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MASS MEDIA & COMMUNICATION Drugs, Thugs, and Divas: Telenovelas and Narco-Dramas in Latin America. By O. Hugo Benavides. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008. Pp. x, 233. References. Index. $55.00 cloth; $24.95 paper.
The telenovela, like its English language counterpart, the soap opera has become the object of scholarly attention from communications and media scholars and cultural critics alike. Anthropologist O. Hugo Benavides adds a complex meditation on the role of the telenovela and the narco-drama in contemporary Latin America to this body of literature. Mobilizing a methodology he terms "fierce participant observation and textual analysis" (p. 4), Benavides analyzes the telenovela as a space for staging issues of power that play out along the lines of race, gender, and class in Latin America. While offering a respite from poverty and the stinging effects of classism, the telenovela also, the author asserts, works to reinforce existing power relations. In contrast, the narco-drama is celebrated as a less compromised cultural form that allows viewers to identify with their narco protagonists.
Divided into two parts,...