{"id":1,"date":"2011-09-12T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-12T11:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mediosmejoresqueganenmas.org\/?p=1"},"modified":"2014-03-17T23:59:54","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T22:59:54","slug":"a-proposito-de-la-cenicienta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/utiles-para\/utiles-para-audiencias\/a-proposito-de-la-cenicienta","title":{"rendered":"IN REGARDS TO &#8220;CINDERELLAS&#8221;&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class='booster-block booster-read-block'>\n                <div class=\"twp-read-time\">\n                \t<i class=\"booster-icon twp-clock\"><\/i> <span>Read Time:<\/span>9 Minute, 58 Second                <\/div>\n\n            <\/div><p><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--\nP { margin-bottom: 0.21cm; direction: ltr; color: rgb(0, 0, 10); }P.western { font-family: \"Liberation Serif\",serif; font-size: 12pt; }P.cjk { font-family: \"DejaVu Sans\"; font-size: 12pt; }P.ctl { font-family: \"Lohit Hindi\"; font-size: 12pt; }A:link {  }\n--><\/style>\n<p align=\"CENTER\"><strong>TELEVISION&#8230;: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"CENTER\"><strong><em>BETTER NATIONAL<\/em> (Mexican, in this case) <\/strong><\/p>\n<p align=\"CENTER\"><em><strong>OR FOREIGN?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The other day a friend of mine told me, that her intellectual husband had forbidden her to watch Mexican telenovelas \u2013\u201cHe&#8217;s right\u201d, she said, \u201cthey&#8217;re all \u2018<em>cinderellas<\/em>\u2019\u201d\u2013. Nevertheless, he does not object to her watching each and every episode of \u201cLa Ni\u00f1era&#8221; (<em>Nanny Fine<\/em>)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Such a statement merits special analysis, because it is based on prejudices that are firmly entrenched in our society. \u201c<em>La ni\u00f1era\u201d<\/em>, ultimately, is also an adaptation of \u201c<em>La\u00a0Cenicienta <\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span style=\"color: #00000a;\">(Cinderella)<\/span><\/span>, but with a huge difference: While in <em>Mar\u00eda la del Barrio<\/em> <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span style=\"color: #00000a;\">(Maria from the Neighbourhood)<\/span><\/span><em>, La Usurpadora<\/em><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><span style=\"color: #00000a;\"> (<em>The Imposter<\/em>)<\/span><\/span>, and other similar Mexican works, at some point we see the protagonist taking classes and \u201cpolishing his\/her rough edges\u201d (even if this is achieved at lightning speed) \u2013which encourages viewers to study, educate themselves, work towards their personal growth, become more refined to <strong>merit<\/strong> climbing upwards on the social ladder\u2013; in \u201c<em>La ni\u00f1era\u201d<\/em> viewers are encouraged to enjoy vulgarity and coarseness, because she makes the character \u201cendearing\u201d. Plus, she always seem to get what she wants.<\/p>\n<p>Miss Fine manages to marry the boss, without even trying to improve herself as a person. When his sister tells her, the eve of the wedding, that \u201cthe classes shouldn&#8217;t mix\u201d, the nanny can only defend herself saying that chauffeurs and nannies are very good in bed (dialogue which was included right in the wedding episode) \u2013which should give us pause before recommending it as a model for our youths\u2013.<\/p>\n<p>Social mobility is not only possible, <em>but necessary;<\/em> but it should be<em> the logical consecuence of a process of personal growth and self-improvement<\/em> (and not due to one&#8217;s usefulness as a mere sexual object). In the long run, rewarding the social advance of those who strive to become better persons, would result in a better homeland for us all.<\/p>\n<p>A great desire for self-improvement resulting in the investment of whatever they had (and sometimes what they did not) in \u201ctaking lessons&#8221; \u2013in learning, is one of the positive characteristics of our Mexican people.<\/p>\n<p>When I gave Spanish classes to foreign students, I discovered that, in contrast, many Americans measure their desires for self-improvement only in dollars and cents, and see attending university as an investment that will yield short and medium term <em>financial<\/em> profits, rather than as a rung on the ladder of self-improvement.<\/p>\n<p>As far as I can see, many of our Northern neighbours (not all of them, naturally; there are plenty of exceptions) measure their success by how much they pay for a product, rather than by its tastefulness, and the efficiency or thriftiness with which they meet a need. \u2013\u201cHow much you have\u201d appears to be more important to quite many of them, than \u201chow much you are worth\u201d\u2013. I am under the impression that good taste, for <em>many<\/em> of them -not all, I insist-, means not sitting down to eat without a shirt on.