TV Time: ¡Ay Dios Mío! Estoy Mirando Televisión en Español Todo El Día Hoy... ¡Y Me Gustó Mucho!

¡Hola, mis amigos y amigas! We're back and we're talking about television, except we're not talking about television... we're talking about televisión! Yes, television en Español, those Spanish-language stations that show programming 24/7 and yet the brilliance and the failings of these networks barely crack the national consciousness. Well, because my blog is so influential, we're gonna change all that by chatting about them today. First, let me tell you how I came to this topic in the first place.

I was home early one day during my vacation and I was flipping around the channels because one can only take but so much "Judge Judy," when I stumbled on one of the premier Spanish-language networks in my area anyway, Univision, and they were showing this novella (that's Spanish for "soap opera") called "Las Tontas No Van al Cielo" (right and above) which was seriously so amazing!

I sat there and watched the whole hour. Now for those who don't speak Spanish, the show's title means the "tontas" don't go to the sky. Because I don't know what "tontas" means. Oh, and while I watched, do you know what two things I realized?

1) Spanish-language TV isn't much different from English-language TV and 2) I don't know how to speak Spanish as well as I thought I did. It was hard, y'all! I mean I took it for two years in college, this shouldn't be that difficult! But seriously, I can read Spanish very well and I can even understand spoken Spanish better than most English-only speakers, but the people on the TV have to speak very slowly and clearly. And don't even ask me to speak it or, gulp, conjugate any verbs (NOOOOOO!!!) because we'll be here for hours.

That's not a joke.


Figuring out how to write that headline took an hour, and I still didn't do it right. It should be in the preterite but I have no idea how to conjugate the preterite so I gave up trying to do that after about 15 minutes of struggle.

Anyway the show, which we'll talk about shortly, reminded me that of the whole entertainment world in another language happening right next to us and we (we=me) should pay some attention to what our Spanish-speaking friends.

Now before you think me some sheltered Ammmericcan who has never been exposed to Spanish culture before, let me tell you nothing could be further from the truth. The reason I love New York so much and am so happy to have grown up here is because I was lucky enough to be exposed to such a range of cultures when I was growing up, including the very many Spanish-speaking cultures of the world.

My best childhood friend was Peruvian, we went to school with people from Mexico and Colombia and Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Argentina, all over the place. And, going back to Spanish TV, that is the thing I like most about Spanish TV.

As the Spanish-speaking world is so vast, its TV shows people of all types and colors, as long as their thin and bronzed. We're getting there, trust me. So I don't know if where you live you have much access to Spanish TV, but if you do, I would recommend taking a glance into another culture for awhile. Even if you have no idea what anyone is saying. You'll pick it up.

Okay, now after discovering the brilliance of "Las Tontas...," which by the way, I still have no idea what it's about or why these people are talking to each other but I love it, I decided to spend the day only watching Spanish TV and I made some discoveries. Wanna know what they are!? Yeah! Alright, let's talk Spanish TV! So just so you know my research methodology, in New York we have many Spanish stations but I only watched a few: Univision, Telemundo, TeleFutura, and Galavisión.

And overall, I found them to feature a nice breadth of shows of pretty good quality. The funny thing about Spanish TV is that it takes you awhile to get used to it, because Spanish TV is kinda like a fantasy world for someone who has never watched before. All the women are wearing slightly too much make-up and all the men are crazy hot. There are some problems I noticed but first lets talk about NOVELLAS!

Now Spanish TV isn't all novellas...



...But they are a big part of the daytime programming on each network, much more so than on English television. My fave is still the Mexican show "Las Tontas..." (clip above) because, well this is really a trait for most novellas, is that it's drama is EXTREMELY DRAMATIC! And it's comedy is crazy goofy, which is cute.

And again don't ask me what's happening because I don't know.

Now I was lucky enough to catch a repeat of "La Madrastra" on TeleFutura, and it was OK. Not as good as "Las Tontas" but good nonetheless. The ladies' make-up was literally insane as was a lot of the acting. When I was watching, I kept thinking where I had seen it before and then I remembered... "The Soup" (below)!



