The global allure of telenovelas: millions are hooked on Latin America's most popular export.

We poke fun at them. We trash them. Sometimes we wont even admit to watching them. We're the devoted fans of telenovelas, Spanish-language soap operas that keep millions of us, in countries from Mexico to Egypt to Singapore, glued to our TV sets. To say we love them would be an understatement. If truth be told, we're hooked.

We fans find each other in the most surprising places. On a recent visit with my new neighbors who just emigrated from Russia, I found the elderly couple in their living room ensconced in front of the TV. "Veronica!" the wife shouted, pointing to the television set completely oblivious to my presence. The face on the screen belonged to Veronica Castro, the celebrated Mexican telenovela actress. I startled my neighbors by telling them that Veronica's performances in Rosa Salvaje (Wild Rosa) and in Los Ricos Tambien Lloran (The Rich Also Cry), two of her most popular hits, are my all-time favorites. Somehow my new neighbors and I knew we're going to get along fine.

Universal Appeal

What is the allure of the international phenomenon known as telenovelas? How is it that millions of people all over the planet have become hooked on Latin America's most popular export? It could be that telenovelas, like novels and film, are popular because they deal with issues viewers confront in their own lives, "issues like love, betrayal, illness, death," says Lisa Penaloza, associate professor of marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder. "These shows offer some insights on how to deal with the pain of life, and we can laugh at those who do not handle them particularly well," she adds. Another reason might have to do with fantasy. "Telenovelas are like test markets in which people can experiment vicariously with things they might secretly like to do, or fear to do."

On any given day, the major Spanish language networks Telemundo and Univision broadcast an array of telenovelas. Studios in Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, and Brazil, countries that account for the production of the vast majority of Latin American telenovelas, churn out more than 100 telenovelas a year for a public that can't seem to get enough.

But their popularity extends far beyond the United States and Latin America to the living rooms of viewers in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. In developing nations, telenovelas surpass the popularity of soap operas from France and the United States. In 1997, when Thalia, the female star in the Mexican telenovela Miramar visited the Philippines, she was greeted as if she were a head of state. Telenovelas have definitely been a vehicle for actresses such as Thalia and Salma Hayek to become international stars. Although these actors and actresses may be widely known in immigrant communities, most--with the exception of Hayek--have had limited success in "crossing over" into mainstream movies and television programs in the United States.

Much like soap operas in the United States, telenovelas are marketed mainly to female audiences and typically include several generations of women and the men in their lives. "There's usually a grandmother or great aunt, as well as a middle-aged couple, people in their twenties, and often young children as well," says Penaloza. Anyone who doubts the target audience need only stick around for the commercial breaks, where advertisements tout everything from extra-hold hair spray to feisty kitchen cleansers.

Unlike soap operas where story lines can stretch out for years, even decades, a typical telenovela story lasts only three to six months. The shows usually end on an upbeat note with the main protagonists having overcome what seemed like insurmountable obstacles--a cheating husband, a secret addiction--the same problems that confront many viewers.

Countless magazines devote their pages to articles, photographs, and interviews with telenovela stars who are adored throughout Latin America and the United States. Enthusiasm for telenovelas spills over to the Internet as well, where more than 32,000 websites in numerous languages deal with various aspects of the telenovela world. At TelenovelasOnline, for example, you can vote for your favorite show of the month, and see TV ratings of the week's Top 10 shows. I logged on and found out that for four consecutive weeks in September 2003, Nina ... Amada Mia was watched by one in four Univision viewers.

Social and Cultural Messages

With all these loyal viewers, do telenovelas contain any significant social or cultural messages? Penaloza thinks they do. "Telenovelas teach lessons about birth control, teen pregnancy, drugs and alcohol, violence, and probably the most popular--sex," she says. But they also touch on wife battering, homelessness, prostitution, and incest. Mexican telenovelas have raised issues faced by undocumented migrants who cross the border to work in the United States. In Rebecca, for example, a story deals with the anguish of an undocumented maid when threatened with deportation by her employer. In Dos Mujeres y Un Camino (Two Women and One Road), a popular telenovela that aired on Univisiona few years ago, Erik Estrada played an assimilated Latino who returns from the United States to live in Mexico. Characters poke fun at him because of his limited command of Spanish, even as Estrada's character tries to explain that his inability to speak fluent Spanish is the result of a childhood spent in the United States.

