Beyond the North and the South, Or How Telenovelas Become the Tie That Binds the Two Americas

“We are committed to localized content becoming global and global content becoming localized," declared one of the top executives at Disney-ABC as she explained the company’s objective to extend and expand the relationship that Disney Channel has fostered with families and their children.

From the magazine article on Disney’s marketing strategy of “embracing telenovelas,” the executive’s explanation is easily one of the salient points in our class, especially in relation to our discussion on telenovelas and how this particular genre has been propped up by media giants and prodded by the impulse of globalization.

Clarifying the notion of counterflow, the seepage of telenovela as a Latin American or Hispanic product into the U.S. market definitely washes away the idea of geography as a cut-and-dried entity. In a world rendered borderless by digital technology, geographical mindsets are up for a repositioning or reorientation to the inexorable tide of cultural crosscurrents.

Indeed, as conveyed by Telemundo and Univision—the major Hispanic networks that encompass the culturally constructed regions of South America and the United States—McLuhan’s message is loud and clear with a Hispanic accent that is never lost in translation. Yes, the world is a global village. And this is where the viewers of Betty La Fea and Ugly Betty find themselves comfortably close even if CNN is recurrent about its reports about alienation, inequality, and antipathy as the constants of the human condition.

No longer defined in the rhetoric of conflict or divergence, the North-South dynamic evident in the convenient and mutually beneficial circulation of telenovelas is proof-positive of the emergent trend in the media—the medium of television, specifically—toward convergence.

Indeed, this phenomenon of distributing media products internationally from the periphery to the core of America defines the interconnected complexity of cultural identity even as it defies the customary notion of cultural imperialism. For me, this reality undoubtedly widens the elbow room for raising the stakes of democratic ideals and global economy. It exceeds the usual expectation when we talk about such topics as dominance and diversity.

This development also offers a possibility for America to swallow or internalize further its image as a “salad bowl” of cultures. Considering that Hispanics in America have exponentially made their presence felt as they reached at least 50 million to mark a new census milestone, it makes a swell business sense to cash in on the demand of the Hispanic consumer, as recommended by the YouTube video below. Nothing is more practical than to accept the convenience of continually adapting and integrating itself to the realities of a world where the center is getting changeable and ever shifting.