Between artifice and reality. Target: Mexican TV Viewers

OLP

Elizabeth Terzakis

English 100

Jun 2012

How long have you been in front of the TV’s screen watching farandula, talk shows, or reality show programs? Could be three or four hours? May be more? And you do not get tired, eventhough you have been watching the same stuff. Nowadays, the TV viewers have more curiosity about what’s going on with J-Lo and Marc Anthony than with Bill Gates and his new super computer’s devisers, or who is going to be the next to get out from La Academia, or the new Big Brother. Televisa and TV Azteca which are Mexican TV companies play an important role on that kind of cheap programs. “In Our Celebrities, Ourselves”, Neal Gabler concludes that people like to watch that kind of programs, because sometimes people identify themselves with one of those programs or they just watch them for fun.

My uncle Ramiro, who recently, passed away never, missed El Gordo y La Flaca which is a Mexican farandula program. I recall one time when I asked him why he enjoyed that program and he responded, “Son, El Gordo y La Flaca keep me smiling and enjoying my life with their brainless comments”. As we can see, people tend to watch that kind of program not just for their chismes or their comments about important celebrities but also people tend to watch them to pass as good time as my uncle did:

When you think of celebrity as a form of relative art-the romances and divorces, the binges, the dysfunctions, the triumphs, the transgressions- you can immediately appreciate one of its primary appeals, which is the appeal of any good story. (Gabler 567)

Programs such as El Gordo y La Flaca or La Oreja always are looking for good histories about any important celebrity and they pay huge amounts of money to get the exclusive as well. Sometimes they get involved with huge legal problems for the reason that they bring out false information about any actor. I recall one year ago, Paty Chapoy, who works for TV Azteca got involve in a millionaire dollar suit, because she and her team brought out a video with erotic scenes related to a famous actress. Of course Mrs. Chapoy lost the case because the jury found that the erotic scenes in the video did not match with the actress’ figure and voice as well. When she got out from the court, a reporter asked her why she had done it and she answered, “The audience always wants to know more about it, and I m just giving to the audience what they want to know”. My concern is that she is one of the most famous figures of the Mexican TV farandula and her comment was unnecessary because she is a public figure. That means that every time that the Mexican TV viewers turn on the television; they are going to view false information on it. Maybe, my uncle was referring to this kind of circus when he said, “They keep me smiling and enjoying my life with their brainless comments”. Did he know that most of the farandula programs contained false testimonies? And I will never know it, but I m sure that he did.

As the farandula includes some controversial and unreal elements on their programs to get people’s attention, the talk shows tend to do the same thing as farandula shows do:

If we were writing about celebrity today, Boorstin might describe it less flippantly as one of American’s most prominent cottage industries and one of television’s fasters-growing genres-one in which spend entertainers can find and afterlife by turning their daily existence into real-life situation comedy or tragedy. (Gabler 566)

The talk shows have an important role in the Mexican community. People tend to relate their lives with the histories that show up on these shows. If people count all the talk shows that are on the air right now; they will never complete with their task. Some of them are being presented by doctors, lawyers, judges and simple common people. Some of them help the people who will participate in the program; some of them pay the people who will to participate on them. The viewers will never know which the good ones are. A good example could be the famous talk show Laura en America. Laura, who is a doctor, transmits her program from Peru in partnership with TV Azteca. She is known for her controversial cases about domestic violence on stage and continual fights between her participants as well. I recall on one of her evening programs, she brought to her show a man and a woman. They had a happy life together. Laura began to ask a few questions to the husband, “Do you lover her? Why you do not go to sleep to her house? She bombed him with all kinds of question about his relationship. Of course, the wife began to interrogate him as well, but he denied everything. At the moment Laura played a home video and it showed him kissing to his lover. The wife was stunned. She could not react. Some security guards grabbed her shoulders just in case. I do not really know how she could run away from the securities guards, grabbed a bat and hit her husband’s head. He went to the hospital with serious lesions on his head. Believe or not, there are people that identify their life with these situations. And they enjoy watching this cheap teatro. Why cheap teatro? Because a few days after Laura’s program. The same woman that hit her husband was acting in a novela and her husband as well. This means that this kind of programs could be using paleros to act on them, because I do not think that all the participants that show up their faces in Jerry Spring show are regular people. Maybe I’m making false statements but some proves are on front of our eyes and we can not see all of them.

Some people like to watch la farandula to know a little more about their favorite celebrities, others identify theirselves with some talk shows because they reflect their life on them, but there are people that identify theirselves with reality shows as well.

Meanwhile, cable networks continue t troll of celebrities to expose their life to the public. Programs on the drawing boards include one in which over-the-hill stars spend the weekend with typical families, and another in which stars return to their hometowns and visit their roots. (Gabler 566)

Two years ago, TV Azteca which is a Mexican TV Company produced a reality show called La Academia. This program had ten participants living in the same studio. They had to share their personals things like shoes, clothes, brushes and sometime theirs relationships. But also these people had to show their skills to keep living there, because La Academia was like a school. They had to do exams and they had to pass all of them with good grades. Also, we could watch all their actions or movements through the internet every time we wish, but also the program is transmitted every Saturday on live. This reality show was so popular into the Latino community in U.S but also it had a high rating of popularity in Mexico as well. A few months later TV Azteca had finished with the Academia’s project. But the TV viewers wanted their favorite program back. When TV Azteca knew the huge popularity; they decided to continue with the project and produced the same program but with different format. Now La Academia did not have regular people like us, now it had famous figures acting there. The new Academia’s format began to get more people attention than the old one did. This example shows how people enjoy seeing their favorite’s celebrities acting into realities shows. Because common people think that the actors do not use the bathroom, or they do not eat, or simple they do not cry or suffer. That’s why that these kinds of programs are so popular because people enjoy seeing their favorite celebrities acting as them.

In conclusion, most people every day tend to watch these programs and they do not really care about the authenticity of them. They just want to know what is going to happen with Martin from La Academia or if J-Lo is going to broke with her new husband and of course Televisa and TV Azteca are going to be there with the news for their TV viewers although this kind of programs means a circus as my uncle states. Artifice or reality; we will never know it.