Valentina: A New Woman
As the story of Valentina Villalba continues in Soy la Dueña, one can't help but feel tremendous sympathy for her character. She was left at the altar by her fiancé, who has now fled the country alone running away from loan sharks he owes a vast amount of money to. Valentina is given a simple note at the church that is supposedly from Alonso, and is left humiliated at the altar with no explanation as to why he left. The aftermath of her heartbreak is tremendous. In the following episodes, Valentina has become completely bitter and closed off to everyone around her. The betrayal and heartbreak she feels leads her to make a life-changing decision. She decides to leave her city life behind and go live at her hacienda and swears to never fall in love again. Once she arrives to her hacienda, she is a completely different person than she was in the beginning of the telenovela. Valentina is no longer caring and completely in love; she is now cold-hearted and spiteful.
At Valentina's hacienda, I am now introduced to the male protagonist Jose Miguel Montesinos. At this point in the story, it should be intriguing to see how Jose Miguel and Valentina will ever fall in love especially due to Valentina swearing off love. This is already one obstacle that the protagonist couple must face. Both protagonists are not those that one sees in the typical Rosa novela. Though Valentina did show the characteristics of a Cinderella in the beginning of the story with the fact that she was very naive and overall a good person. After her traumatic experience, however, she is the complete opposite. Jose Miguel definitely fits the characteristics of a Cinderella protagonist. His character, played by Fernando Colunga, is very much a hunk with a great smile but is going through financial troubles which place him as none other than Valentina's neighbor. To add to the evidence that is a telenovela de ruptura, the protagonists seems to dislike each other in their first encounter and are actually quite condescending towards each other.
Lastly, there was a change in setting to the story which I believe ties in with today's lecture over production. In the beginning, most scenes seem to be able to be filmed in a studio, with the exception of the wedding scene. The wedding scene stood out to me because of the large number of extras there were to act as the church audience, and the details that came with the wedding dress and Valentina's hair and makeup which surely must have taken several hours to plan, produce, and execute on camera. When Valentina moves to her hacienda, the setting is now more location based and includes the incorporation of animals such as horses like those that are seen in the introduction credits. This change of setting requires perhaps more work because one most depend on other factors like weather and atmosphere to film these different scenes. This telenovela continue to intrigue the audience with both its changes in character development and circumstances such as setting.
I found this entry very interesting and unlike the others on this blog. The way the character starts out as a Cinderella story and then quickly changes after being left by her fiance is something we haven't discussed or seen in class. This is for sure way to keep a telenovela interesting in that the protagonist could change back at any given moment and to see what the male protagonist has to do to win her over. The fact that she swears off love and then finds another man so quickly but trying to resist could wrap any audience in. This is also interesting how she went from naive to completely aware and is honestly a sign of feminism qualities we don't see often in telenovelas. The use of this by the directors is very clever in making their story unique and quite impressive.
ReplyDeleteI loved how you used the contrast between Rosa and de ruptura telenovelas in describing character development. Your telenovela seems very intriguing in that the protagonist begins as a classic Cinderella-type damsel in distress, but then through a series of unfortunate events becomes spiteful. In this way, the protagonist somewhat becomes the trope of the evil mother-in-law due to her cold-hearted nature. It is also very interesting that it is with this attitude that the protagonist meets her future lover, as in most telenovelas the main couple has a love at first sight moment. Your inclusion of production in your analysis of the telenovela shows that the change in setting and filming adds to the theme of change being portrayed in these scenes.
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