Telenovela

For other uses, see Telenovel.
Vida Alves and Walter Forster on Sua Vida Me Pertence (Rede Tupi, Brazil, 1951), the first telenovela in television history

A telenovela[a] is a type of a television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America.[2] The word combines tele (for "television")[b] and novela (meaning "novel").[c] Similar drama genres around the world include dizi (Turkey), serial (India), teleserye (Philippines), lakorn (Thailand), teleromanzo (Italy), téléroman (Canada, specifically Quebec), K-drama (South Korea), J-drama (Japan), C-drama (China) and sinetron (Indonesia).

Commonly described using the American colloquialism Spanish soap opera, many telenovelas share some stylistic and thematic similarities to the soap opera familiar to the English-speaking world. The significant difference is their series run length; telenovelas tell one self-contained story, typically within the span of a year or less whereas soap operas tend to have intertwined storylines told during indefinite, continuing runs.[3][4] This makes them shorter than most other television series, but still much longer than a miniseries. This planned run results in a faster-paced, more concise style of melodrama compared to a typical soap opera.[5] Episodes of telenovelas usually last between 30 and 45 minutes, and rarely more than an hour, except for final episodes. The telenovela combines drama with the 19th century feuilleton and the Latin American radionovela. The medium has been used frequently in various countries to transmit sociocultural messages by incorporating them into storylines.[6]

By the 1950s, Brazil became one of the first countries to produce novelas with high budgets and aimed both to the national and international markets. Mexico soon followed, and by the 1970s and 1980s the country started to engage more profusely in using telenovelas to shape behavior. This was particularly successful in introducing the idea of family planning. The 1990s played a key role in the international export of telenovelas, thus the so-called 'Telenovela Craze' that spread in many regions in the world.[7]

By 2018, some signs of fading popularity had emerged.[8]

  1. ^ Telenovela | Define Telenovela at Dictionary.com. Dictionary.reference.com. Retrieved July 21, 2013.
  2. ^ "The Power of the Telenovela". PBS NewsHour. January 25, 2012. Retrieved November 28, 2017.
  3. ^ Hecht, John (September 26, 2006). "Telenovela market". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved July 15, 2007.
  4. ^ Paula Andaló, "Love, Tears, Betrayal...and Health Messages", Perspectives in Health Magazine: The Magazine of the Pan American Health Organization. vol. 8, no. 2, 2003
  5. ^ Beccera, Hector (April 17, 2015). A not-so-fond farewell to 'Sábado Gigante,' a corny, buffoonish show. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved April 17, 2015. "The telenovelas were better than American soap operas because the action was faster(.) Mercifully, unlike their slower-paced American brethren, they also were finite."
  6. ^ Brown, William J. (January 1992). "Sociocultural Influences of Prodevelopment Soap Operas in the Third World". Journal of Popular Film and Television. 19 (4). Carnegie Endowment for International Peacen: 157–164. doi:10.1080/01956051.1992.10662035. ISSN 0195-6051.
  7. ^ Gabriela Soto Laveaga, "'Let's become fewer': Soap operas, contraception, and nationalizing the Mexican family in an overpopulated world." Sexuality Research and Social Policy. September 2007, vol. 4, no. 3 pp. 19–33.
  8. ^ Luhnow, David, and Santiago Pérez (April 23, 2018). "Netflix Breaks Up Audience Romance With Telenovela." The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from WSJ.com, December 12, 2018.


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