May 1, 2007

A Telenovela's Soundtrack-Part II: Characters' Musical Themes



It's become increasingly common to associate a musical theme to each of the most important characters in a telenovela. In this case, music contributes to the construction of the character by emphasizing its defining traits, and adding one more identifier to that character.

In this video, we see actor Carlos Montilla recording El Darwin. This song was composed by brothers Victor and Pablo Escalona specifically for womanizer Darwin, Montilla's character in the telenovela Ciudad Bendita.

I should note that in Ciudad Bendita there were two actors who both composed and sang themselves their characters' musical themes:



- Yanis Chimaras' El Chaca Chaca for character Puro Mercado
(Note: Since blogging is new for me, please forgive the clumsiness of my links to music. They will open in a new window and may take a bit to load. With some browsers, the link might not work the first time you click on it. Try again, please)



- Henry Soto's Otra Mentira Más for character Kike Palacios

5 comments:

Sonia Chocron said...

Carolina,
Muy interesante tu blog.

From Caracas, your blog is very interesting.

Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru said...

Gracias, Sonia, por leer y por dejar tu comentario. El blog tiene una versión casi idéntica en español. La puedes encontrar en: http://telenovelas-carolina-esp.blogspot.com/

Anonymous said...

"Dr." Carolina, forgives my bad English but I must say to him a thing: a woman who defends a channel of television that the woman exports ideas as that is only a sexual object, which is necessary to be taken control with surgeries, that the "good woman" or "protagonist" is a servant, a woman who thinks that our children can receive a better education across a way of communication that of us ourselves as parents, that quite what the written press says, the radio and the television is true, a woman as you who goes out to defend the television instead of defending the culture of his country, of defending the literature or of defending his children opposite to the nonsense of the subculture of consumption, cannot say that IN VENEZUELA THERE IS NO FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. That you speak about the movies of the 60s, 70s and 80s is reasonable, so reasonable as that is so much his ignorance in the matter that tomorrow the Venezuelan State across the National Film library will do tax with an anthology of the Venezuelan movies about which you speak in his blog. Anyway, a woman who produces worship and veneration to so banal and plastic ideas as which it presents even "his" channel for the sign of route satellite that insurance you can pay does not deserve to speak about FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Anonymous said...

No, no, no, señora Carolina, la vida de usted es una telenovela, ¿dónde cree que vive? Si las telenovelas son tan importantes para el latinoamericano es porque así lo han querido hacer ver las propias telenovelas. Me imagino que como la vida o su vida, mejor dicho, es una telenovela, usted ya: se volvió loca cuando parió, le robaron el hijo, la metieron presa, la amante de su marido quedó parapléjica, usted primero fue cachifa pero descubrió que su papá es multimillonario y su esposo no es su hermano porque es producto de un "cacho", como usted ha tenido una vida tan intensa entonces decidió escribir un libro de su vida original, jamás vista, escrita o escuchada como la que acabo de narrar. ¡¡¡¡¡Despierte por el amor de Dios!!!!! Antes de que su hija se enamore de su hermano.

Dr. Carolina Acosta-Alzuru said...

Estimado Anonoymous,
Estimada Clara,

Las telenovelas son un lugar para estudiar los vínculos entre medios de comunicación, cultura y sociedad. Todos y todas son bienvenidos a comentar en este blog, pero la conversación debe tener la seriedad, coherencia y altura que yo misma le pongo a mi trabajo académico. No a todos les gustan las telenovelas. Eso es válido. Pero el hecho de que sean vistas por tantas personas ya las hace merecedoras de estudio serio. No hay necesidad de ataques personales. Es un derecho de todos el expresar nuestra opinión sin necesidad de irrespetar y ser irrespetados.