The Fotonovela As a Tool for Class and Cultural Domination

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The Fotonovela As a Tool for Class and Cultural Domination Author(s): Cornelia Butler Flora and Jan L. Flora Source: Latin American Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 1, Culture in the Age of Mass Media (Winter,

1978), pp. 134-150Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2633343Accessed: 30-05-2015 15:23 UTC

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THE FOTONOVELA AS A TOOL FOR CLASS AND CULTURAL DOMINATION1

by Cornelia Butler Flora and Jan L. Flora *

Mass culture has long been a mechanism for the promulgation and reinforcement of the dominant ideology. In precapitalist societies, relatively stable social relationships, close-knit communities, and a strong religious climate assured that individuals passively followed the rules that assured maintenance of the status quo. In such societies there was virtue in stability; indeed, the very notion of social mobility, of not being content with one's lot in life, was considered heresy.

The coming of capitalism required a passive following of the rules in order to maintain the newly emerging class relationships, but the rules began to change. The promise of salvation in the next life (assured by following the rules in precapitalist society) was replaced with the promise of social mobility, of moving up the social ladder if one followed the new rules without question. But the mechanisms for learning the rules and reinforcing the legitimacy of the new system were dissipated by the new capitalist system itself, particularly as it changed from the early putting-out types of production which used established interpersonal linkages and a fairly stable geographical population. Capitalistic development, particularly in its latter stages, requires a geographi- cally mobile labor force, one that can be available when needed for production yet can "disappear" when produiction falls. Under the impact of capitalism, popular culture with its underlying ideology of system maintenance leaves the area of oral tradition and becomes another product to be bought and sold. New mechanisms of social control become necessary in order to assure that the rules established to maintain the powerful are followed. The fotonovela can be viewed as one of these mechanisms. *The authors teach in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Kansas State University, Manhattan. Jan Flora does research on rural community change and agricultural structure in the United States and in the Third World. Cornelia Flora is director of the Population Research Laboratory at Kansas State University. She is the author of Pentecostalism in Colombia: Baptism by Fire and Spirit: 'This article is an attempt to draw the connection between the plots and types of fotonovelas and capitalism and to suggest possible reasons for the dominance of one type in certain areas of Latin America. Given the magnitude of such a task, the authors have attempted to present a systematic overview, which can only be accomplished at this stage by being schematic as well. It is hoped that from this effort a more complete analysis can be made at a later date. The authors would like to thank Ivan Brown, Tim Harding, and Raul Fernandez for their critical suggestions in formulat- ing the final version of this paper. All problems in interpretation that remain are ours.

134


FLORA AND FLORA: FOTONOVELA AS TOOL FOR DOMINATION 135

The rules that women must follow in the late capitalist stage are a combination of those traditionally ascribed to sex and those which are unique to the female role of consumer under capitalism. The traditional reproductive functions of women - the reproduction of children, labor power, and culture -continue from precapitalist periods. But whereas in the traditional social situation these functions were shared communal activities, the conditions of the nuclear family, when reinforced by an ideology of male dominance, now make those functions the sole responsibility of the individual woman. New values must be introduced at the same time selected traditions are maintained. Such values include an emphasis on individual consumption rather than group production, a passive following of the rules, and a realization that constant adaptation must be made. In their function of reproducing culture, women provide a key link in both the introduction and perpetration of these values.

The fotonovela - a love story told in photographs with balloon captions presenting the dialogue - is omnipresent among the masses in Latin America, Northern Africa, France, and Italy. We have identified three types of fotonovelas, each stressing different aspects of the ideology necessary to reinforce capitalist relationships. The first serves to break primary ties and integrate workers and peasants into an urban lifestyle. The second provides a -mechanism of escape from real problems. The third encourages consumption of middle-class items. We do not view them solely as conscious attempts at manipulation on the part of capitalist producers and the writers they employ. The fotonovelas both shape and are shaped by the dominant values. Not only have revolutionary themes been weeded out before writers are hired, but some conscious censoring takes place thereafter. Production is based on what has sold before, thereby reinforcing cultural imperialism as well as existing class relationships.

Beginning with the use of stills from films, the fotonovela evolved by the mid 1970s into a genre of its own, spawning offshoots such as the fotoaventura. At first they simply retold the story of the motion picture. Now, however, stories are written solely for the fotonovela market. Initiated before the Second World War by large French and Italian publishers, the fotonovela as a medium began to gain wide distribution, particularly in dependent countries, during the 1950s.

In the southern-cone countries of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Chile, the vast majority of the fotonovelas have been produced in Italy with a few originating in France and Spain. They are usually printed by subsidiary editorial houses in Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. Block Editores, with its home offices in Rio de Janeiro, produces fotonovelas distributed in Brazil. ALSOL produces fotonovelas in Chile for the woman's magazine Contigo. In the northern Latin America countries, fotonovelas produced in Spain predominated until a few years ago. At the present time, Mexican- produced fotonovelas command a growing market in both North America and northern South America. The stills for these fotonovelas are shot in Mexico, but a large majority are printed in the United States, either in Miami or Los Angeles.

Although there are differences in the fotonovelas according to origin, there is a set of attributes common to nearly all of them (stemming from their common roots and their structure as an international capitalistic enterprise) that results in reinforcing a false consciousness and passive acceptance of the Latin American Perspectives: Issue 16, Winter 1978, Vol. V, No. 1


136 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

larger socio-politico-economic context among the working class and lumpen proletariat. Examination of these values in terms of both traditional holdovers and new elements is particularly important, for the shifts in social structure - and thus social control - which took place slowly in the developed countries are occurring at a much more rapid pace under dependent capitalism.

