Beauty queens,machistas and street children

Abstract

• Consumed in over 130 countries, telenovelas are media products particularly suitable for the examination of the dialogue between media, culture and society. In 2003—4, Venezuelan telenovela Cosita Rica took the stage alongside the country’s political crisis and deep polarization around President Hugo Chávez. Cosita Rica both straddled and blurred the line between fact and fiction through its multiple plots framed by Venezuela’s political and socioeconomic crises. I focus on the production and reception of Cosita Rica’s representations of three of Venezuela’s socio-cultural issues: obsession with physical beauty, machismo, and street children. The article looks closely at the dialogue between television and country at a critical and historical time, and provides clues to the reception of entertainment media content when such content includes critical stances towards the social formation’s cultural fabric. •