By the way, I finally figured out who the actress is, Venezuelan power house and runner-up to Miss World 1980,Hilda Abrahamz.
Her peleas y cachetadas (fights and slaps) are featured prominently in the YouTube channel, Soap Fights.
If you're happy and you know it, slap your enemies upside the head!
* * *
Cálmate, cálmate, tranquilo, tranquilo. I do not advocate physical violence against those you hate, dislike, or even just find annoying. Don't you just know that Olimpia Mercouri de Villanueva, Ms. Abrahamz character in Mi gorda bella, would get hauled off to an anger management program if she did crap like this in real life.
Nevertheless, let's acknowledge that I've had a tough year here in Canada, absolutely none of it pandemic-related. As an introvert by nature, lockdown has had its perks. Besides, it's been rough and tough since I first landed here on July 1, 2015.
Since that day, I've had to survive and apparently try to thrive while dealing with a handful of malignant, venal narcissists who would tear me down and think nothing of it because I'm too this or not enough of that. Honestly, as dog-eat-dog as the U.S. can be sometimes, when you find people who are kind at home, they are truly kind, perhaps because we know how harsh life can be in an everyone-out-for-him/her/nonbinary pronoun-self world. Things are bad enough. Why make it worse?
But here in Canada ... my goodness. Why is everyone so mean when you have so much? The sense of entitlement, the passive aggression, the jealousy, the pettiness, the smugness, the selfishness, the stinginess of spirit, the persnicketyness, the casual cruelty while patting yourself on the back for being "good" and "nice," the utter goddamned laziness. If you have so much already, it would stand to reason that you would feel all warm and generous with the world around you, wouldn't it? Well, no. The sad reality seems to be that you don't feel
generous and want to give more to the world. Quite the opposite. Instead, you just want more
and demand that the world to give it to you just how you want it, and if it doesn't, you'll definitely let them know about it.
Canada: A nation of Karens.
Perhaps some of what I see is from the vantage of being a boss, a high-profile personage in a complex organization. It's not as if I never dealt with assholes at work in the good ol' U.S. of A, that's for sure. The country is currently being brutalized by the King of the Assholes and his toadies, after all.
There is less hierarchy here than at home, which might be a good thing if you're lower in status. You have more say--although you apparently do not take on any additional responsibility, you just have a lot of opinions. I find it difficult enough to defend myself when people don't respect my position, my ability, or my intellect--and yet I have to stay calm and measured to convey my authority because heaven help you if you show some steel and hurt someone's feelings here.
And by the way, the challengers do none of the above. They disrespect you to your face and behind your back and do not seem to suffer any professional or personal consequences, as far as I can tell. I guess I should find that liberating, but, instead, it just seems pitiful to me.
Maybe it's because I tried my damnedest for the first year or so to eat, drink, sleep, and breathe Canadian, and it has felt like I've been starving myself, gasping for air, ever since. There is just not enough there there or here here, if you will. I feel like all the country produces is a certain amount of social cohesion and a whole lot of social welfare. Art, culture, a rich tapestry of life--who needs those when you pride safety first and smugness second? Or vice versa. Safety has its appeal, especially if you're not used to having much of it (looking at you, USA). But why does insisting on your personal and professional security result in smugness?
Maybe it's this job, maybe it's Toronto, maybe it's Ontario. Montreal seems nicer, as does Vancouver, and I hear good things about the people in the Atlantic provinces. I've only been to Halifax and the Gaspé so far as was charmed by both, at least for the scenery and human scale of things.
And maybe it's the fact that I've never managed to make any friends here, and I've given up trying. Almost everyone I know is from work or from business, other than the friends I had made before coming here, who are either in Quebec or from Vancouver. And among those I get along with at work, they tend to be outsiders--either from other countries or other, less mainstream cultures. I seem to have only the rarest, most meager of connection with the "old stock Canadians," as the Progressive Conservative Party likes to call them--the white and English-speaking among us.
* * *
If it's so bad, why do I live here, you say? Well, I've been asking myself that over the last couple of months. Maybe even the last couple of years. To tell the truth, I'm tired of being a stranger in a strange land. I want to go home. But I can't, at least not yet.