The fotonovela is aimed at women, but men also read them, as evidenced by both personal observation and by field research which has assessed reading habits. Readership surveys (measuring social class by number of appliances owned) indicate that the vast bulk of the readership has few appliances and is, therefore, assumed to be in the lower classes (Habert, 1974: 46-47).

Although the number of copies produced of each issue varies from 100,000 to 400,000 (using the latest available data on the 78 magazines examined in this study), their actual distribution is far greater. Most working-class neighbor- hoods in Latin America have at least one "entrepreneurial" woman with a rental library of fotonovelas doing a brisk business in magazines up to several years old. Within a household all family members are likely to read a purchased volume, and both blood and fictive kin borrow the fotonovela frequently. Fotonovelas are not as ubiquitous in rural areas, except where factories in the field have created a rural proletariat. They have the widest circulation in the rapidly growing cities where dissemination is easier and where their message is more apt to play an "integrative" function.

The fotonovelas not only subtly reinforce the three reproductive functions of women - household labor, children, and most importantly, culture - but also reinforce that there is virtue in undertaking them as individual enterprises. In an urban situation the potential for disaffection is very prevalent amongst the poor who daily see a more prosperous life and are told that they, too, can have it. The fotonovela serves to channel that disaffection into individual arguments and personal dislikes. Problems of collective repression are turned into problems of individual virtue; and problems are resolved through the passive "following of rules," e.g., buying the right dress or hair style to attract the millionaire. By being aimed at that portion of society directly responsible for the socialization of children under capitalism, cultural values and mind sets perpetuated by this form of mass entertainment have potential impact far beyond that of its readership.

METHODOLOGY Data to measure characterization, setting, and plot were gathered through

analysis of 78 fotonovelas purchased at newstands and rented from neighbor- hood libraries in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. The fotonovelas cover a six-year span (1970-1976) with 50 coming from the 1970-1974 period and 28 from 1975-1976. Some of the magazines were devoted entirely to fotonovelas; in other cases, particularly in Chile where the current military dictatorship banned fotonovelas as "morally degenerate," the fotonovela is one of several features in a women's magazine.

The stills for Corfn Tellado were shot in Spain. It was published in Miami, and sold throughout Spanish-speaking North and South America. The central distributor in the Americas was headquartered in Miami. In mid-1975, the company decided to shift filming away from Spain and instead produce the stories in Mexico where they were cheaper and sold better. The negatives were



sent to American magazine distributors in Miami, where they were printed. North and Central America and the Andean countries were the areas of distribution.

Tuz y Yo has stories produced in Colombia, others in France and Spain, with a more limited circulation in the northern part of Latin America. Novelas de Amor and, more recently, Dulce Amor are produced and printed in Mexico. Their distribution reaches as far south as Bolivia and includes the United States. Editorial Abril, which has separate groups in Argentina and Brazil, uses fotonovelas produced in Italy. In Brazil it distributes Capricho and Almanaque Capricho and, in Argentina, Nocturno, a woman's magazine which carries a fotonovela in each issue (Nocturno is also available in Chile). In Brazil, Editora Vecchi distributes Grande Hotel and Almanaque Grande Hotel, which are produced in Italy and have their counterpart fotonovela, Grand Hotel, on the European continent. Contigo is produced in Chile as a general woman's magazine containing a fotonovela in each issue. Setimo Ceu of Bloch Editores is the only fotonovela produced in Brazil, but it has international readership, especially among Portuguese-speaking migrants in Europe and North America.

The production of fotonovelas reveals some interesting facts: the fotonovelas in the north, now produced in Mexico, depend on mass distribution to generate profit. Containing little in the way of advertising, written articles, or features (except for jokes and horoscopes), a large number of copies must be sold to make money. Thus each publisher will put out a large number of titles to maximize sales. The southern fotonovelas, on the other hand, appear in general-interest women's magazines which carry a substantial amount of advertising, as well as many special features and articles. Their prices are comparable to the "pure" fotonovelas, but their distribution is smaller. Most of their profits come from advertising. These two different sources of support distinguish two distinct categories of magazines based on their particular function. The first category, disintegration-integration (disintegration of the old order and integration into the new), is prevalent in the northern countries and focuses on the breaking of the protagonist's past social ties. The second, or consumer-oriented category, reinforces the items of consumption that the magazine advertises. A third category could be described which essentially advocates total escape or complete removal from the real world. This category, epitomized by Corfn Tellado, carries little advertising and circulates throughout the Americas.

Excluded from the 78 fotonovelas analyzed were the following: the fotoav- enturas aimed primarily at a male audience and deserving of further analysis in their own right; the serialized books and popular novels (the fotoserie "Los Albafiiles," adapted from the novel of Vicente Lenero, is an interesting contrast to the bourgeoisie settings of the fotonovelas); the love comic books; and the foto stories primarily aimed at children (with adult overtones) such as Santo: El Enmascarado de Plata and classic series such as Huckleberry Finn.

