I have succumbed

I just had the best breakdown of a telenovela ever.  I asked my host sister, mid-program, if the lady asking for the Virgin's help in finding her supposedly died-as-a-baby daughter knew that it was actually the girl in the pew a few rows back.  This was the discussion amongst my two host sisters, my host mom and myself that followed...

“No, she doesn't know yet.”

“Yes, she does!  The priest told her when she was in the hospital.”

“Mom, don't be dumb, she was unconscious and she thought it was all a dream.”

“No, it wasn't the first time she was in the hospital, it was after when the...”

“Mom!  You're wrong, it was definitely the first time when she was knocked out.

“Look, Lily, the priest is the girl's father with this woman, and he knows the truth, but because he's been hiding the fact all this time he doesn't want to say now.”

“Wait, but isn't the man that the girl is in love with the son of the woman who is her real mother?”  “No,” my host sister corrects me, “He's the step-son.  The woman married his father when he was just a baby.  But it's still wrong for them to be together.”

“It's not wrong, they're not blood relations, but she'll probably end up marrying that other guy anyway.”

“Ay mami!  You're wrong!”

Whoa.  That was intense.  And I'm actually starting to care.  I used to have a moral objection to watching soap operas.  If you've sat down and watched an hour of early-afternoon TV, you can agree it's pretty easy to forgo the gripping, original plots and the oh-so-real interpretations of the characters.  For integrity's sake, I tried to skip out on the telenovela phenom when I got to Costa Rica.  But after watching a few episodes (it's very important for me to integrate into tico culture, you know) I realized that the reason soaps suck is because they're a cover of the real deal.  I generally have nothing against covers – Weezer's Lady Gaga/MGMT mash up is pretty sick.  I like pretty much every movie based on late 19^th century English literature that's come out recently, and they all have antecedent BBC miniseries.  And Nicole does a great Jay-Z, you should ask her about it sometime.  But for some reason, it's impossible to recreate the magical mixture of drama, suspense, family intrigue and boobs that make up a Latin telenovela.

It makes me wonder who writes for these...if there even is a script when they film?  Or is it more of a big-picture operation?  Like, “We just have to get him involved with a gang somehow by the end of the week.”  Anyway, I'd like to sit in one time in a room with writers discussing how to go about developing a plot that always seems to be free of the constraints of time and space that normally govern the lives of real people...

 “Well, they met and he was kind of embarrassed to ask her out on a date.  And this week she can't stand it anymore so she just kisses him.”

“That's brilliant, José!  Cue the brave, romantic music and then he'll suddenly have the gumption to ask her to marry him!”

“Don't get ahead of yourself, man, remember that what she wants above all is a family.  So first she gets him to steal a baby...we'll have to put the wedding at two weeks from now.”

Or something like that.  It's kind of a nice release, actually, to watch these novelas.  I enjoy watching other people have dream-like, super-confusing lives (instead of myself).  You have to figure that this happened to somebody, somewhere, at some point, right?.  Cue my father: “Child, there is a difference between television and real life!”  I'm sorry, Dad, I didn't catch that.  I was watching the girl who's poor reject her indigent boyfriend because she has to marry the rich and evil Argentinian to pay for her papa's life-saving heart surgery.

But you were saying...?