La Reina Del Sur 

Before this class, I did not know anything about telenovelas except for the fact that they are on television and that they are spoken in Spanish. Throughout these past three classes, I have been proven wrong in the fact that they are so much more! They are spoken in many more languages and come from a multitude of countries. They are extremely popular and get people very sucked in and involved. They are life stories, and while sometimes completely out of reality, they all have a central meaning that can relate to real life circumstances and some real world problems.

 I have started watching La Reina Del Sur, and while I am not more than five episodes in, so many complex situations have already occurred. The protagonist, Teresa Mendoza, recently lost her husband, Guero, who belonged to a drug cartel. Any affiliation with cartels never end well so you can kind of see where this is going. The men who killed her husband are now after Teresa and try to kill her. She escapes many near death situations and somehow keeps on living her life. She is forced to move to Spain and start a new life there where she begins work at a strip club. She goes through many obstacles and constantly fears for her life. 

 Today in class, we learned about how people are represented throughout these stories. Women, are generally portrayed as pretty and poor and that they need a man. Teresa is shown as all of these. This whole time, she is often called beautiful and many men take advantage of her because of her beauty. She, being a woman, is represented as just a beautiful face. Her job at the strip club serving men does not really help her cause either. The representation of women is just like in real life. Many people think women are just good to look pretty and be inferior to men. The men in this story hold high power positions and Teresa looks to them for help and protection from the struggles she is going through. She is constantly being put down and people are out to get her. This is often annoying because you just want her to live somewhere peaceful and have happiness again. I know she eventually will rise from this poor lifestyle, because the title translates to The Queen of the South. So clearly things will get better and the representation of her as a woman will change to where she is in charge and is a powerful woman exceeding the usual representation of the damsel in distress.

These telenovelas sure do know how to draw people in and make them want to root for the protagonist. I was told that people get extremely into these stories and now I see how. Everything is very dramatic, but it also just makes you want to watch more. I'm excited to see how this story rolls out and to see how everything comes together!

Teresa and her late husband, Guero 

Teresa working at the strip club as a waitress

Teresa getting help from the powerful head
of the drug cartel: Mr. Epifanio Vargas