Jade L. Miller’s article “Ugly Better Goes Global” in Global Media and Communication discusses the success of the original Colombian telenovela “Betty la Fea” in global exportation. “Betty la Fea” has been successfully exported to over 70 countries including the hugely successful English-language “Ugly Better.” Miller attributes the success of telenovelas (defined as dramatic narratives typically employed humor, romantic liaisons, and melodrama) in general to frequent, regular broadcasts, cost-competitiveness, universally appealing archetypes (Cinderella storyline), involvement of sexy plots lines and settings (fashion, city life, romantic liaisons), and localized content.
While these reasons are all true and make logical sense, I can’t help but wonder what else is at play that has recently made “a seemingly-domestic product inherently a global product,” especially in entertainment, though in other sectors as well. Since WWII and a vast and rapid growth and openness in economies, it has become feasibly for domestic products to be imported and exported on a large scale. In addition to economic reasons (i.e. telenovelas and, for example, cars produced by Korean and Japan, can be produced for cheaper than competitive products and thus sold for less), I think a change and almost, homogenization of preferences and tastes have occurred globally for domestic products to be global successes.
For some products, seeming changes in tastes to allow for foreign products to be success are simply due to the fact that those preferences always existed but products were never available. Some Americans always wanted smaller cars but weren’t available until Toyota and Kia moved into the market. Other may have wanted McDonalds type food, but they were unaware it even existed. For some products, they first became popular because they were either cheaper or just simply new, a novelty, and their initial popularity attributed to their later popularity (people wanted them because other people had them). Other examples include the export of French fast food to the U.S. (Pret a Manger, Au Bon Pain), Bollywood films outside India, Latin American music to the U.S., and fashion in generally outside of Europe.
I would argue that our exposure to much more types of products as well as exposure to different cultures, values, etc have made tastes in general more globalized making the exportation of a domestic product easier in the past decades. The success of “Betty la Fea” should be attributed to the phenomenon of globalization of tastes in addition to the other reasons Miller cites.
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I would have to agree with you in most of your statements, Katie. Pragmatically, the ease of the exporting domestic products and the results of globalization are definitely two reasons why local cultural products have become more widespread. However, I do not agree the total homogenization of preferences in domestic products has occurred globally. Instead I would argue that there has been a proliferation of domestic products but tailored to local tastes and preferences. For some reason I always refer to the localization of McDonald’s products where, for example, in Australia they serve beets on their burgers and in Asia they serve rice instead of French fries. I think that Miller was making a similar argument, which is that we all have the same general interests in what elements make up a good T.V. show, and that there is always that “one” personality that transcends borders. The content just needs to be tailored and localized, but the format and basic plot line are all essentially similar.
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