THE PARADOXES OF WRITING TELENOVELAS-CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN WRITERS

The history of Venezuelan telenovelas can't be comprehended without paying attention to the indelible mark left by the intellectuals who have authored them. They live between two worlds that don't always see eye to eye: literature and popular culture. These writers experience the paradox of mass consumption and deprecation that writing telenovelas elicit.


Here, two conversations that illustrate this (audios are in Spanish):


Ibsen Martínez and Leonardo Padrón in Los Imposibles
Alberto Barrera Tyszka and Leonardo Padrón in Los Imposibles

RHYTHM IN A TELENOVELA: FROM "NOTHING IS GOING ON" TO "TOO MUCH, TOO QUICKLY"

A couple of years ago, I wrote here about the difficulty of finding consensus in anything regarding telenovelas. I still feel the same way. It's almost impossible to find an aspect of a telenovela in which everyone thinks alike.

This week I've been reflecting particularly on the "rhythm" of a telenovela. That is, on the pace of events that make up the everyday life of a telenovela. This reflection came about thanks to my study of La Mujer Perfecta. I asked my study audience participants about their opinion of this telenovela's rhythm. Their answers varied so much that it was impossible for me to conclude anything! From "there are days in which nothing happens" to "too many things happen and too quickly," and every possible answer in between.

I decided then to list every "happening" or event that has been aired in each of the six main plots of La Mujer Perfecta. The list isn't short. Still, the audience's readings stand, begging for more analysis. Hence, I asked more in-depth questions to some of my participants, and arrived to the following preliminary conclusion:

It seems that each one of us has her/his own measuring stick to assess the rhythm of a telenovela. Sometimes, we're waiting for something in particular to happen, and that doesn't allow us to see the other incidents that are going on in the show. The opposite also happens: we think a lot is going on because what we want to happen is actually on the screen and/or things are happening in our favorite plot. Meanwhile, we might not realize that other plots are somewhat stagnant.

This is one of the many difficulties of writing a telenovela. For things to "happen," the dramatic knot must be constructed carefully. If not, when that knot "explodes," it won't have the force it should have had. At the same time, events and incidents must occur constantly (or write them so that the public has that perception). If not, the audience will feel that "nothing is happening" in the show.

Obviously, "rhythm" is a complex and difficult topic for writers, producers, network executives...and researchers.

VENEZUELAN TELENOVELAS-LA VERDAD

This week Venezuelan daily La Verdad dedicated its anniversary issue to telenovelas. The 50+ pages issue includes interviews with actors and writers. A plus in this publication is the inclusion of the timeline of Venezuelan telenovelas. This issue is a great contribution to the study of this TV genre that has marked my country, and that is going today through its worst crisis.

Following is a list of links to some of the interviews and stories (in Spanish, unfortunately):

Cuando la TV lo era todo por José Gregorio Meza

El espectáculo del sentimiento o la mentira de la realidad por José Gregorio Meza

TIMELINES-VENEZUELAN TELENOVELAS: 1, 2

ACTORS:

Gustavo Rodríguez

Jean Carlo Simancas

Marialejandra Martín

Viviana Gibelli

WRITERS:

Martín Hahn

Mónica Montañés

Iris Dubs

Pilar Romero

Leonardo Padrón

MY INTERVIEW: 1, 2

Other actors interviewed: Raúl Amundaray, Daniel Alvarado, Jonathan Montenegro, Ruddy Rodríguez, Carmen Julia Alvarez y Daniela Alvarado.

Her's the full issue: Edición Aniversario Diario La Verdad

Hope you enjoy it!

IN MY TELENOVELA CLASS: Conversations with Leonardo Padrón and Roque Valero

The last class of this semester, in which we lectured and discussed as many aspects of telenovelas as possible, finally arrived. Following the course's tradition, I taught the last class at my house with dinner and a Tres Leches for dessert:

That evening we had our two last "Telenovela Conversations" with writer Leonardo Padrón and actor/singer/musician Roque Valero. Both were generous as they shared with us their experiences in the world of telenovelas. My students learned a lot, enjoyed immensely the opportunity to talk to our guests, and were truly delighted when Roque sang for us a fragment of Las Lágrimas Aprenden a Reír.

