Open Response 1: La Reina del Sur

I decided to watch "La Reina del Sur" because it seemed very interesting and I read over and over that it was one of the top rated telenovelas from Telemundo. I am only a few episodes in, but I can already tell why it's so highly rated. What's interesting to me is that this narconovela is loosely based on a true story, that of Sandra Ávila Beltrán, but even this "true" story has many different Cinderella elements that we talked about in class. The protagonist Teresa Mendoza met her future boyfriend, Güero, as she was working for a money loaner. While not technically a virgin since she had been raped, she had no experience of love or money before her "prince" came along. He was deeply involved in a drug cartel and because of that, both Güero and Teresa lived luxuriously and passionately. However, when Güero was betrayed and killed, Teresa had to ditch her "helpless, naïve" status in order to survive. She was being chased down by many different people, and she had to be smart with her lies and who to trust in order to first get out of Mexico and then to get out of the United States. Since this is a Telemundo telenovela, the telenovela has both "Rosa" and "realist" elements. It is traditional in the sense that it starts off with the two characters in love and it is very passionate, but it breaks from the mold in two major ways: first of all, the narconovela is based off a true story, so it cannot stray too far from what actually happened (i.e., Güero must die) and secondly, that her love does in fact die, which puts a bit of a damper on the romantic notion of their happy ending. As is expected of all telenovelas, each episode does end in a cliffhanger in regards to Teresa's fate. So far, I have really enjoyed this telenovela and my accounting grade definitely reflects that.