The sample would have to be larger to be able to make significant statements comparing single countries within Latin America. As it is, we focus on "gross" differences between north and south represented by the disintegration-integration category and the consumer-oriented category respectively. The total escape type provides a bridge between them, though, interestingly Latin American Perspectives: Issue 16, Winter 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



enough, it seemed to be declining in importance between 1970 and 1976. The sample size is adequate to derive some descriptive statements and to hypothes- ize an evolution of categories from disintegration-integration to total escape to consumption.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS All the fotonovelas have a number of striking similarities no matter what

their category. Those general characteristics can be seen as important in understanding the usefulness of the fotonovela in influencing mass values.

An analysis of the narrative structure of the fotonovelas is useful in allowing us to understand the social meaning of the stories presented. Such an analysis must involve such problems as temporal order, cause and effect, and explanation. To do this, we have followed the structuralist method of Will Wright (1975) and broken each set of similar stories into lists of shared functions. These functions are one-sentence statements that describe either a single action or a single attribute of a character. The functions are generic, not specific, and reveal what the characters do. Such functions reveal what is proper and improper behavior and aspirations.

Two major types of plot emerge. Each has a series of basic functions around which the action evolves, although many variations are possible within each of the functions. Other functions may occur in some of the stories, augmenting the essential functions that define the plot type. Following are examples of these two types of plots:

Plot I: Individual Love Rewarded 1 Hero/heroine is in love. 2 Beloved is not in love with hero/heroine. 3 Beloved seeks another goal. 4 Crisis occurs to beloved. 5 Hero/heroine keeps loving beloved. 6 Beloved loves hero/heroine. An example of Plot I would be the Brazilian fotonovela, "All Will Be As It

Was Before." Tom and Vilma are going together, but because she believes he is a criminal (he is really an undercover agent), she breaks off with him and marries Mauricio who is after her money. Several years later, Tom is working on a case as the person hired by Vilma's husband to kill her. Her cousin and best friend are in on the plot. The only one she can turn to is Tom, who has never stopped loving her. She strives to believe her husband is innocent, but he then tries to kill her directly. Tom saves her. Her husband will go to prison, and Vilma will go with Tom.

Plot II: Mutual Love Rewarded 1 Hero meets heroine. 2 They fall in lgve. 3 Something keeps them apart. 4 That something is unknown to them. 5 They remain true to each other. 6 The unknown becomes known. 7 The unknown was a false obstacle. The Mexican fotonovela, "If Until Today I Kept My Secret, It Is Because I

Didn't Want To Lose You," is an example of the second type of plot. Adela and



Eduardo meet at a fancy resort hotel, where Adela is vacationing with her best friend, Matilde, whose life she saved when they were school girls and who therefore owes her a favor. Adela and Eduardo see each other when they return to Mexico City, and they agree to marry. But Eduardo doesn't set a wedding date, and Adela is worried. One day, concerned about Eduardo, she hits a child while driving and leaves the scene of the accident. She talks Matilde into taking the blame. It turns out that the child is Eduardo's, who is divorced. When he thinks Matilde did it, he is furious. Adela feels guilty and finally admits she was driving. All is forgiven, and a wedding date is set.

SIN DEJAR DE,ACARICIAR- 6CONQUE TLNISTE EN LA SE SONRIO ALEGRE- TUS MANOS LA VIDA MENTE. DEL Nlf0, EH?

EN SU VIDA YA NO HABIA SOMBRAS Ni RESERVA', TENDREQUE QUERERLO MUCH. PARA COMPE -~ PORQUE SU AMOR ESTABA POR ENCIMA DE TODO, i TENDRE QUE QUERERLO MUCHO PARA COM\PEt.SAR * ASTA DE SUS ROPOS SECRETOS; --A EL DAF4O QUE INVOLUNTARIAMENTE LE CAUSE A_j) S_ ta g

Without ceasing to caress her, he smiled happily. He: "So you had a child's life in your hands, In their life there were no longer clouds nor huh?" hesitations because their love was greater She: "I will have to love him very much in or- than all else, including their own secrets. der to compensate for the damage I involun- tarily caused him."

Both basic plots reward passivity. Both stress the traditional values of acceptance of one's place in life and the idea that change comes as one reacts to events, not as one acts upon them. Furthermore, both plots legitimate the rules of the system. In Plot I an enormously complex and cruel crime was attempted. Nevertheless, justice is done, and the system blockages (implied by the unequal distribution of wealth) are ignored. By trusting the police system to which Tom is linked, love is fulfilled. In Plot II the necessity of following rules is also reinforced. It is because the rules of honesty and admission of fault are not followed that the various crises occur. Only when fault is admitted and rules followed do the lovers finally get together.

Generally, Plot I is more individualistic than Plot II. The individual act of loving (in an almost masochistic way) is seen as a virtue ultimately to be rewarded. Individualism is taken to the extreme with love being a singular rather than a paired activity. Furthermore, in Plot I the thought of allies, of working together with others, is carefully undermined as Vilma is first Lotin Americon Perspeives: Isswe 16, Wm$tee 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



betrayed by her husband, then her best friend, and finally her cousin. No one is to be trusted. In Plot II, the characters are allowed to have friends who help the unknown become known, and loving occurs within community, rather than being a solitary exercise.

