Telenovela

A telenovela ( or ; Spanish: [telenoˈβela], European Portuguese: [ˌtɛɫɛnuˈvɛɫɐ], Brazilian Portuguese: [ˌtɛlenoˈvɛla]) is a type of limited-run television serial drama or soap opera produced primarily in Latin America. The word combines tele, short for televisión or televisão (Spanish and Portuguese words for television), and novela, a Spanish and Portuguese word for "novel". Similar genres around the world include teleserye (Philippines), téléroman (Canada, specifically Quebec), or simply dramas (Asia and the rest of the Arab World). In Spain, they are also called culebrones ("long snakes") because of the convoluted plots.Commonly described using the American colloquialism Spanish soap opera, many telenovelas share some stylistic and thematic similarities to the soap opera familiar to the English-speaking world. The significant difference is their series run length; telenovelas tell one self-contained story, typically within the span of a year or less whereas soap operas tend to have intertwined storylines told during indefinite, continuing runs. This makes them shorter than most other television series, but still much longer than a miniseries. This planned run results in a faster-paced, more concise style of melodrama compared to a typical soap opera. Episodes of telenovelas usually last between 30 and 45 minutes, and rarely more than an hour, except for final episodes. The telenovela combines drama with the 19th-century feuilleton, and naturally evolved from the Latin American radionovela, according to Blanca de Lizaur.The medium has been used frequently by authorities in various countries to transmit sociocultural messages by incorporating them into storylines, which has decreased their credibility and audiences in the long run. By the 1970s and 1980s, Mexico became a world pioneer in using telenovelas to shape behavior, particularly successful in introducing the idea of family planning. Mexico and Brazil later, in the 1990s, played a key role in the international export of telenovelas, while Asia overtook the role in the 21st century, thus the so-called 'Telenovela Craze' that spread in many regions in the world until today.Over time telenovelas evolved in the structure of their plots and in the themes that they address. Couples who kiss each other in the first minutes of the first episode sometimes stay together for many episodes before the scriptwriter splits them up. Moreover, previously taboo themes such as urban violence, racism, and homosexuality were later incorporated into telenovelas. In the 2000s, Latin America and Asia altogether emerged as the biggest producers of telenovelas, which evolved out from soap operas to form another category of television drama, and were one of the most common forms of popular entertainment in the world. By 2018 some signs of fading popularity emerged.