The Playlist - WTITYB (Whatever, Tell It To Your Blog)

I thought this article about Spanish Telenovelas in the New York Times this weekend was interesting. Telenovelas are essentially just Spanish Soap Operas, but seemingly a thousand times more campy and unbearable. The utilize the most ludicrous and preposterous plot devices and yet, audiences seem to still buy the stories and moreover, continue to find them fascinating and utterly addictive. The reason I have an ounce of understanding about Telenovelas is because my mom has been obsessed with them for years.

My mother is the typically doting ethnic mother that would lie about any atrocities and murders her sons committed if it kept them out of trouble. She would slap the Pope, perjure herself in front of Jesus, tell my high school principal to go fuck himself if they dared claim I was a bad seed in any way (which I was, but no, not her angel).

Anyhow, the big annoyance/amusement for me is that my mother shuts down during Telenovela time. I could come in the room with my arm cut off, blood streaming everywhere and say, “Mom, savage dogs are attacking the neighborhood, they’ve killed Eric and brutally maimed me!,” and she’ll respond, “Shhhh! There’s soup in the fridge, heat it yourself.”

This is a woman who is doting to a fault. All I have to do is think about entertaining the idea of eating and there a gush of wind that blows past me, a blur I can’t make out and then a hot meal in front of my face. After I take a bite, she asks, “do you want seconds?”

But when a Telenovela is on, forget about it. Our family can’t get a crumb let alone a 911 emergency call if one of us accidentally fell and cracked our heads open.

Now I’m not implying in any way that I should get meals at the drop of the hat– far from it. I’m explicitly trying to convey the power of the Telenovela to the world of ‘Gringos’ that can’t possibly understand how a person will betray all of their basic human instincts all for the sake of some super-schmaltzy melodrama.

It’s basically like Crack for Spanish housewives (though my mom works and has 3 children to take care of: my two brothers and my dad).

This entry was posted on Monday, November 7th, 2005 at 11:05 am and is filed under My Crazy Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.