Soaps Seduce the Globe
While soap operas have been largely relegated to the realm of daytime television in the US, they remain a premiere form of entertainment around the world. Telenovelas from Mexico are enjoyed in countries as far away as Malawi and Macedonia.
On November 21, 1985 over 350 million fans in 57 countries were glued to their television sets to find out who shot J.R. in the wildly popular soap, Dallas. In Turkey, parliament was adjourned early so that members could rush home and see the answer.
SFCG and other NGO’s have harnessed the power of the soap to communicate social messages. Susan Froetschel writes on the phenomenon in the Khaleej Times:
“During the past two decades, some governments and NGOs make no secret of using the genre to carry social messages, following the lead of early sponsors who urged clean homes: CARE developed ‘Wind Blows Through Dark and Light’ for Vietnam to show that HIV/AIDS could strike any family; UK’s Plan International launched ‘Atmajaa’ in 2008 to discourage female infanticide in India; US-based Search for Common Ground develops radio and television soap operas to teach conflict resolution for eight countries, including Angola and Nepal.”
Read the full article here.
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I actually just read an article in the Washington Post the other day that spoke about Soap Operas living U.S. television for good, considering two of the largest ones were just canceled. But trends from the U.S. tend to take a while to be picked up so I am sure the soap operas in other countries will still flourish.