Comparison With Soap Operas
The standard American, British, or Australian soap opera is invariably designed to theoretically continue indefinitely, and indeed sometimes do endure for decades, with an ever-rotating cast of players and characters. However, most Latin American telenovelas have an average run of six months up to a year. The show's duration is pre-planned at the show's inception, with the overall story-arc and conclusion also known by the show's makers at its inception. Mundo de Juguete is one exception to the rule, with a total of 605 chapters (1974–1977), and a few cast changes during the course of the serial. Some earlier Argentine telenovelas (most of them penned by Alberto Migré) also ran for a few years.
Telenovelas also have a different type of story from English-language soaps, the typical telenovela story being focused on a rivalry between two or more people or families in romance or business. Many of them use stock themes like a cinderella (who is a rival of the male protagonist's evil girlfriend), two brothers after one woman (or two sisters after one man), mistaken/unknown parentage. Typically the hero gets shot (or something equivalent).
Telenovelas comprise the great majority of the dramatic productions by South American television networks whereas in the USA other formats like sitcoms or TV dramas are more popular on the English-speaking networks.
Read more about this topic: Telenovela
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“I’ve finally figured out why soap operas are, and logically should be, so popular with generations of housebound women. They are the only place in our culture where grown-up men take seriously all the things that grown-up women have to deal with all day long.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)