Telling the story from the beginning, some three or four years ago there was some German TV station that tried to copy the elsewhere very popular telenovela format into the German market with a series that's basically Ugly Betty (called "Fallen In Love In Berlin"). It was a giant flop in the end despite starring a woman that used to play in a Restless-Years-style soap opera before.
Well, the broadcasters said that "for a telenovela succeed in Germany, it has to be homegrown". And not airing the twenty to thirty year old Latin American originals cause they've gone beyond the old style tearjerker. Which isn't true for the post-communist sphere of the world where these Latin delicacies succeeded very well, to the point that there have been women blending fiction and reality so extremely that some Hungarian fans collected US$ 75,000 and sent the money to the Brazilian embassy in order to free "Slave Isaura" from the same-named series.
I think that the mentioned unsuitability of Latin-style telenovelas for the Western market is based on the longtime existence of civil society, ubiquitious wealth and other symptoms of a functioning liberal democracy. My grandmother liked to watch series like "The Bold And The Beautiful" when ironing her clothes and also likes that one telenovela shown on public TV called "Bianca", but modern generations of watchers must have grown up with a ubiquitious detachment that makes them see things like "Slave Isaura" as too silly to be watched. If you want to deal with social strife, you watch independent films and no tearjerkers...
Let's say you grew up in a victorious Nazi Germany that has just recently been dismantled and your families get to know these Latin-style telenovelas, would you think that your Auntie Helga would also collect money to convince the Brazilian ambassador to the Reich to release Isaura from slavery like aforementioned Hungarians did? Would they be like my grandma in that respect? No, she didn't see Isaura, but as I said... other generations, other attitude in regard of telenovelas.
Well, the broadcasters said that "for a telenovela succeed in Germany, it has to be homegrown". And not airing the twenty to thirty year old Latin American originals cause they've gone beyond the old style tearjerker. Which isn't true for the post-communist sphere of the world where these Latin delicacies succeeded very well, to the point that there have been women blending fiction and reality so extremely that some Hungarian fans collected US$ 75,000 and sent the money to the Brazilian embassy in order to free "Slave Isaura" from the same-named series.
I think that the mentioned unsuitability of Latin-style telenovelas for the Western market is based on the longtime existence of civil society, ubiquitious wealth and other symptoms of a functioning liberal democracy. My grandmother liked to watch series like "The Bold And The Beautiful" when ironing her clothes and also likes that one telenovela shown on public TV called "Bianca", but modern generations of watchers must have grown up with a ubiquitious detachment that makes them see things like "Slave Isaura" as too silly to be watched. If you want to deal with social strife, you watch independent films and no tearjerkers...
Let's say you grew up in a victorious Nazi Germany that has just recently been dismantled and your families get to know these Latin-style telenovelas, would you think that your Auntie Helga would also collect money to convince the Brazilian ambassador to the Reich to release Isaura from slavery like aforementioned Hungarians did? Would they be like my grandma in that respect? No, she didn't see Isaura, but as I said... other generations, other attitude in regard of telenovelas.