Dominican Drama. A reflection of Latin Television or vice versa?

[sayanora]

MANY years ago, I stopped responding to,or paying attention to, the "DRAMA", not only from my wife, but from ALL DOMINICANS.
It works quite well!
When they have no "Audience", or other "Actors", the "Novela Mentality" goes away.
This is not an "Over Night" strategy, but, over time, they loose interest.
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Now if I could just figure a way to keep them from having 3 tins of tomato paste, "Chewed Open" at the same time??????
ps, you can substitute any commodity you like,for "Tomato Paste",

Man some great advice here.. I know if I **** my Dominican wife off.. the best course of action is never apologize, discuss, or in any way try to deal with what you did.. It's just best to let time pass, the rabia slowly fades away and all is normal. I'm the opposite though, if I get ****ed off I expect her to apologize and I want to be assured she knows what she did wrong, she's getting better at doing that for me so we're both happy..

Just act like you did nothing and let some time pass, they cool off.. if you escalate the situation, FORGET IT.

My friend that lives with his sister was kicked out of the house for eating a piece of flan.. that's how serious it can be here.. if you escalate something it doesn't matter how small it will explode WAYYY out of proportion.

 

[the gorgon]

Seeing that this thread is mostly about TV watched in the RD I'll add my twopenneth. Nearly all the women of child bearing age have their hair parted almost at the top of their heads, it is either shoulder or boob length, they wear make-up at least a yard thick, their lipstick is nearly always bright red, knowing the origin of lipstick do they really believe that their nether lips are ever that bright red when turned on? They look as if they had just escaped from a local circus. They never wash or clean their faces before going to bed. Their pillow cases must filthy, I note the camera never shows.
As for humour, take Miguel y Raimond for example. Their humour seems to consist of making distorted faces, wearing lopsided wigs, hiding behind the sofa and talking with "funny" voices. I haven't seen that kind of thing since I was at the circus 70 years ago.
Having got that off my chest there used to be a bloke who read the news on a show around midday Geraldo Something, he I admired and liked, he didn't gabble as if he had to get through 10 minutes news in 3 minutes and he articulated clearly.

when you have a population with minimal education, and exposure, you have to play to your audience. everything has to be as basic as it can be, in order to make it intelligible to the masses. in the United States, if you want to create the image that a product is of high quality, you give it a fancy-schmantzy name. you call it Pepperidge Farm, or Haagen Dazs. sounds impressive. people get the message. in the DR, you have to get down to the very basics. so, you do not call your product some esoteric name. you call it Rica. everyone gets the picture. it is rich. what more do you need to know? you do not call the ice cream by some hyphenated name. you call it Bon. real easy. even a campesino can understand it.

that is why comedies in the DR are simplistic forays into caricature. everything has to be overexaggerated, and overacted, and oversimplified. you could not have an equivalent of Monty Python, because nobody would get it.

tv commercials in the USA have wit, and flair. they make you laugh, when they are intended to. Dominican tv ads are simplistic productions, with little musical jingles, telling you that the product is good. that should be the primary intent, i guess, but it has to be reduced to the lowest common denominator, which the people understand.

 

[dv8]

exactly. last year there was this radio announcement out about preventing cholera that is a result of eating/drinking something contaminated with heces fecales, poo poo o caca. i gather it's because majority of the population has no idea what heces fecales are despite producing copious amounts of it. so poo poo and caca were added for the benefit of the less educated. they should have just said mierda and be done with it. both intellectuals and morons understand that.

 

[the gorgon]

exactly. last year there was this radio announcement out about preventing cholera that is a result of eating/drinking something contaminated with heces fecales, poo poo o caca. i gather it's because majority of the population has no idea what heces fecales are despite producing copious amounts of it. so poo poo and caca were added for the benefit of the less educated. they should have just said mierda and be done with it. both intellectuals and morons understand that.

they should understand, since so many are full of it.

 

[sayanora]

when you have a population with minimal education, and exposure, you have to play to your audience. everything has to be as basic as it can be, in order to make it intelligible to the masses. in the United States, if you want to create the image that a product is of high quality, you give it a fancy-schmantzy name. you call it Pepperidge Farm, or Haagen Dazs. sounds impressive. people get the message. in the DR, you have to get down to the very basics. so, you do not call your product some esoteric name. you call it Rica. everyone gets the picture. it is rich. what more do you need to know? you do not call the ice cream by some hyphenated name. you call it Bon. real easy. even a campesino can understand it.

that is why comedies in the DR are simplistic forays into caricature. everything has to be overexaggerated, and overacted, and oversimplified. you could not have an equivalent of Monty Python, because nobody would get it.

tv commercials in the USA have wit, and flair. they make you laugh, when they are intended to. Dominican tv ads are simplistic productions, with little musical jingles, telling you that the product is good. that should be the primary intent, i guess, but it has to be reduced to the lowest common denominator, which the people understand.

Yea you get it.. another thing is you can't create value out of thin air the way you can in the US. For example, take a random water bottle, put some beautiful labeling on it, and some intangible name of some polynesian island and people will pay 5$ for it. Dominicans and latin americans in general will just laugh at it and know what the deal is. I never understood that about the US. You can apply this logic to anything, take some 5$ headphones (for gorgon to get it) , make em look cool with packaging and a schnazzy name and people pay 100$ for it. In the DR they would just copy the labeling since everyone knows the base product is the same, I guess there is a better sense of quality when every $$ means so much.

