ASIA-CULTURE: Bright Stars from Distant Lands

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yuli Ismartono

JAKARTA, Jul 11 1995 (IPS) - Sri came all the way from the West Java town of Bekasi just to see her favourite television soap star.

It was a long trip for the fan, a longer one for the star: Astrid Carolina Herrera flew halfway across the globe in order to appear onstage at the Jakarta Convention Centre here.

Herrera is a Latin American television actress. Her medium is the telenovela. Fantasy tales of love and betrayal played out in these TV soap operas from Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Brazil have found wide appeal in Asia.

When Herrera appeared on stage, the crowd went wild.

“I enjoy watching the telenovelas because they show the same kind of problems we have here in Indonesia,” said Sri in between clapping and cheering while the mini-skirted Herrera sashayed across the stage. “And the people are always so beautiful.”

The adulation Herrera received is of the kind normally reserved for American movie stars. And therein lies an interesting tale: with their beautiful people and gripping tales, the telenovelas are sending cultural waves in a South-South direction, a variation on the traditional North-South pattern.

Actresses like Herrera – lead of the Venezuelan series ‘Morena Clara’ – are becoming international stars.

The 30-minute shows are on most of the private stations. Scheduled either in the mornings or afternoons, they are timed to catch busy housewives during their rest periods along with other female members of the household.

What’s the reason for their appeal?

Asian societies mirror some of the same economc conditions – and have the same social values – as Latin America. Viewers here find more to appeal to them in ‘Morena Clara’ than they would U.S. soaps like ‘The Bold and the Beautiful’, or the more sophisticated British series ‘Coronation Street’.

Herrera’s ‘Morena Clara’, for instance, is a rags-to-riches tale. Clara, a girl reared in the slums of Caracas, meets and marries a rich lawyer. The Cinderella story is made more appealing with a heavy dose of passion, betrayal and intrigue.

That mix is proving potent across Asia.

Protele, one of the largest telenovela distributors, reports that it has sold rights to stations in China, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and India.

To Indonesian television stations, the 1,000 dollar cost of each telenovela episode is a bargain compared to local productions that can have price tags ten times higher. And with telenovelas now beginning to appeal also to men and children, TV stations gleefully dream of rising revenues as advertisers fight to sponsor the shows.

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