Recent Mexican telenovelas have touched on the issue of homosexuality--a bold move considering the Catholic Church's influence in Mexico and its disapproval of gay lifestyles. In Tres Mujeres, for instance, a gay character has a difficult time confronting his homosexuality. At work, his boss assures him that he accepts his orientation. Most gay characters, however, are presented in stereotypical roles. Gay men, for example, are usually depicted as effeminate individuals with no real lives and are relegated to supporting roles. Contrast this with All My Children, which features a young lesbian in a leading role.

The world of telenovelas is colored by Catholic values and doctrine. It is not uncommon to see characters praying in church, seeking guidance from priests, or showing devotion to the Virgen de Guadalupe. (This is in glaring contrast to U.S. soap operas, which rarely make references to God.) And although some telenovelas have depicted nuns and priests struggling with celibacy or falling in love, there is never any real challenge to the Catholic Church's conservatism.

Nor are popular stereotypes of other religions challenged. The telenovela El Clon (The Clone), deals with the oppressive side of Islam when a married Moroccan woman falls in love with a Brazilian man. She is constantly reminded that she is forbidden to divorce her husband and in fact must obey him without question. Her husband, on the other hand, is free to have numerous affairs and has the sole right to end their union with a divorce.

Racism and Telenovelas

While telenovelas are regularly remade with plot changes to bring them up tn date and showcase the actors and actresses of the moment, very little changes in terms of racial stereotypes. The 1970 Mexican production of Angelitos Negros (Black Angels), remade in 1997 with the title El Alma No Tiene Color (The Soul Has No Color) and starring the now deceased salsa queen Celia Cruz, features a white couple whose child is born black. Accusations fly that the wife must have had an affair, a charge she firmly denies. A surprising twist comes at the end when the wife's real mother is revealed to be the family's black maid.

The stereotypical role to which blacks are relegated in telenovelas could be changing, however. The groundbreaking Colombian show Adrian Esta de Visita (Adrian Is Visiting), released in 2002, was the first tn feature a black leading man, played by Walter Diaz. The implications of casting a black lead are nothing short of revolutionary in an entertainment industry accustomed to featuring exclusively white actors in leading roles, Hispanic activists and television executives say. It's a legacy that goes back centuries. "The Spaniards came over, and they did a great job of planting themselves as the superior force," says Alex Nogales, president of the California-based National Hispanic Media Coalition. "So that was the model that everyone wanted to emulate."

Adrian was created to "address the social hierarchy in Latin America that favors the light-skinned progeny of the conquistadors over the dark-skinned descendants of the conquered." Manny Martinez, vice-president of programming for Telemundo, told the Miami Herald. "Not all of our grandparents are from Spain."

Yet it is perhaps Adrian's choice of a girlfriend--a white woman--that makes the show so controversial. "Adrian is considered much more risqud because it casts a black man as the romantic interest of a white woman," says Fernan Martinez, a Colombian native and president of Loft, a Spanish-language men's magazine. "It's more acceptable to see a [white] guy with a black woman, but to see a black man with a white woman is considered extreme." Apparently, people like extreme. When Adrian aired in Colombia, the telenovela drew close to 2 million viewers a night, setting ratings records for its time slot.

Real Life Education

I do not know exactly why I am so drawn to telenovelas. Maybe it's because from time to time I may see a little bit of myself in an episode. But a much deeper, personal reason may be that telenovelas help to bridge the economic, social, and educational divide that exists between me and my mother. We can sit over a meal or a drink and discuss the latest plots and twists, both of us knowing that in our knowledge and passion for telenovelas, we are in fact equals. This would never be possible with English language television programming and movies because my mother is a working-class Mexican immigrant who speaks very limited English. As my mother likes to say, "Las telenovelas reflejan la vida real (real life) y son muy educativas (educational)."

Leticia Pena is an attorney living in Denver, Colorado where she frequently watches telenovelas.