These two basic plots account for the action in over ninety percent of the fotonovelas studied. The ubiquity of these two plots does not mean that all the fotonovelas are the same. Indeed the basic narrative structure assures that a problem is easily recognizable and thus full attention can be given to the originality of the solution. There is great variety in the situations generating the plot - from crime to illegitimate children (M. Mattelart, 1970) - although the functions remain surprisingly constant. The resolution of these two plots does not mean that all stories end happily; sometimes the denouement comes after the death of the beloved. In all the stories, however, love is vindicated. These are traditional values linking the old, pre-capitalist stage with the new, late capitalist one.

In both these basic plots it is the state of loving, not necessarily a specific action, which takes control of the situation and brings about the solution to the problem. "Being true" and accepting fate are very strongly stressed. They are perhaps the most insidious of the characteristics which create false consciousness. At the socio-economic level, national dependency makes it necessary for a nation to "accept" being acted upon. On the micro level individuals are expected to mirror this passivity. But it is no longer the traditional fatalism sometimes found in peasant societies. It is instead an acceptance of change- a change over which one has no control.

Passivity and acceptance of fate have long been something oppressors have reinforced in the oppressed. A parallel can be drawn between the image of the bleeding Christ, so strong in colonial Latin America, and the image of the conquering risen Christ who inspired the peasant wars in Germany. Accept- ance of a passive ideal may occur because one indeed is repeatedly thwarted when one acts. Nevertheless, the social function of a passive ideal is readily apparent to the dominant groups.

Previously we argued that only women were expected to be passive (Flora, 1971, 1973). Here we would like to suggest that although males are much more likely to act to resolve a plot - dealing with the crisis to the beloved in Plot I or making the unknown known in Plot II - that activity can be interpreted as illusory. Too much activity leads to a crisis or creates an obstacle as often as it leads to resolution. An example of this is found in the story "I Need More than Your Kisses to Know You Are Mine and Not To Be A Conquered Lover." Felipe, at the death of Claudia (his first and true love), at the hands of Lidya (the older woman who befriended him and loved him), reflects, "I should have waited for Claudia. I should have believed she would never lie to me when she swore she loved me. I shouldn't have delivered myself to this ambition that made me lie to Lidya to be safe. She committed a crime because she loved me, and I evilly only exploited her loneliness, her generosity, and her passion which I knew would protect me. Because of this I am left alone without anybody!" Because of his activity, he is left with the ultimate punishment of the fotonovela world - his love is gone forever.

Also important in all the fotonovelas is what is not there, as Armand Mattelart pointed out in his telling analysis of Sesame Street (1974:98-101). Any kind of group solution or collective conflict is missing. If a powerful oppressor



changes, it is because he himself has seen the error of his ways, not because collective pressure was brought to bear by the oppressed. Since work relationships are almost always absent (except in the fotonovelas that are specialized as hospital stories), unequal class relationships appear to be due only to differences in the number of possessions. When one person is clearly better off than another, it is because they deserve that situation. In only a minority of stories is there recognition of class differences. In one story where the hero is denied access to his true love because of his social class, there appears the only line in all the stories implying any sort of class antagonism: "A profound resentment against the rich welled up in me." Soon thereafter he was able to control his resentment and become one of the wealthy with no thought for his own class origins.

COMO MI CASO ES MUY PATETICO QUISE NARRAR LO QUE ME SUCEDIO PAPA QUE LOS LECTORES SEPAN GUIAR SUS VIDAS Y NO COMETAN LOS ERRORES QUE YO COMETI.

As my case is very pathetic, I want to narrate what happened to me so that the readers will know how to conduct their lives and not commit the errors that I committed.

This lack of class consciousness is not to say that the poor are not worthy. But if they are worthy, their material condition will improve. If not, they will not rise. Those who follow the rules - prescribed from above - will know they are doing so properly if they rise in station. Such a rise usually means the obstacle between lovers is overcome.

The narrative structure is such that no matter what the theme - alcohol- ism or the mafia - individual sources of problems and individual solutions are stressed. Passivity is systematically rewarded. In each of the three major categories, other characteristics are stressed which, although present to some degree in all the categories, tend to underline the transition from a "gemein- schaft-collective" orientation to a "gesselschaft-individualistic" orientation more suitable for a marginal economic group that is vitally necessary in a dependent capitalist economy.

FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES OF FOTONOVELAS

The two types of plot that were used occurred in three basic functional categories of fotonovelas: 1) disintegration-integration, 2) total-escape, and 3) Latin Am.icon Perspectives: Issue 16, Wintr 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



consumer-oriented. We conceptualize each of these as representing overlap- ping stages of fotonovela evolution; each as providing the specific value transition necessary to channel off dissent at various stages of the transition from a precapitalist to a capitalist situation. All of these categories coexist in all the places where we sampled fotonovelas. An educated estimate would be that the predominant category tended to correspond with the degree to which the given locale was integrated into the international capitalist system.

Disintegration-integration Category Capitalist development depends on a highly mobile and inter-replaceable

labor force (Braverman, 1974). A first step in the creation of mobile workers is to separate the individual from his or her primary group and accentuate his or her importance and adaptiveness over group cohesion or group solutions. Once the removal from a group setting occurs, integration and acceptance of values consistent with capitalism or monopoly capitalism can take place. The fotonovela stresses such a shift in values both directly and indirectly. Fotonovelas in this category have highly mobile characters, a traditional sense of legalistic morality, and an emphasis on trusting to fate and to love. These fotonovelas tend to be produced in Mexico, have little or no advertising, few written features, and treat incidents central to the lives of the protagonists.

