These readings were very interesting (especially the Bellos, partly because I will probably write my paper on similar material, and because of my deep set love for the beautiful game (football, never soccer, please…).

The Nelson Ortega reading was intriguing, for a few reasons…the most important being the importance of the TV, and TV programming in Latin America. However, he importantly emphasises ‘telenovelas’. As he doesn’t directly define what a ‘telenovela’ is, I did some research on it. Indeed, they are very similar to what the Western world would define as soap operas, however they are importantly NOT the same as soap operas. They are much shorter than soap operas (they rarely run for longer than a year), but they are still much longer than most serials. A telenovela is best described as a ‘serial’ drama. On p64, Ortega notes how telenovelas have become ‘much more permeable to the changes in the genre, in the country, and in the audience’ since Radio Caracas Television revolutionised the genre with ‘Por estas calles’ (by Ibsen Martinez) in the early 1990s. Ortega implies that the first wave of telenovelas were slightly less serious than late waves. He notes on p65, how at first, telenovelas customarily ‘avoided references to to contemporary social life and current history’. Ortega then goes on to discuss how these 2 phases of telenovela: the cultural phase, which started in 1973, and the urban phase, which began in 1977. Essentially there isn’t a huge amount of change between the 2 waves, and there is a lot of overlap between the two, which he duly notes. Certainly the 2nd phase built from the first as it contains a lot of the same drama of the first (things such as love, sex, violence, relationships etc.).  He emphasises how melodrama is central to telenovelas on p68 too!

What I love about the Bellos reading, is the amount of emotion that is conveyed. Many people will say, football is just a game: I would say to that try going to one of the biggest derbies in the world: for example, Arsenal v Tottenham, Man United v Liverpool, Barcelona v Real Madrid, AC Milan v Inter Milan, Boca Juniors v River Plate: the list goes on and on. For the real, hardcore fans, football is more than just a culture: it’s a religion (to quote one of my heroes Skepta there). Unfortunately I don’t have time to go into more detail here (much as I would love to!) but rest assured I will be writing a football-based paper, so there will be plenty much more to come!