Wednesday, February 10, 2016

La Patrona

I am watching La Patrona and one of the things that I noticed about my telenovela within the first episode was how all of the characters act exactly like stereotypical men and women act, besides the protagonists. The female protagonist differs from traditional stereotypes dramatically. Gabriela is a single mother who works in a mine, which basically means that she is doing the exact opposite of what everyone else expects a woman her age to be doing. In the first episode alone, Gabriela suffers almost constant abuse because of how she is living her life. For example, in the very first scene her ideas to improve the mine get ignored because of her gender and she is then touched inappropriately by a male miner. Alejandro, the male protagonist, also deviates from the behavior of the other men on the show. While all of the other men are loud and obnoxious drunks, Alejandro is quiet and calm. Multiple events take place within the first thirty minutes or so of the first episode where the protagonists are placed side by side with these stereotypical characters and I think the main purpose for having these foils is to help the audience understand who the protagonists are as quickly as possible. For example, at the funeral all of the single women besides Gabriela are busy trying to throw themselves at eligible bachelors while she is only there to grieve. Another example would be when a man in a bar begins to grope Gabriela despite her protests until Alejandro steps in and fights the man and his buddies alongside Gabriela. Both of these encounters and multiple others really help the audience understand these characters well enough so that the audience can become heavily invested in them and want to tune in for the next episode.

3 comments:

  1. I felt like Patricia was deviated from the typical characteristics as well. For example, she stated in the beginning to Ricardo that she had no interest in being ridiculed and would not pursue a man who had no interest in her. She also encouraged Julia to divorce Fernando because he was obviously not a good huaband, and that there was no shame in being a divorced woman. She is different from Gabriella in many ways, but in some ways, based on what I have seen so far, I feel like she is just as strong and unique than the other female characters within this series.

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  2. I felt like Patricia was deviated from the typical characteristics as well. For example, she stated in the beginning to Ricardo that she had no interest in being ridiculed and would not pursue a man who had no interest in her. She also encouraged Julia to divorce Fernando because he was obviously not a good huaband, and that there was no shame in being a divorced woman. She is different from Gabriella in many ways, but in some ways, based on what I have seen so far, I feel like she is just as strong and unique than the other female characters within this series.

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  3. I too feel as if most protagonists in telenovelas usually deviate from their assigned gender roles. This sets them apart from their stereotypical roles to signify that they are the protagonists. Similar to my telenovela, Fatamagul Sucu Ne, the protagonists are not typical characters. Fatmagul does not want to stay cooped inside the house, rather she wants to run around on the beach. The male protagonist, Kerim has empathy for women and refrains from raping Fatmagul. These qualities make them different from all the characters around them.

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