<\/p>\n<p>Knowing how to use cutlery seems to be of little importance to them; chewing gum with their mouths open, is considered normal by <em>many<\/em> of them, even in public places and\/or solemn occassions. Treating a lady with respect is, in the minds of many of them (including university graduates), <em>Discrimination\u2026! <\/em><\/p>\n<p>As students, in the middle of a class, some may burp, sit feet up (read: with their legs apart and resting on the seat ahead of them), while openly eating a hamburger and drinking a soda. Many of them do not seem to try to adjust to the meal schedule (times) in our country while living here for several years, or despite planning to become \u2013like one of my students\u2013 an \u201cambassador for her country in Mexico\u201d (this, she said, while blowing a bubble with her chewing gum). Another one was determined to get physically too-close to people, and to touch them all over, because &#8220;our Mexican culture is more &#8216;touchy&#8217; than her own&#8221; (&#8230;!!!) \u2013she explained to me while I politely removed her hand from my arm.<\/p>\n<p>Doubtless, <strong>there are also plenty of people like that in our country \u2013and in every country<\/strong>, BUT <em>it <strong>cannot<\/strong> be said that <strong>our society sees them as ideal or desirable models of behaviour&#8230;<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>All of these are perfectly respectable and subtle cultural differences, true;<\/strong> but they are important, and glaringly noticeable when analyzing the media works produced by both countries. Differences which, furthermore, lead me to believe that it is better<em> (in keeping with our culture)<\/em> to watch an average Mexican telenovela \u2013even if it is &#8220;another <em>cinderella&#8221;<\/em>, than \u201c<em>La ni\u00f1era\u201d<\/em> (and, what about the numerous Japanese cartoons being imported by our television networks, which elevate and extoll gratuitous violence\u2026?).<\/p>\n<p>These differences allow us to conclude that, <strong>for every given culture and society, its own cultural products are <em>-have to be-<\/em> better than the foreign ones,<\/strong> precisely because of the <em><strong>values, ideas and beliefs each one holds<\/strong><\/em> (and which in locally produced works, <em>must \u2013or should, be<\/em> closer to those of the viewing public, naturally).<\/p>\n<p>It is worth noting that a great deal of <em>La ni\u00f1era&#8217;s<\/em> success, results from the fact that Mexican television networks, in the last two and a half years, have not produced any high quality sit-coms (\u201c<em>sit-com\u201d <\/em><em>being a slang term used in media for &#8220;situational comedies&#8221;; that is: commedy shows that tell a group of characters&#8217; story in weekly episodes<\/em>). Why don&#8217;t they bring back \u201c<em>Pap\u00e1 soltero\u201d <\/em><em>(Single Dad)?<\/em>, or any one of the others that competed successfully with programs like \u201cNanny Fine\u201d? Why don&#8217;t they adapt \u201c<em>La ni\u00f1era\u201d <\/em><em>to our culture<\/em>?<\/p>\n<p>I encourage readers to write to the networks with suggestions for these kinds of programs. Perhaps this way they will realize, that they have been careless and neglectful regarding their programming, and in turn their viewers. Us.<\/p>\n<p>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">Illustration source: DreamsTime.com Image Bank (\u00a9 Lunamarina).<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p><strong>ARTICLE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>(BIBLIOGRAPHIC\/HEMEROGRAPHIC\/VIDEOGRAPHIC SOURCE DATA):<\/p>\n<p>Blanca de Lizaur; \u201c\u00bfTelevisi\u00f3n nacional o extranjera?: A prop\u00f3sito de la Cenicienta\u201d (Mexican or Foreign Television? Regarding Cinderella) , in <em>Humanidades<\/em> (Humanities) at the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) # 168 [1998], pp. 31 and 22.<br \/>\n<strong>Currently available at (repository):<\/strong>\u00a0 http:\/\/www.mejoresmedios.org<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>People desultorily dismiss Mexican\/HispanicAmerican telenovelas wholesale; and they praise and value programs made elsewhere in the same uncritical way  \u2013for example: those from the United States\u2013, without engaging in a case-by-case analysis of each to decide if what is being promoted is useful or beneficial for society, or not. <\/p>\n<p>This article examines several fictional works based on the Cinderella schema  \u2013\u201cLa ni\u00f1era\u201d (Nanny Fine), and some telenovelas written by Carlos Romero\u2013, to show that the locally produced works \u2013the Mexican ones\u2013 are in fact superior to the imported series, precisely because of the values, ideas and beliefs extolled by each culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,16],"tags":[31,29,40,28,26,33,41,38,45,42,44,43,27,34,39,32,141,30,36,37,35,14],"class_list":["post-1","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-utiles-para-audiencias","category-revista","tag-cenicienta","tag-consumo-de-medios","tag-el-hogar-que-yo-robe","tag-influenciaefecto-de-los-medios","tag-interculturalidad","tag-la-ninera","tag-la-usurpadora","tag-la-venganza","tag-los-ricos-tambien-lloran","tag-maria-la-del-barrio","tag-maria-mercedes","tag-marimar","tag-mediacion-cultural","tag-nanny-fine","tag-rina","tag-superacion-personal","tag-superioridad-de-los-productos-locales-de-medios-sobre-los-extranjeros","tag-telenovela-mexicana","tag-telenovelas-de-la-escritora-ines-rodena","tag-telenovelas-de-televisa","tag-telenovelas-del-escritor-carlos-romero","tag-television"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1"}],"version-history":[{"count":67,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2945,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1\/revisions\/2945"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mediosmejoresqueganenmas.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}