The first way that disintegration-integration is presented in the fotonovelas is through the setting. Because of the very nature of their multinational audiences, there is a conscious attempt (except in a substantial minority of the fotonovelas produced in Mexico) to leave the setting as general as possible. The story could take place anywhere just as the characters could fit in anywhere. Any sort of national or regional identification, anything that could create ties of solidarity based on location, are missing. The exceptions are instructive. Many of the fotonovelas produced in Mexico actually mentioned Mexico City, and a striking shot of the Avenida de la Reforma was consistently used as backdrop to show elapsing time and a return to the capital. Only once was a provincial city mentioned (Guanajuato, where the story commenced), but the action soon moved to Mexico City. The- city and a consistently urban background are used as the setting for the fotonovelas in the disintegration- integration phase. This allows for separation from past identifying symbols and interpersonal linkages, and legitimizes a more isolated existence, with reality coming from media characters rather than interpersonal ties.

The setting is also almost exclusively middle class, except where moral turpitude has reduced a family's circumstances as in two of the Mexican- produced fotonovelas. Alcohol is often the instigator of such a decline. The norm is an urban middle-class setting for all the fotonovelas. The fotonovelas in the integration-disintegration category have some links with working-class reality, but only as a stage to be passed through, not as a real ending point. The new salvation of individual social mobility is an ever-present promise for following the new rules.

Language is another way linkages with groups are broken. Harbert (1974:84) points out how language is sanitized so that class background and ethnicity are hidden. Because of the multinational audience, this is necessary to maximize readership and thus profit.

Another example of a linkage with, and appreciation of, working-class



origins appears only in the disintegration-integration stories. In "From the Day I Married You I Learned What It Was to Sin," Charito, an orphan of working- class origins, is living with a very upper-class young man, Alfredo. She has the disconcerting habit of keeping photograph albums of previous lovers (16 in all) lying about in prominent view. She is honest and open, wanting to keep her freedom and maintain the freedom of others. Yet Alfredo wants her to give up her job as a stripper and marry him. Hesitant at first, she finally agrees. She soon realized she must not only give up her present freedom but her past existence as well, because Alfredo refuses to let her be the honest person he fell in love with (for fear she will embarrass him in front of his snooty friends). He tries to convince her of right and wrong - and that her past life has been wrong. Charito finally confronts him with the hypocrisy of his world, implying that the working class have values that are more honest and more true. Stories such as this admit a link with a plebian past, but they consistently have their characters move beyond them. The past is established so that its legitimacy may be transferred to the new, more isolated situation. The linkage between the old traditional virtues, and the new modern lifestyle is subtly made - with social mobility the reward.

LA MUCHACHA NO HABIA CONTESTADO Y AHORA, . ESTABA SIENDO DIRECTAMENTE INTERROGADA, SEN LA MUCHACHA HIZO COMO QUE NO OIA LA PREGUNTA. TADA EN EL PANQUILLO DE LOS ACUSADOS. AQUELLA MUJER LA DISGUSJABA TERRIBLEMENTE, Y HU-

BIERA QUERIDO IRSE DE ALLI CUANTO ANTES. ALfREDO TRATO DE INDICARLE LO QUE TEN(A QUE CONTESTAR.

SI, PERO COMO ME DIJIS- Y... . SE PUEDE SABER A QUE SE DEDICA- TE QUE NO DIJERA LA VER- BA USTED ANTES DE.. . LOGRAR ATRAPAR L ESC HASTE A MI DAD, Y QUE MEJOR CALLA- A Ml HIJO... ? MAMA, QUERIDA RA, PREFIERO HACERLO ASI.

The girl pretended not to hear the question. That woman disgusted her terribly, and she

The girl hadn't answered, and now she was would have liked to leave immediately. Alfre- being interrogated - the defendant on the do tried to indicate to her how she ought to witness stand. respond.

Older woman: "And, can one know what you He: "Did you hear my mother, dear?" did before you managed to trap my son?" She: "Yes, but because you told me not to tell

the truth, that it would be better to keep quiet, I prefer to do it this way."

This rootlessness, and the desirability of it, has been pointed out by Habert Latin Am.ico.n Perspectives: Issue 16, Winter 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



(1974). She states that heroes, and especially heroines, are portrayed as having no parents in the plot except when they serve as obstacles to the child's achieving love. In the Mexican and Colombian fotonovelas in particular, the number of orphans is enough to make any demographer blanch. Child mortality occurs - the death of a child is always a good obstacle to overcome or crisis to weather - but children never die of infectious diseases; they are killed in car accidents or die of leukemia - again, an identifier of a more affluent social class which can keep children alive to experience the hazards of individual consumptive or degenerative diseases.

Another function of the disintegration-integration story is reinforcement of traditional values and morality - a characteristic that Schooler (1976) relates to a legacy of serfdom and occupational conditions limiting an individual's opportunity for self-direction. It is not necessarily sexual values which are traditionally reinforced; indeed, because of the differential severity of national censors, premarital sexuality (as long as it is monogamous) and divorce are more favorably viewed in the disintegration-integration stories produced in Mexico than in the total-escape stories produced in Spain or- the consumer- oriented stories produced in Italy, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile. For the Italian- based fotonovelas, scenes are shot several different ways to account for the variety of national censorship rules.