Love, a legal trip to Cuba, low-cost healthcare, old-age security and the Canada Pension Plan--these are the things that keep me here, at least for another five years.
It's certainly not the weather and definitely not the people.
This preview of The Sims™ Find Religion indicates that this will be a low point in the franchise, truly the most spiteful, racist, and faux Christian expansion pack ever.
Or maybe this is a scene from a telenovela? If so, I think I've seen this one before.
So ... I discovered I can order à la carte on cable an Argentine TV
channel, Telefe Internacional. Although I'm fairly certain I watched some of its programming while I was in Patagonia and Buenos Aires last year, all this time I thought Telefe was a
religious channel--"fé" means "faith" in Spanish but in this case "fe"
is short for "federal".
So not a religious channel. Not in the least it would seem.
Two nights ago, I started watching the telenovela Campanas en la noche (Bells in the night)--anything to avoid the 24-hour speculation-à-go-go on MSNBC and CNN regarding a certain report by a certain special counsel that finally has been sent to a certain attorney general who may or may not decide to disclose its contents. Ay, por Dios. And you thought there were no ridiculous plot twists in real life.
The story so far goes like so: The lead female character, Luciana (played by what I'm assuming is Argentina's answer to The 'It' Girl, Calu Rivero) is married to a
possessive, abusive husband (Vito played by what I'm assuming is Argentina's answer to The 'It' Boy, Esteban Lamothe) while secretly in love with Luis (played by vintage galánFederico Amador), a man in the
adult education class she teaches who
she knew from years ago. Luis fled Patagonia with his daughter after
being falsely accused of murdering his first wife, and Luciana apparently witnessed his escape.
Luis has remade his life in the big city, but it's not without its complications. Por ejemplo, his current partner just murdered a neighbor, possibly a prostitute, and has disposed of her body ... somewhere.
Another character is from Brazil and practices an indigenous religion
in which she has horrific visions--such as one involving her own hand, her boyfriend's
mother, and a circular saw. (Trust me, you don't want to know.) I've yet to figure out how she fits into the overall story, but it's a bizarrely entertaining sideplot nonetheless.
It's Argentina, where psychotherapy is common, so the female lead and
her abusive husband are in couples therapy, and now the therapist has
asked to meet with Luciana separately to get to the truth about her
relationship with her husband and why she gave up her passion for
photography. (Hint: She is repressed by Vito and her disapproving family.)
I picked up all of this from watching two episodes and reading back
story on the web. Language-wise I'm getting maybe 25% (lots of rioplatense accents and grammar--ashá,
sho, cómo se shama, y ¿vos entendás? to sift through). As a result, I'm feeling pretty hopeless.
So, in short, María la del Barrio this ain't.
Nevertheless, I'm going to hang on. As my friend Faby would say, "You know how it's going to end!" Yes, indeed. But the journey is nonetheless entertaining and fascinating and the acting quite good. If you've watched Estocolmo on Netflix, you will be familiar with Esteban Lamothe's acting chops (and exceptional hunkiness), and I suspect you may see him and/or Calu Rivero (poorly used) on a North American screen one of these days, should they so desire to make the move upward.
I know people dismiss telenovelas as pop pablum, but this is a cut above the usual, far darker and moodier even when it hauls out a few clichés. In fact, with my ongoing savoring of Argentine culture (with a splash of Chile, Peru, and Colombia on the side), I'm starting to get a very different picture of the Spanish-speaking world, having been mostly exposed to all things tejano and mexicano.
I still adore Mexico, but Mexico is not all there is, nor is Spain. I wish someone had turned me on to the breadth and depth of Argentine and Latin American culture and society much earlier in life, but here we are, at 57 years old, an American living in Canada, partnered with an Egyptian, working with people from Australia, Britain, Turkey, India, Ukraine, and a host of other nations--and yet pining for another country, Argentina, a Spanish-speaking land that's kind of half-Italian (along with Jewish, German, and Eastern European) in disguise.
