The Final Blog Post

Hi everybody! Wow, I can't believe that the class is over. It all went by so fast and we've learned so much. I wish I could say the same thing about my telenovela. This is how things are supposed to be but either way I expected to be introduced slowly into the problems everybody has in El Privilegio de Amar. The complete opposite thing happened. A couple episodes more since we left off and things have gotten incredibly complicated. So far, we have had four people cheat on their spouses, two threats of divorces, five different power struggles and blackmailings, and three murders. Despite all of this, I  have noticed some cultural influences and self-censorship themes pop up. The cultural influences are reminiscent of what Turkey has and, although the censorship has NOTHING compared to what Venezuela has, my amazingly Catholic Mexico shows up every once in a while. They are both related but I'll start with the cultural influences. Mexico has always been a more traditional and conservative country. Especially twenty years ago, most people are devotedly religious. Not only does the theme song remind you to "Above all, never forget about God" and He is a big reason characters act the way they do. Cristina initially refuses to spend the night with Victor Manuel because of her Catholic upbringing, no other reason. Juan de la Cruz reminds everyone that all of God's children are his children at least 5 times per episode and people are constantly praying and donating to charity. Because of this, there is a lot of censorship in the telenovela. For example, one of the characters is a prostitute. But they have never said the word out loud or anything close to it. At most, what they say is that she "does what she has to do to live". Luciana was a prostitute for a while in her youth but that has also been glossed over other than the occasional ashamed comment from Luciana. Another example is that never ever has anyone ever said the word "sex". Everything is alluded to and although the characters are seen in bed together, the most they mention is that they "spent time together". A lot of the time, the characters who are "spending time together" are those who are unmarried. You can see contrast between three couples. The first are two affairs between adult men and 20+ year old women. On the other hand, there is our protagonist couple Cristina and Victor Manuel who are "spending time together" because they are in a (somewhat) consensual relationship (that gets really complicated). The latter gets attacked more because they are unmarried and Cristina is a proper Catholic girl. Like Luciana has said "In the world, it's the woman who ends up losing". This is increasingly true. In Andres Duval's affair, it's Lorenza (his lover) who is constantly being scolded by her friends while Andres' friends just tell him "Make sure your wife doesn't find out". This is unfortunately a theme not only in the novela, but in real life. Mexico, at least 20 years ago was even more conservative and women were expected to always be there for their spouses, above everything. This brings us to another topic that I hope I will have time and space to cover in my essay. This social hierarchy often plays out in the relationships. For example, Lorenza is/was engaged to her neighbor Chema, who may have seen like a romantic man once upon a time but it seems to me like he's obsessive and stubborn. He was the one who decided that he was going to marry Lorenza, proposed and accepted the proposal, and set the wedding date for the two of them. He's often asking about where Lorenza is, reminds her she belongs to him and is often saying that he's a jealous man who angers easily. This is one of the more healthy relationships because at least Lorenza stands up for herself. But another contrast is that of Tamara and Nicolas. Nicolas so far is one of the villains, a friend of Andres who secretly betrays him various times and now has decided that Tamara, a girl about Cristina's age, is his new lover. Tamara is now pregnant and out of all the pregnancies in the series, this is the only one where abortion has even been suggested. The word was obviously not said out-loud but I found it really interesting that the man who is painted to be a main villain is the one who would suggest it. Again, Catholic country. I was talking to my aunt who works in Televisa and she mentioned how different the telenovelas are now. A simple example is that they don't curse in my telenovela. Maybe the worst thing someone has said is "hell" but other than that everyone is surprisingly calm considering all the other awful things people do. I want to stop here because or else I won't have anything else to talk about in my paper but I just think it's super interesting. I'm very excited to better explain this idea in my essay, although you guys won't read it so I'll leave you with some closure. *Do not read if you are considering watching the rest of the telenovela*. Victor Manuel and Cristina marry and they have a child together. The bad people get what was coming to them, specifically Juan de la Cruz's mom. There was a a lot of problems but at the end, everyone learned the privilege of loving (haha). I really enjoyed this class and I wish you all the best!