Telenovelas: A Portal to Culture

Slipping into my Spanish I teacher’s classroom during lunch to watch telenovelas are some of my best memories from middle school. My friends and I would huddle together after procuring our simple lunches of plastic-y cheese pizza and too-soft chicken tenders complete with saccharine-sweet, syrupy mandarin oranges, then plan our escape swiftly sneaking past the lunch monitors. My Spanish teacher’s room was always open for visitors, equipped with desks grouped together and Netflix for our viewing pleasure- with only one stipulation- anything we watched had to be in Spanish. The only problem was that everyone in our group had a different telenovela that piqued their interest and none of them were the same. After several lunch periods filled with debate, we approached our Spanish teacher and asked for her recommendations. We figured that she would have a good collection of shows that she enjoyed. As a Mexican native, she had previously shared with us her old quinceañera photos and memories of eating her favorite snacks with friends during her time in Mexico. We trusted her judgement and began to watch the popular Mexican telenovela María la del Barrio. At first all we could do was laugh and roll our eyes at the melodramatic moments, but we quickly found ourselves entranced in the plot of the show. What first started off as a joke became an obsession few of us could deny. I often found myself searching for more clips of the show at home to keep me entertained until the next lunch period.

For a few years I forgot about the excitement of telenovelas and moved my attention to other shows, Beauty and the Beast, Gossip Girl, and Vampire Diaries soon began to take over my Up Next queue. At my friend Nicole’s house I caught snippets of exaggerated gasps and dramatic music when her grandmother would flip through her favorite telenovelas. I could never muster up the courage to say anything more than a few simple words in Spanish, mostly just hola and gracias, but I figured she understood my interest in the culture. 

Nowadays, I watch a lot of Korean dramas after spending time with my Korean friends in high school. I appreciate the on-demand drama and allow the perfectly planned worlds to whisk me away into a state of wide-eyed wonder. Watching dramas makes me feel like a child again. I think my initial interest in telenovelas led me to find other international shows that I was also able to enjoy. Telenovelas, in a way, functioned as a portal for me to find shows in other languages that I enjoyed as well. These popular dramas and TV shows from other countries inspired me to learn more. They inspired my curiosity to learn languages and have more conversations with others of different cultural backgrounds.