|
Changing the Channel
"The telenovelas got boring. The world they showed wasn’t real. The romance, betrayals...you know, just fantasy. I got sick of hearing stories about women willing to go to the extreme, even kill, over a guy."
By Sandra Quel
Listen
to this Commentary!
Youth Radio's Sandra Quel says that Spanish language TV producers in the US need to pay attention to immigrant groups and their children, because the number of Latinos born here is growing faster than the number of new arrivals to the country. Sandra thinks the second generation viewers have different tastes than their parents. She has a few suggestions on how Spanish language corporations like Univision could target a younger generation of US-born Latinos.
I remember my mother turning on the TV everyday and watching the novelas. They’re like your regular soap operas in English, only sometimes they can take place in a different time period. I used to watch with her in the afternoon when she got home from work.
She’d come in with groceries and after putting them away she would get herself something to eat, and watch until she fell asleep. My mother came here from Guatemala so the only channels she could really understand and relate to were the Spanish language ones.
But as the years went by, I guess because I knew English, I wanted to watch things in English. You learn a new language and you get use to hearing it. But that wasn’t the only reason.
The telenovelas got boring. The world they showed wasn’t real. The romance, betrayals...you know, just fantasy. I got sick of hearing stories about women willing to go to the extreme, even kill, over a guy. Or a man obsessed about a woman who didn’t love him and loved someone else. They always ended up with the two main characters surviving all odds and getting married and living happily ever after.
And I’ve noticed that the portrayal of women is different now. For example, one of the game shows I grew up watching every Saturday night is called Sabado Gigante. It’s hosted by Don Francisco and has different games and contests, like who can sing the best reggaeton. At the end, they give away a free car.
Sabado Gigante use to have their models in beautiful evening gowns. Now they have dancers in booty shorts. Even in the news programs, the women reporters don’t dress professionally. They’re in mini skirts and always trying to keep up their appearance. I guess they think the more women show, the higher ratings they’ll get. But they’re wrong. It loses the more mature audience.
Everything now is corny and flashier. El Gordo y La Flaca is a show with a skinny lady and a fat man reporting the latest gossip in a Jacuzzi. They invite guests in bathing suits and talk about celebrity lives.
Teenagers don’t usually watch that stuff unless they weren’t born here or they can’t change the channel because their parents are watching it.
I’ve asked some of my friends why they don’t watch Spanish TV. The boys said, “Novelas are for girls. I don’t want to watch that stuff, I want to watch manly things.” Some of the girls do watch the novelas. But only when there’s nothing else to watch.
I have to admit, though, that some of my friends and I did watch the World Cup on Univision when the other channels were on commercial. At least there were no half-dressed women while they were presenting it.
My mom and I don’t watch TV together anymore. She still watches the novelas. But now we have two TV sets. They’re in the same room...one in my corner, the other in hers. I like my Hispanic heritage and I have nothing against TV in our language. I just wish it gave off a better impression.
|
|