If you've given more (or less) than a cursory glance at this blog, it's of course no secret that I have a thing for soap operas. And this "thing" extends to soaps from many countries and in many languages--at least in languages that I understand or that are subtitled to aid in my understanding.
I chalk up the life-long interest in soaps to my upbringing when the daytime soaps were a big part of our family's life. My grandmother was a CBS soaps fan (As the World Turns, Guiding Light), my Mom, an NBC one (Another World). Growing up, I watched Another World and Dark Shadows(ABC) with my sister and brothers. I distinctly remember Rachel #1 (Robin Strasser) purposefully spilling the beans to Alice Matthews that she was pregnant with Steve Frame's child (Steve was Alice's fiancé--trust me, this was explosive stuff in the late 1960s). I also clearly remember Barnabas enclosing the Reverend Trask behind a brick wall, a la The Cask of Amontillado, leaving him to die. (Trust me again, Trask deserved it.)
Later, along with some combination of friends, family, and coworkers, I watched All My Children, Texas, Days of Our Lives, Santa Barbara, One Life to Live, Guiding Light, and now, occasionally, The Bold and the Beautiful. I never got hooked on The Young and the Restless, As the World Turns, or General Hospital, even as a social habit. You can imagine that with the demise of nearly all soaps on American TV since 1999, it's been a lonely, frustrating time for a dedicated soap aficionado.
Orange is the new Itatí Cantoral
Thus over time I've turned to soaps from outre-mer, such as Britain(EastEnders, Coronation Street, and the execrable Hollyoaks, which if I were a particularly stupid trashy teen from the UK, I might find it appealing, but since I'm not, oh well . . .), Australia(Neighbours, Home and Away),South Africa(Egoli: Place of Gold, 7de Laan, Muvhango, Isidingo, Generations), and especially Mexico and Latin America.
See what I mean about a "thing"?
* * *
I'm not sure what triggered the memories but over the last couple of days, I've had flashbacks to scenes from a number of Mexican telenovelas that I've watched over the years--or, rather, over the decades, as I got turned onto novelas during my first trip to Mexico in 1989. That was an eye-opening, mind-expanding, and life-affirming vacation, exposing me to various aspects of Mexican art, language, music, society, business, transportation, religion, and government. And I was only there for 10 days!
Fernando Colunga, '90s novela star. And to think I dated a guy who looked similar to this and broke it off because I thought he was boring ...
My Spanish--learned in high school and college--was fairly rudimentary then. It got better after I moved to Texas in 1995. And while I've never been fluent, I managed to get more competent when I had a Mexican boyfriend who had limited English. Much of the responsibility for communication fell on me, and I gladly accepted the duty.
I've had less opportunity to speak Spanish since moving back east in 2004 and even less than less opportunity since moving to Canada in 2015. But I try to keep up as best I can. The trip I made to San Antonio about a year ago really sparked a renewal in interest. Even at my ripe middle age, I still yearn to be more fluent in Spanish and still regret that I didn't pursue my original plan of an undergraduate degree in Spanish back in the day. A missed opportunity, but honestly, I couldn't see any future in it at the time. I wasn't planning to teach, I wasn't good enough to translate or interpret, and I didn't see myself going on to a PhD in anything. Never mind that I've used Spanish in most of my jobs. Never mind that I still like to speak it when I can. Never mind that I always have felt more comfortable--and more alive!--in Mexico than I have in the colder, blander climes of the U.S., Europe, and, alas, Canada.
I still love English--its fun, flexibility, and global influence. But ay, dios mío, why didn't I move to Mexico all those years ago? Why haven't I traveled more in Latin America--to Buenos Aires or Cuzco or San Juan--especially now that I have the money to do so? Why haven't I taken a Spanish course in Costa Rica or Colombia, similar to what I did when I took a French course several years ago in Montreal? Might I be able to at some point in the future, when retirement finally releases me from the day-to-day and hum-drum of this working life--live, travel, study? Espero que sí.
In the meantime, I'll have to content myself with memories of '80s and '90s telenovelas de amor.
