The Soap Operas that Saved a Nation

If for some inexplicable reason you’re wondering what Venezuelans are currently watching on streaming platforms, the answer is simple and sad: the same garbage you’re watching. 

But it wasn’t always like this. Let me introduce you to Venezuela. Yes, I know, we’re currently the epitome of a tyrannical dictatorship. However, for long and happy decades, Venezuela, my – I was about to say “country,” yet don’t know whether currently  “prison” is the right word to use – was known for four types of massive exports. 

There’s oil, which has always been or was Venezuela’s fundamental economic support. We have incredibly beautiful women who triumph in beauty pageants and look like they’ve stepped out of Themyscira, that paradise island full of Amazons and the home of Wonder Woman. We produce baseball players who excel in the major leagues. 

And we produce the best soap operas in the world. You weren’t aware? 

Here’s a quick look at the old Venezuela, a name derived  from “Veneziola” that means “Little Venice.” 

Since the discovery of oil, Venezuela has been blessed with possibly the largest reserves in the world. This guaranteed the country’s economic future, and it remained so for a long time. Venezuela co-founded OPEC in 1960 to set prices and organize the management of the world’s vast oil exports. 

Let’s talk about those beautiful women. Only the United States surpasses Venezuela in Miss Universe wins (11), while Venezuela has nine crowned queens. The history of Venezuelan baseball players is simply astonishing. Venezuela has one player in the MLB Hall of Fame, two Cy Young Award-winning pitchers, and three MVPs

And finally, but from my perspective, more important than all of the above: soap operas.

Stories of strong women

Since the early 1970s, Venezuela began exporting or distributing soap operas internationally. And it’s here that I must give you a clear perspective of what telenovelas meant and represented to Venezuelans. 

First and foremost, the production of telenovelas was enormous. Tremendous writers, most of whom came from the world of literature, produced these shows. I’m referring to authors like Rómulo Gallegos and Salvador Garmendia. These weren’t crude and cheap stories; they were almost social treatises, rooted in human complexity with significant elements of social class differences. 

And women were at the epicenter. Women of all kinds: rich, poor, educated, uneducated, with all the warmth, drive, and freshness of the Caribbean. They were indomitable women who built their own empires, who made their dreams come true, with or without men at their side. 

In fact, women as represented in the Venezuelan soap opera were always above men, always overbearing and trampling over any rich man. Screw the patriarchy, at a time when no one talked about it. Yes, these were feminist soap operas, and today they would be labeled woke. But they were aspirational. Venezuelan youth wanted to believe they could have a successful future, just like they saw in the soap operas.

We Venezuelans grew up on soap operas. They were our audiovisual literature,  a large component of our culture and idiosyncrasy.

It was an industry like no other. If we think of Turkish or Korean soap operas today, some of them have certain nods to the Venezuelan soap opera. Of course, we weren’t interested in princes or princesses, but rather in the poor girl who ends up being the CEO of her own corporation. 

Venevisión and Radio Caracas Televisión monopolized all of this, although at that time, the government-owned channel, Venezolana de Televisión, was also doing its thing. Of course, it was a different era: We had a democracy.

It was almost absurd how year after year, telenovelas evolved. The themes expanded to a spectrum that reflected all facets of domestic and corporate life. And the emotional conflicts—without romance, there is no telenovela – reflected people’s struggles to navigate the anguish and challenges of everyday life.

Do you think we Venezuelans watched American or other programs? Hell no! We had our soap operas almost all day long. And it wasn’t only Venezuelans who were addicted to our soap operas, but dozens of other countries as well. Sit back and get ready for this piece of history.

‘Kassandra’ brings peace to Bosnia

The year is 1997. The war in Bosnia is at its most gruesome level. On one side, Bosnian Serbian President Biljana Plavsic, who had Washington’s support, is fighting against war criminal Radovan Karadzic, who owned the television channel with the rights to broadcast a Venezuelan soap opera called Kassandra, about a girl raised by Roma parents. Originally broadcast in 1992-1993, Kassandra entered the Guinness Book of Records as the most widely sold telenovela in 180 countries.

Surprisingly, the only moments of peace and near-ceasefire occurred when this soap opera was on. It captivated, united, and distracted people from the horrors of war. Destabilization in Bosnia rose precisely when President Plavsic’s television channel stopped broadcasting Kassandra, since Karadzic and his television station held the rights.

The following seems like something out of a soap opera, but it was very real. President Bill Clinton came up with the solution: try to get Kassandra by any means necessary. The U.S. State Department began looking for a way to broadcast Kassandra on Plavsic’s television station, so that the Bosnian people would remain calm.

The department contacted the distribution company, Coral Pictures, and arranged for them to provide the 150 episodes of Kassandra so President Plavsic could broadcast them. Suddenly, the people were happy. They had Kassandra back as the oxygenator of their lives. And eventually, the war was over.

A lost world

But the big problem with a nation being cultured by soap operas is that one bad day, a monster arrived who preached and promised a country as if it were a soap opera — everything we Venezuelans have always wanted. And that monster was the genocidal dictator Hugo Chávez. His regime, supported by Cuba, Russia, Iran, and all the evil ones in the world, shut down and seized television networks, all media outlets, private companies, everything. That was the end of the Venezuelan dream and its soap operas.

There are no more Venezuelan soap operas. What there is is a diaspora of almost 8 million of my fellow Venezuelans who escaped in search of a better life. The vast majority are not gang members or part of terrorist groups. They are educated professionals, hardworking people, such as myself. A stupid idealist, I thought I should stay and fight in the name of freedom of expression, which has cost me two trials and endless nights of torture. And now I’m trapped, trying to get out of here.

Dear readers, this is the truth about a tyrannical dictatorial regime.

Today, Venezuelans are still thirsty for movies and TV shows, and even the poorest have Netflix and watch everything the rest of the world does. The same TV shows, the same movies. And yes, there’s a spread of violent Venezuelan groups around the world. And now that’s our most famous and infamous export. 

I wish the beautiful Kassandra could come to save us all and return us to the dreamland we never knew how to appreciate: Venezuela, the country. The real one.