Friday, December 2, 2011

Mi Gorda Bella!

Now, I know there's plenty to talk about from this week's readings. But, since this is my last blog post and I've been putting posting these 2 CELEBRITY CRUSHES (apparently a theme of mine this semester) AND 2 AWESOME VIDEOS off in favor of other topics each week, I'm going to backtrack. *Note: the second celebrity crush and awesome video can be found in my actual final post...check it out!*

Firstly, I couldn't help but share a clip of Mi Gorda Bella [in English they usually call it My Sweet Fat Valentina]. I've wanted to since the Ugly Betty/Betty La Fea article, because I watched (and loved) this Venezuelan novela in Costa Rica just about every day with my family back in 2003, thereby causing total nostalgia when Betty's story finally made her way stateside. Mi Gorda Bella was one of the many format exports like Jade Miller mentioned in her article; not a direct remake of the original novela, but a similar storyline, with overweight Valentina in place of ugly Betty, and Valentina's maybe-cousin/love interest Orestes (it's not as gross as it sounds, and he is *spoiler alert* revealed to be unrelated by the end) in place of the boss. The show's Spanish was decidedly Venezuelan, which falls under Telemundo CEO James MacNamara's assertion that regional colloqualisms and accents have to change in order to be available to bigger (or just different) markets. Thought it would be interesting to share with everyone, because I enjoyed the show. Also because the protagonist male (Juan Pablo Raba, who plays Orestes) was one of the only celebrity crushes I've ever had. [If you've been reading diligently, you know that a Jon C. Reilly lookalike has since taken over...although to be fair Alan Grayson hasn't totally beaten out Bradley Cooper for the #1 spot.]

Without further ado, here's a clip (no subtitles, sorry):


Loooove it. India and Mexico picked this one up, creating remakes titled respectively Dekho Magar Pyaar Se and Llena de amor - these are in addition to their more direct Ugly Betty remakes, which is (you guessed it) pretty meta.

2 comments:

  1. Prior to this class and the readings on Ugly Betty, I didn't know that Ugly Betty was somewhat of a remake of the original story line of the series Mi Gorda Bella. It is really interesting to see how different story lines can be adapted to fit into a new culture. The poem 'For Colored Girls' by Ntozake Shange which has been adapted into a play and most recently a movie will be adapted into Nigerian play next year. I always get excited when I hear about projects like this! Can't wait to see how they will apply that to the Nigerian audience! I think they will be in for some major changes. Thanks for the post!

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Ayanfe! To be clear, Mi Gorda Bella is a (loose) remake of Ugly Betty rather than the other way around. It really caught my attention when I found out the remake (Mi Gorda Bella) had remakes made of it. So meta!! That's very cool about "For Colored Girls"! I can certainly see why it would be an attractive choice for adapting to different markets/audiences. Maybe you'll find out how they hybridize the piece for a Nigerian audience and report back sometime...? :) Thanks so much for sharing!

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