* * *
First, a true confession: Even though Betty la Fea (Ugly Betty)
was a huge hit when I lived in Texas, I never watched it. Probably a
mistake because I missed out on a cultural moment. But, truth be
told, I've never been a fan of the Cinderella nature of some of the
novelas--which makes it challenging to watch them because so many have
the same plot: A poor, innocent, humble but ultimately gorgeous girl
from the barrio meets an incredibly handsome, if somewhat spoiled
and arrogant, aristocrat. He is engaged to a she-wolf, a demon, a viper
. . . an Itatí Cantoral, for example. Eventually he pays
attention to the poor wallflower who, overnight, blooms, and he comes to
his (deeply romantic) senses. He breaks it off with the banshee, but
she won't let him go that easily. That or some handsome ne'er-do-well
pursues the princess-in-waiting until he's about to discover the flower
of her secret. Struggle, drama, vengeance, some more drama and struggle
ensue, et voilà, the protagonists find their way to each other, marry, and (one assumes) live happily ever after.
There's only so much syrup I can drink, only so much cheese I can snack on.
Besides it's not my story, it's not my desire: I just can't work up a
lot of energy about these "hetero-normative" fantasies. (I don't
seriously call them that; instead, I just call them boring, predictable
storylines.) I much prefer the humor and plot intricacies, the drama,
and the survival-against-all-odds storylines.
Sí, Eduardo es más macho que Jack Lord
Another true confession: While I saw episodes of Teresa,Salma Hayek's
breakthrough role, when I lived in Texas, it was only after she became
famous. So I have no idea if I would have spotted a star being born. I
do know, however, that I could never get into the Teresa storyline, even in reruns. And what was with all the wind? Another cultural moment missed.
And still one more true confession: I skimmed Dos Mujeres, Un Camino, starring Erik "Poncharelli" Estrada, because my Spanish wasn't good enough then. But, hey, neither was Erik Estrada's . . . .
* * *
Instead, I remember bits and pieces of some novelas--Dulce Desafío, perhaps the first one I saw, starring Adela Noriega and Señor ¿Quién es más macho?¡Sí, Eduardo Yáñez! I always translate the title as "Sweet Rivalry," but I've also seen it translated as "Sweet Competition" (I like my version better). As far as I could determine, the story was centered around young female runners at a boarding school. I was never sure if Eduardo was the boyfriend or the teacher or the coach or all three--likely a character that would be frowned upon in our #metoo #timesup era.
Two other early novelas I remember . . . confusedly: Simplemente María and Mi Segunda Madre. There's probably no good reason for me to confuse them, other than I discovered them at about the same time, with Mi Madre airing in 1989 and María in 1990. Or vice versa. I forget which.
Mi Segunda Madre is a standout for its rather creepy, slightly surrealist intro (see below) and also for it's heavy use of music by Art of Noise, including, naturally, "Moments in Love." That really caught my attention as that was an album I really enjoyed then and still listen to from time to time. I'm not sure I remember the plot to Mi Madre or even ever understood it, but it had enough mystique about it to lodge into my brain, however piecemeal.
Simplemente María is memorable perhaps for all the wrong reasons--the cheesy intro (see above) with a too adult Victoria Ruffo trying to pass herself off as a simple india from the countryside. And those ridiculous children rubbing their eyes to convey crying, then waving maniacally as María heads off to el DF to find fortune, fame, and love, all apparently in her own fashion design business.
(Don't laugh! It could happen!)
There are others that I watched every now and again when I lived in Texas: María la del Barrio for one, which actually never really interested me in a major way.I think Thalía is a wonderful singer, a great little spitfire of an entertainer. But I don't know that I enjoyed her acting--and, besides, I never understood that whole Jughead del Riverdale barrio costuming they forced her into. ¡Híjole!
There was also Marimar (also starring Thalía) and María Isabel (also starring Adela Noriega). And let´s not forget Cañaveral de Pasiones (which I think translates as Plantation of Passions? But what do I know?). And many, many more--but above all else, there was Tú y Yo.
* * *
Fernando Carrillo spent too much time with the barbells and not enough time with the books
Los galanes--the hunks--of which there were many, although too many now seem interchangeably gorgeous, as if some hunk breeding experiment in the jungles of Colombia has gone wonderfully, horribly wrong.
