Univision took in $800
million in revenue last year, while Telemundo
got $300 million. Those numbers are
expected to rise again this year.
Univision will air six new novellas, most of
which are produced by part owner Televisa,
including "El Amor No Tiene Precio,"
(Love Has No Price) produced in the USA. Most
of the Televisa soaps are made in Mexico.
Univision will air 64 World Cup Soccer
matches next summer. Telemundo (as an
ABC owned network) will air the Winter Olympic
Games from Torino, Italy in February.
Univision is predicting 45 million viewers
will watch its coverage of the World Cup
Games. These statistics are impressive
and one cannot ignore the emergence of the
Latino nets as they translate into advertising
dollars, but I like to watch their programs
for several different reasons. The main
one being to maintain the level of proficiency
of my Spanish, and also because I find some
highly entertaining. The soaps seem to
have more drama and passion than the American
bubbly soaps. These Latinos really know how to
enjoy life with their intensity, and their
audience is hungry for both news information
and entertainment which the television
stations are now finally providing.
I
still get a chuckle out of hearing Clint
Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Chuck Norris,
threaten the bad guys in Spanish: "Arriba
las manos, loco!" Or, "Te
rompo la cara estupido!" The one I
really like is: "Besame, idiota!"
(Kiss me, you idiot.) I doubt that as a
romantic writer, I would ever write a line
like that. What man would want to be
called an "idiot" by a woman,
especially in a love scene, yet it all depends
on the culture. While in a hotel room in
Tokyo, I convulsed on the floor laughing at
Jerry Lewis speaking Japanese.
There
are some things that the producers just don't
understand, and while a cross-pollination of
cultures is imminent, they had better take
more time at the meetings listening to
writers, because some things just don't work
from culture to culture. They, as
executives, are more concerned with marketing,
but what some men don't seem to grasp is that
one man's drink is another's poison, and in
their desperation to fill the time slots for
the money, they give a hungry audience
garbage. Can you see "Desperate
Housewives" in Peru? The old
grandmother would throw a chair through the
screen at the rear end of the blond actress
bending over washing the car.
"Ponte ropa, desgraciada! Tu madre no te
crio asi. No sabes que el amor no tiene
precio, ni nunca lo tendra sinverguenza!" (Put
on some clothes, slut!")
Ah
yes, sometimes the true meaning in a sentence
gets lost in the translation, and where the
audience is supposed to laugh at the punch
line, there is only silence.
We were watching the
video of 'The Birdcage,' a movie I made
a brief appearance in (if you sneezed you
missed me) with my cousin from Poland, he
failed to see the fantastic Mike Nichols' humor,
and by the time I translated the dialogue, it
was too late, he sat stone-faced.
Alinka Zyrmont
