With Fea-fever bringing every cross-marketing technique to Latin American television programming, we are witness to a chronotopic intersection between story and commerce, where advertising and art become hyperreal...
Now, we see the mucha lucha between the characters of Lety la Fea y Leechita la Bonita is realized beyond the context of "La Fea Más Bella" and within the extraordinarily popular "Cantando por un Sueño" (Singing for a Dream) - a more meaningful American Idol, where contestants sing for the chance to restore their father's eyesight or medical attention for baby brother's painful disease (and the hope of becoming the next Thalia). The perpetual exposure of LFMB, with interviews, public appearances, musical recordings, and endless chisme about the every movement of its beloved stars stands to fuel and propel the unparalled success of this novela, through every pop culture outlet.
With the phrase, "Musica, maestro," the opportunity is given to the audience to "apoyo a tu favorito" and we will wonder if it's true, that "para la suerte de la fea, la bonita la desea."
Paty Natividad as Alicia Ferreira totally throws down, with la cancion "Urge", but Angelica Vale gets props for singing "in character" as Lety la Fea (who proved in a Karaoke session with Fernando Mendiola at Club Megatron that she is rather tone-deaf), with technical support from supercantante Ricardo Montaner, on "Tan Enamorado".
This episode is later featured in a scene of "La Fea Más Bella," when Fernando, watches in horror as Lety expresses her true feelings for him on national television, dedicating a song to him on "Cantando por un Sueño", while his ever-put-upon fiancéé, Marcia, registers unblinking shock and awe. Space and time intersect, in this unexpected mise en abyme...
I ran across a post on Luis Maram's blog on advertising and marketing in Mexico - Luis Maram being a psuedynom for a designer/marketing/publicist professional, who lives in Mexico and reviews and analyzes advertising campaigns. In this post, Luis reports on product placement and advertising within a variety of communication channels: "El Product Placement (también conocido como publicidad indirecta o simplemente placement y cuya traducción literal sería “colocación de productos“) es una técnica donde las empresas exhiben sus productos o servicios en un entorno común, sin hacer mención específica de ellos, simplemente para que el espectador los vea. Este tipo de publicidad se realiza en programas y series de televisión, telenovelas, videos musicales, cine, reality shows y videojuegos, donde ha tenido mucha aceptación" and specifically comments on the use of product placement in "La Fea Más Bella" but notes that there are two distinctly different approaches in how product placement is presented: active ("el personaje hace alusión directa al producto o servicio y destaca caraterísticas o bondades de éste") vs. passive ("aunque el personaje no interactúa con el producto, éste está presente en el entorno y hasta en el contexto"), emphasizing that "Third World" markets tend to take a more active approach - "La primera, por obvias razones resulta más burda, sin embargo, en economías de tercer mundo, puede ser más efectiva." He goes on to state that viewers may be influenced to purchase as they identify the brand with the "personaje" extolling the product, which he remarks is a "fresh, although coarse" way of advertising in the Mexican market, in need of "new ideas".
I was startled when I first witnessed this marketing technique in "La Fea Más Bella"- as I had never witnessed this level of "dialogue as advertising" before, with characters holding up products to each other while repeating the product's commercial slogans. However, it does appear that with the success of "La Fea Más Bella", its use of blatant advertising has declined. While certain talk and variety shows better lend themselves to obvious product placement, it seems that novelas have often used this active product placement to rather off-putting results.
The husband and I were going to be in Tijuana on Sunday, visiting the baby that my cuñada is adopting from Mexico, and decided we would go to the Gala of the Festival del Cine Baja California, which Jaime was supposed to be hosting on Sunday night, since we would be in Tijuana already. We tried to buy tickets online the week before and were told we could buy them at the ticket office at CECUT in downtown Tijuana. When we arrived, of course the ticket sellers didn't even know the event was happening, and the guest services personnel said to come back later in the evening, just in case there was someone from the festival selling tickets. When we came back, the red carpet was all laid out, the camera crews were around, but there was maybe 20 people standing around at 7pm, with the event supposedly starting at 8. We noticed a hand-written sign posted on the doors of the Sala, stating that Jaime wasn't going to be there, and my husband and I decided to save $40 and get back to Los Angeles, since it takes an hour to cross la Linea, even when walking over.