I mentioned above Fernando C (sleep with), and Eduardo Y (sleep with and marry), two of my favorites. But there were many, many others, mostly of the "sleep with" variety and maybe even one or two "kills." There was Eduardo Capetillo as well--he of the lush chest hair forest (sleep with) and the impossibly cute button nose (kill). There was Francisco Gattorno, who was just so fine, so sleep with and marry.
And there were others who were just . . . annoying. Fernando Carrillo, for example (see photo). I know I'm supposed to be turned on by this, and I'm sure he's a lovely person, but he just looks . . . manufactured. I mean, if you turned him over, I'm positive you'd see an "Hecho en México por Televisa" sticker on what I can only assume is a delectable, well-chiseled ass.
Sigh. I like a slab o' meat as much as any gay man, but not just any slab o' meat. It's got to have some character--and look like it could sign its own name to a check or two. And, sorry, Carrillo, you just look a little dumb.
There was also Juan Soler(Argentine; sleep with, maybe cohabit with not marry) and Sebastian Ligarde(American and an out gay man at that; sleep with but his acting is always very OTT, so kill as well). And others that I no longer recall, despite once having owned a copy of People en Español´s "Top 50 Galanes" (or some such).
So the eye candy on novelas is of very high quality--obviously the makers of these shows know their audience consists of millions of straight women and gay men. But when it comes down to it, I don't actually watch the shows for their hunkitude (although I wouldn't necessarily turn the channel either). Instead, I watch them for the story, the drama, the acting, the sets, the cultural/educational moments, the Spanish vocabulary lessons, and for the lovely ladies who lead us through 180 degrees of emotions--from joy to rage to that gutted feeling you get in your stomach when it all goes pear-shaped and you don't feel you have a friend in the world who can help you out of the mess you're in. You know, love and its after-effects.
Antes de convertirse en actor, Eduardo Capetillo vivió en un parque zoológico
* * *
As mentioned above, my favorite novela back then and even today is Tú y Yo. From the looks of the intro and even many of the early episodes, the show resembles that old song, "The Cowboy and the Lady," brought to cinematic life. You just know that Tomás (Joan Sebastian) and Estela (Maribel Guardia) are going to be put through the mill of love but that, somewhere down stream, they'll find their way back to each other.
Except . . . well, why spoil the story? Let's just say that who you thought would end up with whom didn't go according to plan, and while apparently that was quite by accident, they made magic out of it, turning Tú y Yo into a sort of anti-novela telenovela.
I will have to do some digging in Spanish-language newspapers to give you the full story because I might not recall it correctly 20 years later, and it´s delicious enough that you´ll want to savor every second, in and out of love. And when I discover it again, I'll write a fuller reflection on Tú y Yo. But not today and probably not tomorrow. But soon. Stay tuned.
Oye, after all this, you weren't expecting a season-ending cliffhanger? Chavos y chavas, you need to catch up on your stories.
While you do so, perhaps you'll enjoy the show's intro from 1997.
And all these years later, I still love that song and still adore that show. Es algo personal. It takes me back to my life in Texas, my semi-regular visits to Mexico, to a couple of sweet boyfriends, to great memories, and to feeling alive and happy, like I'd never felt before and hadn't experience recently until I moved to Canada to be with Cairo. Then as well as now, I had my left foot in America and my right one in, well, otro mundo, another world.
And one of these days both of my feet are going to be firmly planted in one world, a beautiful world, a loving world. And I pray to the gods, Christian, Aztec, and otherwise, that that world calls itself Mexico.
Or at least San Antonio. Or maybe Tucson. Or even Santa Fe.
As I seem to be in "save and savor the soap" mode this week (I have in me, I hope, a manifesto on the future of the daytime serial in North America, coming soon), I thought I'd share a memory that came up at dinner last night with my friend The Music Lover. And that is, a recollection of Salma Hayek in the role that first brought her major attention, at least in Mexico and Latin America, as the heroine in the telenovela,Teresa.
