The telenovela that I am watching for this class is Juana La Virgen. I picked this specific telenovela because like many of the other people in this class, I wanted to take this FYOS class after watching Jane the Virgin. I went into watching this telenovela thinking that it would be exactly like the tv show, but I realized that I was mistaken after watching just a couple of the episodes. The two have very blatant differences between them. In the telenovela, Juana is a 17 year-old high schooler who has just gotten a scholarship to go to college to study journalism, whereas in the tv show, Jane is a 23 year-old student (going to school to study teaching) who is a part time waitress in a long term relationship. Juana chooses to be a virgin simply because she wants to and not because of any religious reason. There is no true reason behind her wanting to remain a virgin, whereas Jane has been brought up by her grandmother with the ideology that her virginity was something that is very important and that she should save herself until marriage. The father of Jane’s child, Rafael, and his wife, Petra, were having marital issues and considering breaking up. Petra wanted to inseminate herself with Rafael’s sperm as a way to stay with him for his money (but the switch up caused Jane to go through the insemination instead). The father of Juana’s child, Mauricio, and his wife, Carlota, seem to be a good couple with no major problems, except for Carlota not liking the fact that Mauricio is going with a surrogate to have a child. In the tv show, Rafael is not aware that an insemination with his sperm was occurring, whereas Mauricio was aware.
Jane and Juana’s stories also share similarities such as them both being accidentally artificially inseminated. They both are free-spirited, powerful, and strong women. Both women eventually fall in love with the father of their child. Both Rafael and Mauricio are cancer survivors who are the heads of big companies like a hotel chain and magazine, respectively. They both have a limited amount of sperm left in a clinic due to chemotherapy killing off their own sperm. Jane and Juana both work at/will eventually work at the hotel/magazine.
The Cinderella trope is a very common trope in telenovelas and other media in the world due to its likability. Its fairytale-esque elements make it something that is extremely entertaining to watch. There are traditional telenovelas that stick to this trope pretty much to a tee, but there are also some telenovelas that stray from some of the elements/switch some of the elements that make these telenovelas a “Cinderella story”. Juana La Virgen is an example of a variation of the Cinderella trope. In this case, Juana is a variation of “Cinderella” in that she’s (relatively) poor, beautiful, good, and pure (a virgin). Mauricio is a variation of the “Prince” in that he is rich, handsome, and makes mistakes. This rich guy/poor girl combination, in addition to some other elements such as having an evil father-in-law, is what categorizes this telenovela under the CInderella trope category.
The Cinderella storyline seems enjoyable because you have a basis of how things will play out, but there is so much conflict tied up in it. Would you say that Juana La Virgen is very closely following the traditional telenovela themes or is it more de raptura, having things that are not wildly improbable? I think there is something more exciting about the things that make you gasp at the unlikelyness of it.
ReplyDeleteHey Sahana! Personally I have never seen either version of “Juana La Virgen”; however, after reading your very thorough description of the differences between the two versions, I was surprised by some of the dynamics between the characters in each show/drama. In class, Dr.A specifically classified a telenovela to have a “spectacle of emotions” and sky rocketing amounts of drama. From your description of the two show set ups, it seems that the American version , Jane the Virgin, seems to be more dramatically set up in the sense that it seems to have more tension between characters. For example, Rafael and Petra’s marriage is on the rocks, Petra's scheme to stay with Rafael for his money, and Rafael is unaware of the surrogacy, which are crucial plot points that are absent in the original Juana La Virgen. These plot points seem to add an immense amount of tension between the characters and usually more tension equals more drama which is what traditional telenovelas are famous for. Once again, I havent watched either version and I’m sure the drama will get cranked into full gear in Juana La Virgen; however, the initial set up seems to be quite tame in drama compared to the character conflicts and circumstances in Jane the Virgin which was initially very surprising and interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteGreat post Sahana! You really got me thinking!