The disintegration-integration stories are the most legalistic: each offense to the common conscience must result in retribution. In the consumer-oriented category, a more relative moral code is presented. Attention to the spirit of the law is more important in that type of fotonovela and, by repenting, individuals can clear themselves of possible punishment.

The disintegration-integration fotonovelas thus take on aspects of a Greek tragedy. Plot I often involves women loving men during the time the males sin, and the inevitable punishment is inflicted. Without the surety of punishment, women's unending love is less dramatic and the traditional marianismo (or holiness through suffering) declines as a source of feminine status.

Total-escape Category This category of fotonovela utilizes the Cinderella theme in either Plot I or

Plot II. The poor but well-bred young girl marries the handsome and dashing millionaire. While the stories in Corfn Tellado, previously produced in Spain and distributed throughout the Americas via Miami, are the most likely to fall into this category, a few of the ones produced in Italy also fit this grouping.

There is enough humbleness in the heroine for the readers to identify with, although her destiny and theirs are far apart. The heroine is always willing to sacrifice herself foi the sake of others. For instance, in "Love in the Snow" Marta says, "I love my mother with all my heart and I ought to sacrifice myself for her." Her friend, Tina, adds in outrage, "With a man who you don't love and don't know, obliged by your family situation." Marta tells her sad story. "For that reason I agreed to marry a childhood friend who went to Venezuela as a child and now is a millionaire. He fell in love with me from my letters. And I don't even know what he looks like. He has never wanted to send me photos. My mother has seen the heavens open up with this wedding - and I - I've fallen in love with another. I am young and life is very long." Tina tells her, "But your sacrifice is immense, Marta. I in your place would rebel." But Marta



does not rebel. She does her duty and to her surprise the millionaire she is engaged to is the same handsome young man she fell in love with. He wanted to make sure that she loved him for himself and not his money. As Marta says while embracing her new husband, "What a beautiful dream that has been turned into reality!"

And it is only then that the veil is definitely lifted (the mystery dispelled).

She: "But the moment has come for us to say He: "We will be united for the rest of our good-bye forever." lives, because I am Alberto Median, your hus- He: "Quite the contrary, Fierecilla." band. Javier and Alberto - the same person

who loves you like crazy!" She: "is it possible? This isn't another of your jokes?"

This dream is achieved only when the heroine is willing to let her own happiness be sacrificed for the sake of others. There are several obligatory tearful scenes in this category (indicated by a dainty finger beneath an eye) where the full burden of following one's destiny is made clear to the audience. But when the obstacle is overcome, the crisis is resolved, and the unknown becomes known, the story concludes with a smile and a kiss (very chastely done - even the Italian filmed fotonovelas do special scenes for the Brazilian censors (Habert, 1974) and, most conveniently, pots of money for the heroine. Money, of course, is unimportant to her and in no way influenced her action. It is just that in this category the most lovable men are also the richest.

The women in total escape stories are the least likely to work. The only careers they may have are those of governess (so they can marry the wealthy widowed father of their young charge) or a career such as modeling (so they can give it up to prove their love for the man who can support them far better than they can support themselves).

Such stories encourage women to await security in marriage. They imply that marriage should always be for love - and if you trust your heart, you will be found by the lonely millionaire. The unequal status of men and women is reinforced continously in stories of this category. The man is always wealthier Latin Affican PFspective: Issue 16, Wwnte 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



(if the heroine is wealthy, her family is in decline), and a self-made entrepre- neur (whom she might have known previously as an ambitious but penniless youth) is her final love. He is older. Since these stories specialize in comparing the virtues of young female innocence to older female selfishness, a very large portion of the men are widowers - often following an unhappy marriage. The offending older wife always conveniently passes away; divorce is not even mentioned. The hero is wiser; he devises daring plans (such as meeting his intended in disguise at a ski resort to test her faithfulness); he saves the heroine from the ill-intentioned villain. And, most important, he has the exquisite judgement to recognize the heroine for the true jewel that she is (without her having to do anything more than exist and follow the rules). Consumer-oriented Category

One of the principal contradictions within the capitalist system is the need to constantly increase consumption of products resulting from an expanding productive capacity (despite the fact that capital-intensive production employs a declining proportion of the potential labor force thereby marginalizing significant numbers from the consumptive process). This is most striking in the dependent or "developing" countries of the capitalist world where welfare- statism is not well developed. Women play a pivotal role in the softening of this contradiction. They form a significant proportion of the reserve army of the unemployed, available as a group for low wage work, but with only a small proportion in the labor force as permanent full-time workers. Furthermore, they are a key link in maximizing societal consumption, if they can be convinced that consumption is an integral part of their roles as wife, mother and lover. The fotonovelas distributed in the southern-cone countries (where the above process is most advanced) are almost all classified as being consumer-oriented.

That women can assume the role of consumer seems almost impossible in the conditions of extreme poverty that exist in much of Latin America today. Yet this last category of fotonovela is prevalent, and its message is strong. On the one hand, it prepares women for the off-chance that the myth of social mobility actually becomes a reality for them. On the other hand, there are many inexpensive consumer items that even very poor people buy (often at the expense of food) that assure one's worth in both one's own eyes as well as those of one's peers. And why not? In capitalist countries the entire media has been focused on equating worth with possessions. Even a new pair of plastic shoes or a tin pot (instead of a clay one) can give an individual the consumer role - and a false sense of actually bettering one's way of life.

