non-core - Telenovela!

 

This not a “try not to laugh” video, but almost. The clip I’m attaching here is part of a telenovela, called Rosalinda, that aired pretty much everywhere in Latam. In fact, Wikipedia says that it is the “all-time most exported and most watched single telenovela in the world” because it aired in 180 countries worldwide and was seen by 2 billion people by 2000. The overall plot couldn’t be more cliché: Rosalinda is a poor but beautiful girl who sells flowers and, one day, meets a rich man with whom she gets married and has a kid. Of course, the plot thickens because the man gets tricked by his own mother and abandons Rosalinda (because “happy marriages don’t make for interesting plot complications”), who loses her marbles and is put in a mental hospital (the kid is also kidnapped by the wealthy grandmother). When the place catches fire, she’s able to escape but everybody thinks she’s dead and, because of her amnesia, she becomes a new person – a famous singer – and falls in love with her talent agent. Eventually, her memory comes back (after a car accident, of course) and she fights back to get her child and (original) man back.

All the elements that Feuer describes are here, namely “acting, editing, musical underscoring and the use of the zoom lens” which are all striving to enhance the (melo)drama. Also, just like Dynasty was an expensive soap opera to make because of the opulent sets and dazzling fashions, Rosalinda also remains in history as the most expensive television production in Mexico.