The dramatized is the genre that crosses the timeline in 70 years of national television. / Illustration by Jonathan Bejarano
Photo: Jonathan Bejarano.
Television in Colombia was inaugurated on the night of June 13, 1954. From that first time, literature, theater and radio coincided in that box that transmitted images and sounds. Not only did a piece of the National Library become the first television studio on that June night, but also some books on its shelves began to be part of the inspiration to create the first television programs.
The Swamp Boy, a play adapted from an original story by Bernardo Romero Lozano, became the first dramatized and gave life to what would later be known as teletheater. “Television represented a challenge not only technological, but also artistic, of how to set up a set, how to create a program, how to fill a schedule of programs and in this the creativity of those first pioneers was wonderful,” says Luis Alfonso Rodríguez, historian. and head of cultural management at RTVC’s Signal Memoria, the public media system.
In addition to theater, the first television creatives relied on radio, which already had the radio soap opera since the late 1930s. Voices of the time landed in television dramas, “but the radio origin of the actors became an obstacle when generating a performance that revolved around the voice,” explained Clemencia Rodríguez, academic and one of the authors of the book Colombia en the mirror: 70 years of television, edited by Omar Rincón, María Paula Martínez and Luisa Uribe.
Eduardo Gutiérrez, a professor at the Javeriana University and who also wrote one of the chapters of the book, spoke to El Espectador about the historical context around television. “The development of the industry in Colombia has a strong influence from the United States and Cuba. The Cuban technicians who had not been successful in their channels came to do their work here. From there we get narratives, technologies and ways of making television.”
The first televised works only remained in the memory of those who saw it, since the mechanisms to record and transmit on television at the same time did not yet exist. Over the years, the receiving device became just another household appliance and transmission methods were perfected.
Just as the number of televisions grew, so did the dramatized ones, which from live teleplays became what we know today as serials and soap operas, the latter genre being the most popular among the audience. According to Dago García, screenwriter, producer and vice president of production and content at Caracol Televisión, “the soap opera is a complicated love story, but with a happy ending. It goes hand in hand, although it is not the same as melodrama, which is a dramatic genre that has certain regulations, but in which the soap opera fits very well,” he said in an interview for El Espectador.
García, who has written and produced soap operas such as Pedro, el Escamoso, Pecados capitales and La saga, business of the family, cites another of the great creatives of television to explain the concept of a soap opera. “Fernando Gaitán (creator of Yo soy Betty, la fea) said it very well: the soap opera is the story of a couple who wants to be together and a librettist who doesn’t want to leave them.” He emphasizes the importance of melodrama and dramaturgy for television, and also highlights literary stories on the small screen. “The relationship between television and literature has been very close, many works have been adapted. In fact, in the 90s there was a kind of boom. Adaptations were made of works by Mario Benedetti, Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez. “La vorágine and María were also made.”
The programming schedule has varied over the years. From literary adaptations we have moved on to biographical productions, which tell the story of a real-life character or group of characters. Some recent examples are Rigo and Arelys Henao. Another subgenre that has been loved and hated is the narconovela, such as Escobar: El Patron of Evil and The Mafia Dolls.
Gutiérrez explains the success of the dramatized ones. “The medium that par excellence is capable of reflecting the Colombian nation is television, which somehow agreed not on versions from one side or the other, but in all its plurality and diversity (…) Television shaped everyday life and the soap opera was perfectly located within that everyday life.”
Television, with its melodrama and soap operas, is the mirror of a society. “We cannot narrate ourselves except melodramatically. The only thing that is compared for its level of melodrama, as a mechanism for articulating the national, is football. The telenovela is successful because it is a perfect mirror of the Colombian nation. There are soap operas everywhere, but we found a way to make a soap opera that contains the Colombian way of making it with some humor and other elements.”
García, from the creative side of soap operas, agrees with the humorous element of Colombian productions, something that stands out compared to other countries. “Before Scaly Peter, Ugly Betty, Neighbors, New Rich, New Poor, The Kings and other romantic comedy products that emerged and were so successful, the comic character was destined for a supporting role; what we call the relief of the dramatic. But one thing always happened and that character stole the show. At some point we thought why not stop building him as a secondary character and make him the protagonist. That was a qualitative leap that the Colombian soap opera made, it seems that the formula worked.”
“Streaming”: antagonist of television?
In the 2010s, with Netflix at the helm, and a handful of other platforms, streaming emerged and began to produce its content. “The most pessimistic voices announced the end of television, but what occurred was a dialectical exchange between the content of streaming and the content of soap operas,” García explained.
“The same market dynamics have caused us to create a supportive and mixed economy. We discovered that we are going to need the streamers as much as they need us. That has also been reflected in the content. The audience discovered in streaming those products with more plot investment per episode, because they were short series. While soap operas are long, where not many things necessarily happen in one episode. “That forced us to reformat the soap opera.”
Before, at the beginning of a soap opera project it was planned for 120 or 250 chapters. Nowadays they think of it for 60. Streaming also established some changes, which adopted melodrama with less repellent. In addition, now they make series with slightly longer formats, precisely because of the influence of the soap opera. “It has been a relationship of collaboration, learning and mutual influence,” concludes Dago, who writes with soap opera, theater, cinema and streaming in mind.