In the consumer-oriented category, most of the fotonovela heroines are not upper-class and they work before marriage, although it is clear that the jobs are only temporary. (In the disintegration-integration fotonovelas, upper-class women work in such professions as psychiatry and medicine, and married women at times work, although always out of necessity.) None of those who are upper-class work. Career is a dirty word for these women. This is most vividly illustrated in the Italian-produced Brazilian fotonovela (Almanaque Grand Hotel, Editora Vecchi) in which the wife of the hero is, like her husband, a practicing M.D. She ends up going insane, thus clearing the way for him to return to his real love, a member of the wealthy class who has never worked in her life.



The settings of southern-cone and Brazilian fotonovelas are always middle class - even when the protagonists are of working or lower-class extraction. "The False Image" from S6timo Ceu, a domestic Brazilian fotonovela, illus- trates problems of the lower class (joblessness, hepatitis, unstable unions), but the hero and heroine are living together in poverty in a home with a modern painting over the divan. The only southern fotonovela which shows surroundings which are other than middle class is a very short one from Grande Hotel, filmed in Italy about an Italian "guest" worker in Germany who lives in a single, plain room with a roommate. This is also the only one in which the hero has an industrial job although he aspires to open a pizzeria with a German partner.

A Canca cambo deconte quo voc6 tem 6 a que esth usando..

She: "The only decent shirt you have is the one you are wearing." He: "That's right. I am always dressed in rags And do you know why? Because you insisted on having a baby." Y _

i isso... vivo sernpre vestindo trapos. E stae porque? Porque voc& fez quest&o

de ter um filho...

Although the occupations of the protagonists - both male and female are not stressed, males generally hold white-collar or entrepreneural jobs. Being an entrepreneurial smuggler or kidnapper seems to be more "classy" (although always punished) than being a member of the industrial working class. Individual social mobility is stressed, and if one's job is not lucrative, middle-class surroundings are still maintained.2

There is a striking similarity between these consumer-oriented fotonovelas and George Orwell's description of magazines aimed at working-class women in Great Britain:

The idea is to give the bored factory-girl or worn-out mother of five a dream-life in which she pictures herself - not actually as a duchess (that convention has gone out) but as, say, the wife of a bank manager. Not only is a five-to-six-pound-a-week standard of life set up as ideal, but it is tacitly assumed that that is how working-class people really do live. The major facts are simply not faced. It is admitted, for instance, that people sometimes lose their jobs; but then the dark clouds roll away and they get better jobs instead. No mention of unemployment as something permanent and inevitable, no mention of the dole, no mention of trade unionism. No suggestion anywhere that there can be anything wrong with the system as a system; there are only individual

'This may have been possible for substantial numbers of the lower middle and working classes in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay before right-wing authoritarian governments took power. For those countries now, and Brazil as well, fotonovelas which portray middle-class life styles border on escapism rather than encouraging consumption by most of the readers. Lotin Amwic,n Pespectives Issue 16, Winter 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



misfortunes, which are generally due to somebody's wickedness and can in any case be put right in the last chapter. Always the dark clouds roll away, the kind employer raises Alfred's wages, and there are jobs for everybody except drunks (Orwell and Angus, 1968:481).

The consumer-oriented fotonovelas ostensibly are aimed at young unmarried women, but, as Orwell suggests, such magazines are undoubtedly read by older women with families. It is here that the consumption ethic and escapism tend to merge. Most of the consumer-oriented fotonovelas are contained within women's magazines which also contain unillustrated romance stories, stories on entertainers, and vast quantities of advertising for clothes, body altering substances, and get-rich-quick entrepreneurial schemes. Although readers cannot hope to achieve a life style comparable to that portrayed in the fotonovelas, the object is to create dissatisfaction with one's present level of consumption and present physical appearance. The extremes to which inse- curity about one's appearance can be carried are illustrated in "Marianela" (Contigo, ALSOL, Chile). Marianela (Nela)is ugly according to others in the story. She actually has a rather pretty face, but wears poorly fitting unstylish clothes, goes barefoot, and has "improper" demeanor, i.e., is of the wrong social class. Pablo, her love, decides to have an operation to restore his sight. Marianela altruistically encourages him to do it, but leaves before he sees how "ugly" she is. Florentina, a beautiful lighthaired young woman, arrives. Upon first seeing her, Pablo mistakes her for Marianela. Convincing himself that Marianela left because she didn't want to be tied down, Pablo falls in love with Florentina and marries her. Marianela becomes a drifter with a companion of her own social class.

ALLI ESTA 8A EN LA a lespera. PLYRTA DE LA LUJOSA CLINICA.E_ f _ ANSIOSA. ^ s '-IN IR LA E_

PORTERO- Ptee a Dios que OJUE LA HA resulte. 81A ECHfAVfI M4UCHAS YE_L r CES. HAS LYa ye don Pab Ito'? TA OUE CAR iDon Pablo vera... LOS SALIO IY ver' a la pobre Ne_a_ A HA8LAR ' LE . , r _

There she was in the door of the luxurious clinic. Anxious, without hearing the voice of the doorman who had thrown her out many times. Until Carlos came outside to talk to her He Ask God that it will be so.

She: "Don Pablo will see - and he will see poor Nela!"

He: "Nela - wait." She: "Can Don Pablito now see?"



