. So one must ask, why does the director choose to first place her in a situation of total submission? Teresa is not only shown to be vulnerable, unused to the drug trafficking world outside of few teachings from her boyfriend Guero, and seemingly naive, but she is raped, which to many is seen as a situation of unequivocal submission. She is a Cinderella in the first episode who is forced to let things happen to her and not act on the plot herself, and we as the audience watch her torment.

The reason that I believe the first episode begins on such a low point is that we are watching a Cinderella story, just not one where the girl gets the hunk and lives in glamor for the rest of her life. We are getting a transformation from the standard Telenovela “Rosa” girl to an independent, smart, and powerful adversary whose name will be feared across an entire continent. This fantastic Telenovela can take the risk of introducing a female who breaks into a “man’s world” by first supporting itself on these powerful tropes, and then subverting our expectations from the moment Teresa shoots her rapist. Already, the dichotomy between females and males, especially in the context of the drug world, is made apparent. Women are ignored, sexualized at every moment, and treated like objects. Even men like Guero or the rapist's partner, who protests against Teresa's assault, lose in the end to more conniving members of their sex. These moments are not just for show, but will later be brought into play, which is rather contemporary as these behaviors still represent modern society in many ways.

In summary, La Reina Del Sur is intelligently able to play onto both traditional stereotypes of Telenovelas and modern ones to enrapture the audience and get them to root for Teresa from beginning to end.