 

[dv8]

you are getting it wrong. dominicans do not "see through" marketing tricks. they swallow those like a young pelican noming on sardines. dominicans also buy crap because its expensive, rich dominicans, that is. there are people who take pride in getting stuff as cheap as possible. that's me. i shop on sales, in second hand stores, online. but there are also people to whom the biggest source of pride is how much they will pay for whatever label, even thou the actual product is just a piece of s**t. that's one of my friends, who loves designer labels and then constantly b**ches that her LV shoes are so uncomfortable she cannot wear them any longer than 5 minutes. but they are LV, not the commoners crap like aldo that i wear. despite the fact my aldos are comfortable and i use them on daily basis.

but the poor dominicans but cheap because that's the only thing within their reach they do not have amazing consumer insight, they have empty pockets...

 

[cobraboy]

there are people who take pride in getting stuff as cheap as possible. that's me. i shop on sales, in second hand stores, online.

That's me!

 

[Bronxboy]

History, ID, and Biography will suffice.

 

[sayanora]

you are getting it wrong. dominicans do not "see through" marketing tricks. they swallow those like a young pelican noming on sardines. dominicans also buy crap because its expensive, rich dominicans, that is. there are people who take pride in getting stuff as cheap as possible. that's me. i shop on sales, in second hand stores, online. but there are also people to whom the biggest source of pride is how much they will pay for whatever label, even thou the actual product is just a piece of s**t. that's one of my friends, who loves designer labels and then constantly b**ches that her LV shoes are so uncomfortable she cannot wear them any longer than 5 minutes. but they are LV, not the commoners crap like aldo that i wear. despite the fact my aldos are comfortable and i use them on daily basis.

but the poor dominicans but cheap because that's the only thing within their reach they do not have amazing consumer insight, they have empty pockets...

yea I'm not talking about dominicans that drink johnny walker black with fruit punch and stuff, I'm referring to middle class dominicans that my family is made up of/ my neighbors. People who make between 50-100k pesos per month and need to be frugal to make ends meet.

 

[dv8]

you are just proving my point: they would like to be able to afford all this expensive crap but they cannot. they are not marketing geniuses who can decipher true intentions of the greedy cynical manufacturer.

 

[sayanora]

you are just proving my point: they would like to be able to afford all this expensive crap but they cannot. they are not marketing geniuses who can decipher true intentions of the greedy cynical manufacturer.

Well, agree to disagree, in my opinion it's being frugal. The same reason we buy caoba furniture because we know it is quality and will last vs over marketed ikea furniture that falls apart in 3 years.. Which is cheaper? Ikea, yet intelligent consumers choose to buy the handmade ikea stuff..

Let's not fall into the dr1 syndrome of comparing an entire nation with the people you know in the DR, the nation is far too large for that and so many different types of people live here.

 

[suarezn]

Dominican here...can't stand the "comedy" shows they have back home as well as the whole genre of BS shows that have spawned in The US the last few years (dancing with the stars, the voice, etc). One more reason I got off cable...nowadays if I watch anything is only a few shows - John Stewart and Colbert, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad...I must admit I'm a sucker for investigative type of shows, so I watch the ID channel, forensic files, The First 48, etc.

 

[the gorgon]

That's me!

make that 3 of us. Mun2 is my favorite store. there i can get a pair of Yves St Laurent dress pants for 250 pesos, in new condition. the chopos buy some crap with some urban chic name on it, and think they are sartorially splendid, because they have too much orgullo to buy used.

 

[the gorgon]

Dominican here...can't stand the "comedy" shows they have back home as well as the whole genre of BS shows that have spawned in The US the last few years (dancing with the stars, the voice, etc). One more reason I got off cable...nowadays if I watch anything is only a few shows - John Stewart and Colbert, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad...I must admit I'm a sucker for investigative type of shows, so I watch the ID channel, forensic files, The First 48, etc.

you are so right. TV has spawned some real crap, recently. bad stuff. not worth watching. the comedies must be playing to some really narrow audience, because i do not get the jokes. they are not making Mash and All in the Family any more.

 

[cobraboy]

History, ID, and Biography will suffice.

Don't forget NFL Season Ticket!

 

[Mauricio]

Try to watch a Dominican talk show.

4 men with black suits and flashy ties, trying to shout all four at the same
time and I think at times forgetting there's an audience (or at times remembering there is).

 

[the gorgon]

Try to watch a Dominican talk show.

4 men with black suits and flashy ties, trying to shout all four at the same
time and I think at times forgetting there's an audience (or at times remembering there is).

i stopped trying to listen to these guys a long time ago. i can get the same effect in a colmado.

 

[cobraboy]

i stopped trying to listen to these guys a long time ago. i can get the same effect in a colmado.

Or Sunday morning "news" TV in the states.

I could live with maybe 10 TV stations in total, and acess to streaming content.

 

[sayanora]

make that 3 of us. Mun2 is my favorite store. there i can get a pair of Yves St Laurent dress pants for 250 pesos, in new condition. the chopos buy some crap with some urban chic name on it, and think they are sartorially splendid, because they have too much orgullo to buy used.

Mun2 is one of the reasons we make a trip to the NC every month or so The baby mun2 is a blessing.. at any boutique or department store some little outfit can be 400-500 pesos.. mun2, 50-75 and babies only wear them for like a month. One of my neighbors knows where all the paca deals are and gets like authentic used lacoste/ralph lauren/nautica shirts for like 300-350 pesos.

 

[sayanora]

This was supposed to say intelligent consumers choose to buy the handmade caoba stuff, sorry.