I've worked at film festivals in LA in the past, and this one earns the title for being the least organized. My guess is that the low ticket sales prompted Jaime to cancel. I do think it was rather devious that both the film festival website and Jaime's own website were promoting his appearance up to the day of the event, (if in fact he did cancel the week before, as was reported by Karell, who said she heard it on a radio program in Mexico last week), although we did get to eat quesadillas at Tacos Paisano and went to La Mejor for my most favorite and the absolutely most delicious pan dulce, and I loved seeing my cutie-pie soon-to-be sobrino.
Addendum: Jaime's website was updated just now, with an apology for missing the event, due to a "medical emergency", although he was in Chihuahua on the previous night, at an event with 10,000 screaming girls, so I wonder what kind of medical emergency it might be??!!!?? but I think it could have something to do with this ...totally dorky dancing with 14-year-old girls;) Que ridiculo - the things that Rosy Ocampo makes these people do!
After residents in D.F. took to the streets in mass protest of Felipe Calderon's election as new president of Mexico, including several months of street marching and tent camps in the Zocalo, the courts decided that Calderon had overcome his challenger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, with just 233,831 votes, refuting allegations of fraud. AMLO has announced he will create a parallel government, to rule alongside/against Calderon, and with the recent celebration of the Day of Independence on 9/16, organizers changed the location of the event to Dolores Hildalgo, to prevent an outbreak of continued protest against Calderon.
I was always fascinated though, that one of AMLO's allegations was that "La Fea Más Bella" had turned the votes of the people against him, suggesting that the writers had used the show's characters to promote his conservative opponent Calderon. According to the WaPo article dated 9/5/06, "The court said there was "no logical connection" to Lopez Obrador's claim that television ads by pro-Calderon businesses had subliminal messages in favor of Calderon. It also rejected claims that the popular soap opera "La Fea Mas Bella," or "The Prettiest Ugly Girl," indirectly supported Calderon, and said there was no evidence electoral authorities were biased against the leftist."
Granted, there is a history between AMLO and la Vale, as Angelica and many of the cast from La Parodia created a political skit that soon evolved into its own program, El privilegio de mandar, which was a skewering of many of Mexico's political figures: Fox, AMLO, Rene Bejarano, and others. That show, which ended with its final episode in July 2006, had actors playing AMLO and Calderon finalizing their votes in the election, which did not include Vale, who had started work on "La Fea Más Bella" in January 2006.
Angelica Vale responded in a telephone interview to Elvira Gómezturja on July 18, 2006, regarding a July 14th article in La Cronica about AMLO's allegations. Vale reported she believes a vote should be a secret, and especially for an "artist", who has the ability to influence the opinion of so many people, "crecí con la idea de que el voto es secreto, debe serlo y más para un artista que sí puede influir en la opinión de los demás." Angelica goes on to state she was not aware of what was happening during filming, as the production schedule is highly regimented, and the scene took place among secondary characters. (Elvira Gómezturja, Martes, 18 de Julio de 2006).
As the episode schedule of "La Fea mas Bella" here in the US is four months behind that of Mexico, this was taken from the blog, Defecito,
El guión era algo así:
Personaje 1: “Ya sé por quién voy a votar” Personaje 2: “Ah sí, por quién” Personaje 1: “Por Felipe Calderón, presidente del empleo” NO nada más fue esto, después el otro tipo describió por qué es el “presidente del empleo”.
I have not seen the episode in its context, and can't comment specifically, however, in order to fund the production budget, Rosy Ocampo does allow her writers to include character dialogue about products such as Garnier hair products and Pepto Bismol. The blurring of the lines between advertising and entertainment that happened in 1950's television, seems to now run rampant in the Latin American programming I have seen, and does seem to compromise integrity. So, I can certainly appreciate a little uprising by the people, who don't want their democracy co-opted. And, as one of the highest-rated television shows in Mexico (and during the summer months, was one of the highest-rated shows in the US), it does seem to smack of a bizarre propaganda.
The Mexican novela-comedy, "La Fea más Bella", is the focus of this blog. Writing posts in both English and Spanish, I will review this telenovela as cultural phenomenon, highlighting its impact on a variety of social spheres and audiences. With the enormous talent of Angelica Vale and Jaime Camil the central force behind this novela, this remake of the Columbian "Yo Soy Betty La Fea" has proved an international success.
Me llamo Leticia Padilla Solis. Yo soy una chica tímida, ingenua, soñadora, afectuosa, encantadora y muy inteligente. Alguno gente piense que estoy poquita fea, aunque esto no la limita para luchar por lo que quiero. En el trabajo, soy la persona con la que todo jefes puede soñar: leal, preparada, organizada y emprendedora, (especialmente Don Fernando- jejeje).
