Pasion de Gavilanes
Welcome! I chose Pasion de Gavilanes as my show, and even though I have only watched 5 episodes, in true telenovela nature 2 people are already dead, they all hate (and love?) each other, and there has been at least 500 close ups to show facial expressions. Below I will give you an extremely rough recap of the past 5 episodes to give you a glimpse of understanding to the parts of it I wish to analyze.
They main premise of the show follows 3 brothers who are determined to avenge their deceased sister through means of revenge towards the family they blame, only to unexpectedly fall for the daughters of the family. The oldest brother, Juan, is extremely hot headed, Oscar is greedy beyond help, and Franco is not the brightest bulb in the box, but he makes up for it in being kind. The three brothers discovered that their sister, Libia, was secretly meeting with an older man (old to the point where she looks 17 and he looks 70) that she was in love with; this scandalous information traversed their town through means of gossip and the three brothers eventually got Libia to admit the truth. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to Libia, the rich, old Bernardo is secretly a married man in a joyless marriage to Gabriela with three daughters: Norma, Sarita, and Jimena. Skipping a few important details, Libia discovers that she is pregnant and gets engaged to Bernardo. Bernardo’s secret affair was about to be revealed, so he raced to beat the revealer, so as to tell the family first. In doing so, he got hit by a car and died; Libia discovered his death in the news a day later and was distraught. She was forced by the greedy townsfolk to go to Gabriela’s house and tell her of the situation only to be tossed from the house like a dog, and later committed suicide while walking home after she was abandoned by the townsfolk. The brothers later discover her body through the police and decide to seek revenge once the cased was ruled a suicide and closed.
Got it? Let’s discuss…
I do not sense that there is only one protagonist and one villain; my roommate and I have deduced that while the 3 brothers and 3 sisters are protagonists and we follow their story, they are no saints. In regards to the villain, Gabriela is one of them as you can tell from her very expressive eyebrows; In my opinion, most “evil” things she has done feel deserved. While I’m not on her side, I don’t want her to face a telenovela villain’s end just yet. However, Norma’s husband, Fernando, can face every villain end imaginable. The purpose of Fernando is to be the husband of Norma to cover up the scandal of her being gang raped. Fernando is upset that Norma doesn’t want to have sex and complete her wifely duties, so he tries to rape her roughly every night. I hate this character so much, and he makes everyone and everything worse. I now understand why people will stick with these shows for so long; I would watch this show for 500 episodes if it meant I could see Fernando get whats coming to him.
Which leads me to sexism!
There is so much of it. While I am not shocked about it, it still upsets me. They show begins with the three brothers discussing about how their sister is a “slut” and how the entire town is talking of it; poor Libia is just being groomed by this old, rich guy, because he doesn’t want to fix his marriage and would rather abandon it and his children. While Libia only lived for a few episodes, she cried at least a million times. While I am aware that she was the stereotypical innocent and naïve character, she was so unbelievably naïve that it hurt me. Bernardo never took her to where he lived or told her of his job in the many months that they were together, and she did not question it once! Unfortunately, her brothers did, especially Juan. Juan is the typical older brother who has deemed himself the head of the house and abuses that to the fullest extent by fighting everyone and making Libia cry at least 500 times per episode. He controls and judges Libia over everything that she does and is somehow surprised when she committed suicide after discovering the man she loved was married and her first thought was over how Juan would disown her. Libia deserved so much more than the control of her brothers or that 70-year-old groomer.
As excited as I am to see what else happens within this show, I am equally terrified as it only took roughly 5 episodes for 2 characters to die. I can already feel the characters avoid the obvious solutions to problems, and I am ready to see their poor decisions slap them in the face in the next 100 episodes.
Doesn’t feel as if there is only one protagonist or villain and many characters follow good and villain-like guidelines.
Wow. There is a lot going on in that telenovela. I will first applaud you for being brave enough to watch a drama where that young girl and that grandpa have an intense relationship as it appears. I would also like point out a similarity that I am finding in telenovelas such as yours and mine where some old guy dies within the first few episodes and causes a lot of drama for the entire thing. I was not originally aware that this was an element in telenovelas but I am finding it to be more common that not. The sexism in these dramas are definitely tough to get through, one of my villains has sexually assaulted two of the main characters already and it is tough to watch so I wish you the best of luck.
ReplyDeleteLiterally, what is up with men being in relationships with much younger girls? In my melodrama, there is a teacher having an affair with one of his students. I definitely wish him the worst like you are with Fernando because he has really messed his wife’s life up. I agree with what you said about villains making us watch the entire series just to see them get their karma. I’m just waiting for the horrible/annoying characters to have something happen to them. I definitely see what you’re talking about that the protagonists are not saints. I’d even say some, not all, villains have redeeming qualities. Each character seems to have a little good and bad in them. Also the sexism. The more blog posts I read and the more I watch my melodrama there’s just a lot of sexism. Some are worse than others but a lot seem to have a little bit of sexism.
ReplyDelete