Tu Maltido Amor – Treatment For A Telenovela
In 1605, most people in Europe listened to a troubadour reading the 48 books of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, or the 131 chapters of Don Quixote de La Mancha by Cervantes. By 1895, in England, France, the U.S and Germany, people read serialized novels and comic-strips in daily newspapers. Anthony Trollop’s satirical novel, The Way We Live Now, was a serial publication of 20 monthly editions. In 1951, Sua Vida Me Pertence, was the first story serialized telenovela on TV in Brazil.
The soap, telenovela or serialized story is now the most frequently viewed form of streaming popular melodrama.
In a way, our serial story picks up where Trollope left off 150 years ago; 425 years after Don Quixote resumed his identity as Don Quejano, a country squire. And 3,225 years after Oddesseus settled his scores in Ithaca. Our protagonists are contemporary as is the style and streaming small screen format technology.
Unlike Trollope, whose satire focused on the class of Madoffs and Trumps of Victorian England, our story takes a modern view of society. It begins in the homes of the residents of four 6-story concrete condominium buildings that form a semi-circle on a bluff about forty feet above the beach facing the Coronado islands. The buildings were abandoned by their developer who disappeared without a trace after the 94 condominium apartments were built but before they were sold. Those who now live there moved in during the 38 years after he disappeared, by paying a modest fee to the wife of the custodian. They are an unusual and unlikely mix.
The location by the sea in Playas de Tijuana, a community of about 50,000 souls on the south or Mexican side of La Linea (The Line) or border with the United States, adds certain political and economic realities for our characters. Daily news feeds are similar for our audiences and our characters. The Line also figures in occupations, experience, nationalities and concerns of our characters, just as it affects the nature, culture, sensibilities and qualities of lawful and illicit schemes on the other, northern side of The Line. Border crossings often entail dramatic and comedic art and interactions.
Juxtaposed to the story in the community of Playas, another story develops in the town of Imperial Beach, California, which is related to Playas by its proximity to The Line on the north side, and by frequent circumlocution of Tijuana residents that commute north to work, shop, collect mail, and visit friends, doctors and relatives. By no means are IB and TJ one big happy family, however, because of the proximity and economic effects produced by a synergy of the differing rules, standards and opportunities available on either side, the stories of IB and Playas compose a story that is more than the sum of the parts. For instance, when the condos were built 38 years ago, Tijuana was a satellite of San Diego. Today, they are more like binary stars, orbiting each other in an uncertain balance.
La Linea is an artificial barrier between these two communities, but there is also a topographic boundary–they are separated by the mouth of the Tijuana River, where it empties into the Pacific Ocean. And the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant also stands between them. The practical reason for locating a sewage treatment plant in the mouth of a river is the raw sewage of many of Tijuana’s 4.7 million residents, which goes into the river upstream. The “SBIWTP” is the bane of existence for Imperial Beach residents, who often ask, “why should WE deal with THEIR shit?” Since natural topography and the location of The Line led to this situation, and the economics of The Line underpins economies of both sides (cheap rent in Tijuana/cheap labor in San Diego), there is no solution.
So much for context–now for the central characters.