The message is that being lower class is ugly, but one can escape one's social class by learning how to be beautiful, adopting the proper comportment, and surrounding oneself with material comforts, a view perfectly suited to selling many of the products advertised in the magazines. Habert (1974) points out that Brazilian fotonovela publishers using the number of household appliances possessed by the family in their readership surveys as an indicator of social class, see as their target audience those women at the lower end of the scale - those with zero to four appliances. Social class is redefined in terms of one's relationship to the products of consumption rather than to the means of production. What emerges is an example of what Marx describes as the fetishism of commodities.

CONCLUSION The fotonovela, whether by accident or design, is ideally suited to mold

women to fit into a dependent capitalist structure. The three types of stories- disintegration-integration, total escape, and consumer-oriented - stress passivity, mobility-adaption, and individualism in support of the status quo. Seen as an evolutionary process, these stories separate a woman from her actual environment and prepare her to accept the necessity of marginal participation as consumption is added to her function of reproduction of household labor. That these stories are aimed at women is especially important because in reproducing culture, women are crucial in propagating the values that foto noveles purvey.

The multinational character of the fotonovela enterprise introduces elements that influence the nature of stories. Cultural imperialism - the infusion, for example, of Spanish or Italian culture - is muted by the necessity of mutlinational capitalism - stories should be general enough to sell. In the case of the southern-cone countries, the stories, both domestically produced and imported from Italy, are geared to sell products. In northern and central America and the Andean countries, the stories sell themselves - profit comes from volume. Thus what is not presented is as important as what is presented. Class consiousness, international politics, and economic structures are all absent. The narrative structure supports the absence of political issues. Vital plot devices must resolve the individual crises of lovers, not the structural conditions surrounding the couple. The narrative structure, combined with the norm of passivity, helps create a false consciousness and adaptability that does more than sell magazines.

It is not the medium itself that is counter-revolutionary. Under Allende in Chile, a number of radical fotonovelas were produced and distributed. Wom- en's liberation groups in Mexico have attempted to use fotonovelas to raise consciousness of women's oppression among working-class women. The plot devices and types of functions are a direct result of the multinational capitalistic industry which produces and sells the volumes to the working classes in both the developed and developing world and the fact that their survival depends upon mirroring the values that support that type of system.

Latin American Perspectives: Issue 16, Winter 1978, Vol. V, No. 1



REFERENCES Braverman, Harry

1974 Labor and Monopoly Capitalism: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century, New York: Monthly Review Press

Flora, Cornelia Butler 1971 "The Passive Female: Her Comparative Image by Class and Culture in Women's Magazine Fiction," Journal of Marriage and the Family, (August), 435-44 1973 "The Passive Female and Social Change," pp. 59-85 in Ann Pescatello (ed.), Female and Male in Latin America, Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh

Habert, Angeluccia Bernardes 1974 Fotonovela e indtistria cultural: estudo de uma forma de literatura sentimental fabricada para milhoes, Petropoles: Vozes

Mattelart, Armand 1974 La cultura como empresa multinacional, Mexico City: Serie Popular Era

Mattelart, Michele 1970 "El nivel mitico de la prensa suedo-amarosa," Los Medios de Comunicaci6n de Masas, Cuadernos de la Realidad Nacional, (March), 221-283

Orwell, Sonia and Ian Angus (eds.) 1968 "Boys' Weeklies," pp. 460-485 in The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell: Vol. I: An Age Like This, 1920-1940, New York: Harcourt, Brace, World, Inc.

Schooler, Carmi 1976 "Serfdom's Legacy: An Ethnic Continuum," American Journal of Sociology, 81 (May), 1265-1286

Wright, Will 1975 Six Guns and Society: a Structural Study of the Western, Berkeley: University of California Press

Errata Martha Gimenez, author of "Population and Capitalism" in issue 15 of Latin American Perspectives, would like to clarify Figure 1 of her article. On page 10, add arrows: from Population Distribution to Environmental and Social Variables Affecting Mortality; from Rural-Urban Differences to Environmen- tal and Social Variables Affecting Mortality; from Differential Level Social Variables Affecting Mortality to Mortality (in one of two places); and from Social Stratification to Household Composition.


Article Contentsp. 134p. 135p. 136p. 137p. 138p. 139p. 140p. 141p. 142p. 143p. 144p. 145p. 146p. 147p. 148p. 149p. 150

Issue Table of ContentsLatin American Perspectives, Vol. 5, No. 1, Culture in the Age of Mass Media (Winter, 1978), pp. 1-160Front Matter [pp. 1-1]IntroductionCulture and Imperialism [pp. 2-12]

Mass Communications in the Third World: Theory and PracticeThe Nature of Communications Practice in a Dependent Society [pp. 13-34]Decolonization of Information: Efforts toward a New International Order [pp. 35-48]

Cultural Activity under Imperialist DominationThe Camera As "Gun": Two Decades of Culture and Resistance in Latin America [pp. 49-76]From Modernization to Resistance: Latin American Literature 1959-1976 [pp. 77-97]

Popular CultureNotas Sobre Cultura Popular en Mexico [pp. 98-118]

Case Studies of Cultural Domination and ResistanceChile's La Firme versus Itt [pp. 119-133]The Fotonovela As a Tool for Class and Cultural Domination [pp. 134-150]

Errata: Population and Capitalism [p. 150]Somos Los Incondicionales Herederos... [p. 151]Back Matter [pp. 152-160]

The Fotonovela As a Tool for Class and Cultural Domination

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