Following are the two videos of the conversations, where you will find valuable angles and points of view regarding writing, acting and musical composition.





As I finish this semester of "Telenovelas, Culture and Society", I must thank everyone who has talked to me and allowed me to observe her/him as they write, perform, produce or consume telenovelas. Thanks to them, I continue on my research path about this television genre, whose apparent simplicity hides its fascinating complexity. I also thank my 24 students for everything they taught me and for their interesting reflections in our class blog. Finally, thanks to our guests who shared with us their knowledge and talent. They are the indispensable teachers for my class: Marisa Román, Ruxandra Ciobanu, Alberto Gómez, Leonardo Padrón and Roque Valero.

IN MY TELENOVELA CLASS: A conversation with writer Alberto Gómez

We had our second "Telenovela Conversation" with writer Alberto Gómez, who understands very well the commercial dimensions of the telenovela genre. When network executives and producers want an original or a remake of a telenovela rosa, Alberto Gómez is a name that always appears in their short list of possible writers. Hence, he has written telenovelas for a long list of networks and production companies, including: RCTV, Venevisión, Televisa, Fonovideo, Venevisión Productions and Telemundo. Alberto is the author of many telenovelas. Some of his recent successes include: Gata Salvaje, Angel Rebelde, Marina, Acorralada and Alma Indomable. He's currently writing Mar de Amor for Televisa, a remake of Delia Fiallo's María del Mar.

Alberto delighted my class with his sincerity and enthusiasm. Through him were were able to see better the telenovela rosa, we got closer to the daily writing effort that every telenovela requires, and we felt the happiness of someone who enjoys what he does.

Here is a video with excerpts from our class conversation. I hope you will enjoy it as much as we did. I leave it here along with our thanks to Alberto Gómez for sharing with us his time, experience and passion for the telenovela rosa.

A LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR OF DOÑA BARBARA

I've written before about the distance between the public's perceptions about a telenovela and what really happens in the show's creative process. In particular, there is considerable distance between what the audience knows about the writing process and what actually happens in the mind and soul of telenovela writers. 

Today I bring a document that bridges the latter distance in a significant way. This document is a window in to the mind (and heart) of the writer who tackled the very difficult job of transforming the Venezuelan classic literary novel Doña Bárbara (Rómulo Gallegos) into telenovela format: Valentina Párraga.  This Telemundo telenovela polarized its audience members, who were vocal in their positions regarding the main love story triangle of Doña Bárbara-Santos-Marisela.

After the telenovela's last episode was broadcast, Valentina wrote me a letter where she reflects on her journey writing Doña Bárbara. It's an honest analysis that illuminates the effort behind writing a telenovela and the ever-present tensions between the genre's commercial and creative requirements. Generously, Valentina has agreed that I share her letter with my blog readers. You can read it in Spanish or in English. And, then, let the conversation start in the comments section of this blog! 

TELENOVELAS-VISITING A LOCATION WITH THE WRITERS

I've had many experiencies while studying telenovelas. And, even though I'm equally interested in all aspects: production, consumption, regulation and the different representations we see in those daily episodes, I've learned that most people are particularly interested in production. In short, how is a telenovela produced? is the overarching question in many of the conversations I participate in, and is the most commented chapter of my book "Venezuela es una Telenovela."

Today I share with you a recent experience while studying the production of Venezuelan telenovela La Vida Entera.

The plot: In La Vida Entera, the Duque family owns a media conglomerate that includes fashion magazine Exquisita, which provides one of the main contexts for the telenovela's storylines. The male protagonist, Salvador Duque (Jorge Reyes), is part of this family, also constituted by his father, Napoleón (Gustavo Rodríguez), his stepmother, Olimpia (Beatriz Valdés) and his younger sister Carlota, "Tata" (Marisa Román). The Duque family "lives" in a beautiful house with a breathtaking view of the city of Caracas.

Following is a brief excerpt from Episode 6, where you can get a glimpse of these characters and their house.