This is pretty much how I remembered the show from watching some episodes on the Galavisión network, way back when I lived in Texas and my Spanish was much, much better. These were repeats--the show originally aired in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
This promo piece from Galavisión pretty much explains the premise behind the show--
--And that would be that Salma Hayek stars as Teresa, a beautiful and intelligent young woman who tries to escape poverty. To do so, will she follow her true love? Or will she go with the man who can provide her with wealth and a fabulous lifestyle? Pathos, tears, laughter, drama, and love ensue.
Now if you've ever watched a telenovela, you'll realize that this variation sur la thème de Cinderella makes up the plot of about 90 percent of the shows. They can be, to say the least, a little predictable--but they also deliver a lot of storyline satisfaction, focusing on interpersonal relationships, friendships, families, the eternal quest for true love, dramatic events, and big emotional payoffs.
. . . And let's not forget hair, makeup, and clothes . . .
Which is something our soaps did at one point but totally seem to have lost (if you'll pardon the expression) the plot over the years. Maybe The Young and the Restless still does that, and I think One Life to Live manages it well for the most part. But that's about it.
I'm getting ahead of myself--I'll save the rest for the manifesto.
Anyway, I once read an interview with Salma Hayek in which she talked about being on the show. She never expressed any shame over doing telenovelas. Nor should she, in my opinion, but I'm sure there are some actors and actresses who would rather forget about their past career experiences when they become famous in more mainstream TV and movies. Thus, it was especially gratifying to see Julianne Moore return to As the World Turns before it went off the air last year. It has been also wonderful to see Josh Duhamel, Eva LaRue, and Sarah Michelle Geller return to All My Children in its final weeks. They didn't have to do it, but it's a nice way to acknowledge their history, celebrate the show, and give something to the fans that supported them along the way.
In the case of Salma, from the interview I gathered that she was proud of her work, the show, and the genre itself. I remember her explaining something about how Teresa was somewhat of a traditional telenovela but with a twist, in terms of characters, plots, and the actors' looks. A case in point: No one would ever deny that Salma Hayek is gorgeous, but she isn't necessarily the typical-looking telenovela star. Despite Mexico being something of a mestizo nation with many people having a mix of European and Native ancestry, often the telenovelas feature more European-looking casts (lots of blonds, lots of blue eyes).
It's not that the blonds and blue eyes (along with reds, greens, hazels, browns, blacks, and more) don't exist in Mexico and Latin America. The novelas, being a huge international entertainment industry, pull in actors from other parts of Latin America, such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, et al.); it's just that they seem to predominate among the casts of the novelas. Much in the way that on American TV, everyone is gorgeous with perfect teeth, hair, bodies, noses, when the reality is a tad different from that.
I think, too, Salma's work to bring the nighttime serial, Ugly Betty, to American audiences also indicates her appreciation of the telenovela.Yo Soy Betty La Fea, the original upon which the American version was based, was a hugely popular Colombian telenovela, one that, when I lived in San Antonio, had a big following, among both men and women. Again, it followed the rags-to-riches story of an unattractive girl who succeeded in career and love, despite the odds--and who turned out to be beautiful once she took off her glasses and upgraded her wardrobe. It happens all the time.
Salma, the writers, the directors, the cast, and the crew went beyond the standard trope, however. I never paid as much attention to Ugly Betty as I should have, but I could say that for practically any TV show these days. But in Ugly Betty, there were points, larger and smaller, they were trying to get at--the importance of friendship and family; finding the right kind of love; the ethnic and class differences that often divide us but can unite us; the cool kids vs. the uncool ones and learning to work through the ghosts from high school and other past, negative, "outsider" life experiences; accepting people for who they are and how they look, even if it is "unbeautiful" or "non-standard"; the realization that no one is truly evil or truly good (a theme worked over too often in many soaps and shows); and the ability of women (and maybe all of us) to succeed on their own terms, not those of others.
Plus Ugly Betty did a lot of front-and-center, gay-positive storylines, something that is still all too rare on American TV.
During the series last season, Betty was transformed into a more confident and successful woman, one who was beautiful, but as my friend the Music Lover pointed out, "beautiful in a Betty way," not a glamorous model way.
And, from what I recall, Betty did it all while keeping her glasses on the whole time.