Now, as I said, while people may think "novella" when they think Spanish TV, that's only a part of what they offer. They have talk shows, game shows, news programs, sports, everything any other channel would have, just in Spanish.

One show that I just loved was "Caso Cerrado" ("Case Closed") with Judge Ana María Polo (below) who was hilarious and a half!

Think of her as a Judge Judy whose outfits are the brightest things you ever did see and whose justice is as swift as her one-liners and whose compassion is as shiny as her hair. Sorry, that made no sense but I had to mention her shiny hair. It's fab. Even if you don't understand a lick of Spanish, I urge you to watch anyway.

You will be entertained in some way I'm sure.


Now let's talk primetime. Okay, so I tried to watch the news but you'll notice that on scripted shows they talk... much... slower... so I can understand them better. But on the news and the talk shows, the anchors and hosts just go to town and while I'm still trying to piece together the last sentence, they've finished their report and are showing a commercial... Oh speaking of... Do you want to be utterly terrified?

Watch this...



Okay, as I said, I couldn't really get into the news that much because they were talking really fast but I did love the fact that their sports broadcasts universally begin with fútbol or football or soccer for us Americans and I don't know if you realized this but all footballers, whether Spanish or from anywhere, are...


CRAZY HOT! Like no joke. I love Spanish TV.

Okay, so in primetime I was able to catch a little of "Betty la Fea," (below) the original Colombian telenovela that was the inspiration for ABC's "Ugly Betty" and shows across the country. It was good, it was actually not much different from "Ugly Betty"...

...So I kinda felt like I'd seen it already. Now unlike American TV, Spanish-language TV actually shows a lot of talk shows and other entertainment shows at night. Here's where I wanted to talk about some of the problems I noticed on all these networks.

First, dark Spanish-speaking people are pretty invisible on all these channels. If you are darker than a golden-brown, they don't want you. The only places I saw dark-skinned Spanish-speaking people were on the talk shows but none in the novellas at all. Surprisingly, I was actually pleased I didn't see any dark-skinned maids or cooks in the background of the novellas like I remember from when I was growing up.

Baby steps.

Also, another thing I noticed was the fact that "gay" is still very much taboo in this world. One talk show I caught and forgot to write the name down of promo-ed a future episode when they were going to feature scandalous "transexuales" and although I don't know if the episode was going to be this wonderfully inclusive depiction of trans issues, after all the booing I heard from the audience, I doubt it. Now I'm not picking on Spanish TV...

These are problems English-language TV has too so it's not like the Spanish-speaking world isn't working on inclusiveness and all the rest of it. There are people who are and I'm sure change is slowly being made just like over here. I just didn't see any of it on any of the shows that I watched.

Speaking of... Can anyone tell me what the hell this show below is about?



It's called "Los Victorinos" and it's on Telemundo and that's all I got, and it's trailer above just tells you two things: the guys are all crazy hot (sensing a theme?) and the show looks to be the most surreal thing since "Twin Peaks."

Okay, before I open it up to you guys, I have to talk about music because I watched a little music television like MTV Tr3s and mun2.

This was the least interesting part because I actually like a lot of Spanish music already so it wasn't like I learned anything new. Oh, well I learned that young women pretty much have to take their clothes off if they want to get in front of a camera. But I didn't learn much more.

There was generally a lot of Daddy Yankee (left) and the other usual suspects, Paulina Rubio, Thalia, and yes, Ricky Martin.

Yeah, I was kinda bored by it all too so I turned back to Telemundo or Univision because they have my shows! Alright, it's now that time in every post when I turn it over to mis "peeps" and let you guys hablan sus opiniones ("speak your opinions"). Do you guys get Spanish-language stations where you live, and if you do, have you ever taken a look to see what's going on? Who actually speaks Spanish and if you do, are Spanish shows even appealing? Are there any great shows that I'm not watching?

Okay, now let me see if I can do this...

¡Gracias por leyendo este "post"! Okay, now does someone want to tell me how badly I have managed to f#ck up the Spanish language? Please, go right ahead.