Lessons from El Canal de las Estrellas: Part I
Written by Short Latina
Before those narco series on Netflix and before the era of streaming and binge watching, Mexico had Telenovelas. Yeah, they still exist, but listen, the Telenovelas from the 50’s to the 90’s and few from the early 2000’s were and will always be some of the best TV writing Mexico will ever have the privilege to see. They set a standard so high, everything is shit now. I grew up with these tales of forbidden and impossible love, so I may be biased, but I am not wrong and do not care.
Everyday you had to wait to uncover the truth, to see if he would ever love her for her or if she would walk again. The weekends were torture because of course on Friday’s the cliffhanger was delicious. Who poised who? I have to wait two fucking days to find out!? Every night from five to nine, Telenovelas captivated all the women in my household. We savored them as we ate our pan con leche. Nothing has ever tasted as good as in those nights, sitting at the edge of my grandmother’s bed. We all munched and gasped in unison with every bite of Sabritas with Valentina and limon. In the most intense scenes, no one chewed, we all covered our mouths expecting the big reveal. She is her pinche twin!? He is the blind one in the relationship now?! “No manches,” our WTF of the 90’s.
We gathered daily, without planning, we knew the schedule and ritual. My mother did her nails, my aunt braided my hair and I did my homework during commercials. My grandmother mended our clothes and we all watched together. Hearing Esmeralda’s beautiful words of becoming a serpent and river between the stones was magical. Yeah it was a remake of the Venezuelan novela from the 70’s, but this scene was still special. It was all special. The ending of each Telenovela meant another season and reason to spend time together. Growing up with these novelas shaped who I am today.
I owe all the wisdom and sass to those women in that room, including the women on el Canal de Las Estrellas. The first thing they taught me was to be the villain. Yes, you read that right. Be the villain. They had purpose, drive. Villains do not back down and no one can intimidate them. If you are the villain, you call the shots. You needed no rescuing from Ferando Colunga or any one on a horse. No, fuck that. You have the whole fucking rancho or hacienda. You own that house, and look good giving orders. You have the baddest shade of red on your lips and when you speak, people listen. Yeah, you are seen as bat shit crazy and your fate will either be getting run over, falling down the stairs, balcony or high building. But, you will have done your damage at that point and will never be forgotten. You will leave a legacy and might haunt people’s dreams (my theory is that, Tanya did that on fucking purpose from the afterworld to get back at Johnny!) You have a story of your own, your own internal conflict and everyone witnesses your growth. Being the villana in Telenovelas, meant you were your own person and even though your intentions at times were to win the man over and was driven by jealousy, you were sexy as fuck and seduction was your craft (Soraya se paso in this area, but you get the point). You are a planner and a master puppeteer. You run major corporations and do you scheming at night, but still manage to look rested. You have like ten lives and if you manage to survive every single accident, you get a kickass eye-patch and have fabulous luscious hair.
Being a villana is something I take with me. Every time I feel like a real usurpadora in my career, I channel the spirit and power of Soraya Montenegro, Catalina Creel, Paula Bracho, Chantal Andere, Roxana Brito de la O and even María Joaquina, the original mean girl. They got shit done and no one questioned them. They took control of their own lives, that is until they died, were imprisoned or went clinically insane.
Which brings me to the second valuable lesson taught to me by the fearless Ana Maria Romero de Villegas. Leave his ass if he calls out another woman’s name in the middle of the night. That is when I learned the term “como el perro de las dos tortas,” from my mother. Seeing how Johnny played by Erik Estrada, a married man, fell in love with another woman, taught me to not trust anyone but the other woman. She not only took a bullet for Ana Maria, the wife of Johnny, but apologized and asked for forgiveness as she lay dying. Men are trash and honestly, they should have both teamed up and left him and stayed alive, gone clubbing and live their best Bronco lives. They at least ended the Telenovela right, he does not deserve either woman. I suspect Verónica Suárez wrote the last episode and the other two male writers had no say. Someone go confirm this.
In any case, this entire series showed me what infidelity looks like and how complex and layered a relationship can be. It did scare me that my father could find his Tanya and if I saw my mother writing a long ass letter and crying I knew why. But for Ana Maria to take that final step, she took her kids and decided for herself that she deserved better. She did not wait for his ass to get home to talk about it. She did not go seeking couple's therapy in the hopes Johnny would be up for it. No, she knew in her heart that his cheating ass would never change. I suspect she wrote at least five versions of that letter and might have started the first draft with “Querido cabron, rata asquerosa,” and then scaled it back. He was so broken by her letter that he had no choice but to flee Mexico and become a cop, because of course he did.
This strong and independent woman trope was only the beginning for resilient women in Telenovelas. This is the third lesson taught to me by the woman starting the Telenovelas. You can survive everything and anything. Yeah you blind, disabled, an orphan, abused and discarded, but you will rule them all. Of course you have experienced multiple trauma and have feared for your life, but you always come out winning in the end. You survive falls, fires, car accidents and cheat death. You are as strong as Maria la del Barrio, as intelligent as Marimar and as deserving as Marisol . You deserved it all from the beginning and should never settle for less. This brings me to my fourth lesson, you are royalty and an heir to it all. You either already own everything, will own everything or will inherit everything. All you have to do is claim your birthright that was stolen from you. Take it. Esmeralda taught me that and more.
Esmeralda (Mexican version and not the fucking 2017 remake), a story written by Delia Fiallo, a Cuban woman with a fucking Phd, original author of the Venezuelan Telenovela by the same name, known as the mother of the Latin American novelas, wrote this master piece. Not only that, the Mexican script was written by three, yes three women, Georgina Tinoco, Dolores Ortega, Liz Orlin. Yes, I’ll keep going, directed by three women, Karina Duprez, Beatriz Sheridan, and Marta Luna. And, yes, it was produced by two women, Nathalie Lartilleux and Maricarmen Marcos. It is no surprise that what these women taught me was, how to respond to someone like José Armando Peñarreal de Velasco, who questions you with all his male privilege, and touches you with undeserving hands. There is only one way to answer and I end with this.
“Yo soy hija del Nahual. El brujo que me puede volver serpiente. Si me tocas, te muerdo y morirás envenenado. Yo también tengo el poder de convertirme en río. Vivo en el ojo del agua. Entre estas rocas. Sí tratas de hacerme daño, saltare sobre ti! Te envolveré y te arrastraré hasta allá abajo, al fondo de la gruta. Donde el arroyo se pierde bajo la montaña.”