Research experience--Visiting the location: I had the privilege of visiting the house with Leonardo Padrón and his team of writers the first time they went to this location. It was extremely interesting for me to be able to observe first hand how each of the house's rooms sparked ideas in these writers: "Here, Olimpia should...", "Maybe we could place Tata there...", "What about sitting Napoléon here and...," etc. Padrón and his writers also noticed interesting angles that the location provides for shots that will contribute to the telenovela's storytelling and its visual vocabulary. Meanwhile, two members of the production team took copious notes.

The experience was fascinating to me. I'm still figuring out its full importance to my research. For instance, I immediately started noticing the influence of the visit in the telenovela scripts. I would have never noticed this, if I hadn't been in the house with the writers.

Writing a telenovela requires much creativity and strategy. And even though telenovelas always have that mix of dream (the love story we all wish we could have) and reality, for these stories to work they must ring true. And I learned that these visits help immensely in writing a script that sounds true.

Here's a short video I prepared of our visit. Don't expect Spielberg, please. But, I think it will give you a good idea of my experience that afternoon:

DISTANCE: AN IMPORTANT WORD IN TELENOVELAS

There are some words that continuously pop up in my research about telenovelas. One is PARADOX, and I've written about it before and should probably write a whole lot more about. The other is DISTANCE.

After all these years studying telenovelas, I'm still amazed about the enormous distance that I find between the audience's perceptions of what happens behind the cameras, and what actually happens there. This distance, of course, is influenced by another distance that exists too often: the one between press reports and what is happening. 

There is also an important distance between the audience's perception of the relative importance of a particular telenovela character and what the actor believes about her/his character. I've talked with many actors who adored particular characters and considered them key in their careers, only to read later in Internet message boards how some audience members believe that those characters were unimportant and that the actor's talent was "wasted."

Another distance I must mention is the one between what the public knows/believes about the telenovela writing process and what really happens in a writer's mind and soul as she/he develops characters and plots. 

There is always a distance between the script and the mise-en-scene we see on our TV screens. 

Personally, the word distance defines my research since I have to "go" to it and come back periodically. I get closer and farther away from my case studies. It is in these coming and goings, in this stretching and reducing the geographic distance that I can get really close in an intellectual and academic sense. Soon I must travel and get closer to my new case study. Its first episode is about to be broadcast in Venezuela after I've been following and examining the creative process of its head writer. Meanwhile, the Internet and technology allow us to take a peek into this new telenovela I'm studying--La Vida Entera:

VALENTINA PARRAGA IN MY TELENOVELA CLASS

Last week writer Valentina Párraga visited my telenovelas seminar. She is an intelligent and charming guest who shared with us her experience writing telenovelas in Venezuela  (Viva la Pepa and Trapos Intimos, just to name the two most recent ones) and now in Telemundo (Anita no te rajes and Doña Bárbara). These two groups of telenovelas represent a contrast in style that is determined by the undeniable differences between the Venezuelan and the U.S. audience. 

It's always interesting for me to confirm once again that there is an immense distance between the public's perception (as expressed in message boards and gathered in my research) and the tough reality of writing a telenovela. This distance is encouraged by the entertainment press' trivialization of the telenovela writing job and its emphasis on gossip and rumors. 

From a teaching perspective, I believe that it's important for my students to understand the difficulties and stress involved in the everyday life of telenovela writing, a job that takes over the lives of its makers. They spend many hours at their computer keyboards at a time in their lives that is dominated by their telenovela characters and plots, while they try to win the ratings war. 

Following is a brief video where you can hear Valentina Párraga describing her daily routine as she writes Doña Bárbara:

We thank Valentina for her time, warmth and honesty.

TELENOVELA CONVERSATIONS IN MY SEMINAR

A key ingredient of my teaching philosophy is to provide students with opportunities to link what we learn inside the classroom with the "real world" that exists beyond the university's walls. This is the reason why in my telenovela class and seminars I've always included phone conferences with people who work in the telenovela industry. (In previous years, I've had as guests Julie Restifo, Daniela Bascopé, Carlos Cruz, Edgar Ramírez, Marisa Román and Leonardo Padrón).

