Portrayals of Women in Telenovelas
Throughout the history of telenovelas, there have been various common themes that tend to carry throughout many hit telenovelas. One similar theme that I find interesting is the way women are portrayed. In many Cinderella modeled telenovelas, the women protagonists are portrayed as being pure and naive girls that go through a transformation after meeting their "prince". This type of Cinderella story unveils an array of stereotypes about not only women but men too. In many Cinderella telenovelas, the protagonist is a beautiful, blonde, innocent woman who finds a man who is above her in social status. This portrays women as being "damsels in distress" who need a man to pull them out of their current struggling lifestyle. Additionally this leads to men in these types of telenovelas as being very superficial and mainly being useful for their looks and their money. While these type of Cinderella love stories are very entertaining to watch, I feel that they poorly represent women. Relating to the comparison of representation being a lens, I believe that these Cinderella telenovelas only focus on certain types of women and do not actually represent all women equally, being that generally the protagonist is a pretty blonde, and antagonist is a bitter brunette. Due to this I prefer a "Break in Cinderella" type of story. These stories provide viewers with an atypical Cinderella telenovela that deviates from the norms of a stereotypical blonde protagonist and brunette antagonist. One of these atypical Cinderella stories that I enjoyed viewing in class was La Mujer Perfecta. This story portrays a protagonist living with Asperger syndrome who meets a rich, married plastic surgeon who falls for her despite her disability. I think this type of telenovela is a more inspiring story because it doesn't focus on the same types of women in each telenovela, rather each has an intriguing story that expands outside of the typical Cinderella themed show.
The portrayal of women in telenovelas was originally one of the things that kept me from watching them as I was discouraged by the stereotypical and often one dimensional way that the female characters were developed. However, I have come to learn that new telenovelas are starting to show women as more complex and interesting characters than before. In fact, I also chose my telenovela (“La Reina del Sur”) because I knew that it was going to be a “Break in Cinderella” story as you mentioned. I originally thought that Teresa would be the main woman breaking these norms, but I also found it very interesting how even though each main female character had cinderella-like characteristics, each managed to break out on her own and escape the damsel in distress trope. For example, Patricia, though wealthy, reckless, and in need of salvation from prison, is an independent woman who in the end shows that she can get out of her problems on her own. Her independence was best symbolized by her signing away her family’s name and fortune, in my opinion. The same can be said for Fatima, who was a Cinderella in the sense that she was poor and naive but worked with Teresa to get her son back and to secure a better life for herself. I think that it is these portrayals of women that are the best and contribute most to growth in our society. Having empowering female figures in telenovelas is important, especially considering how dominant they are in terms of media.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your views on how women are portrayed. Personally, I tend to stay away from shows that portray women in the "damsel in distress" light. I think that that angle is very over played, and isn't representative of what women today are actually like. Present day women, are more independent that ever before if not they are at least trying to be. Having a man to help a women along isn't the problem that I have with this certain plot theme, it is more of the fact that the make it seem that women can never get anything in life accomplished without the man which we can all agree is definitely not the case.
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