This week we had two guests that visit my class every time I teach it because they're very generous with their time and insights. And because both of them have taught me a lot as I continue my intellectual journey through the beguiling landscape of telenovela research: Marisa Román and Leonardo Padrón. This time we benefitted from technology since we used video conference thanks to the facilities provided in the Faherty Lab here at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. We enjoyed the experience even more than in previous opportunities because we could see our guests and they could see us. 

Thanks to these conversations, my students were able to hear Leonardo Padrón explain the details of his creative process, describe the everyday life of a telenovela writer, list his major concerns and satisfactions as he tackles the difficult, absorbing and exhausting process of writing a telenovela, which is a product of industrial dimensions. 

The students were also able to ask Marisa Román about the construction of a character, and which have been the most difficult and most satisfying characters she has interpreted. Román explained the differences in the actors craft when she/he faces television, theater and film. 



It was a truly special class in which all involved learned a great deal thanks to a couple of conversations that were enjoyable, sincere and gratifying.

WRITERS WHO HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY

In my recent trip to Venezuela, I conducted many interviews with people who work in telenovelas in both networks, RCTV and Venevisión. I also had the opportunity to visit the set of telenovela Torrente. I'm still digesting and analyzing my field notes and interview transcripts. In this blog entry, I comment on a contrast I found that is particularly enlightening. The contrast is between two telenovelas made in Venevisión: Torrente, currently on the air, and Vieja Yo?, which is already in its production phase and scheduled for broadcast very soon.

In the set of Torrente I found a group of, (mostly young), actors and director Claudio Callao. They're working as best as they possibly can with a script that is generally predictable, occasionally  contradictory and characterized by an exaggerated melodramatic tone. Network Venevisión, determined to produce telenovelas that sell well in the international market, offers us in Torrente a catalog of storylines we have seen so many times, we've memorized them. The production values, however, are much better than the script. I admired director Callao as I watched his struggle to produce a mise-en-scene with the realism and impact the script sorely lacks. I was also impressed with some of the actors who have been working their characters with dedication, taking them beyond the unclear outline barely depicted in the 40 pages that constitute each episode. I can't avoid asking myself: What is Torrente's thesis? Does it have a thesis? What do the writers want to say? 

The contrasting experience was my conversation with writer Mónica Montañés about her new telenovela La Vieja Esa (title that Venevisión discarded, favoring Vieja Yo?). This writer has a clear thesis behind the story she's going to tell. Many people think that writers just say "now I'm going to write the love story between a woman and a younger man." Well, not really. When a writer has a thesis, he or she has something to say. And that gives the story support, sustenance and consistency. It also draws clearly the characters. (Something that good actors appreciate and enjoy). When there's a thesis, the audience finds a truth immersed in the dream that every telenovela is. And that truth faces us and hooks us too. That's the difference between telenovelas like  Torrente and those that are conceptualized like Vieja Yo?

Some will undoubtedly say that Torrente will fare better than Vieja Yo? in the international market. We'll have to wait and see. But if that proves to be the case, there will be people who will interpret it as proof that the international audience is only interested in the same old story. Personally, I don't think so. I do think, however, that there are vested interests in selling only the same story over and over again. And that's different. 

TELENOVELAS: THE CENTRAL PARADOX

One of the most fascinating aspects of studying telenovelas is the amount of diversity of paradoxes that are part and parcel of this television genre. Some examples:

• Distributors believe that 120 episodes is the magic number to sell telenovelas in the international market. However, when non-Latin American cultures produce their own telenovelas, those are generally longer than 120 installments, as is the case of the many versions of Yo Soy Betty, la Fea.
  
• Telenovela actors are frequently dismissed as second class talent. However, their names are often the ones that attract audiences to theater and movie theaters. 
• Even though there's an increasing number of scholars studying telenovelas, we still have to justify sometimes our interest in one of the most watched (if not the most watched) tv genre in the world.
• Telenovela writers who come from the literary world (theater, film, narrative and poetry) spend a good time of their lives explaining why the write telenovelas. 

I believe that these and other paradoxes have their roots in which I like to call "The Central Paradox":

Telenovelas are products of mass consumption and mass disdain.

And it isn't rare to find people who both watch and scorn telenovelas. This is the source of most of the contradictions and paradoxes associated with telenovelas.

What do you think?