Others, like Venezuela s Cristal, which has been shown seven times in Spain, never seem to lose their popularity. It s a fact that stories with lots of local colour, showing typical Latin American scenes and people, are most popular in the rest of the world, says researcher Daniel Mato. Despite cultural differences, people feel very comfortable with these tales. They prefer them to the French ones which they find too intellectual. Filipino columnist Conrado de Quiros agrees.
Filipino soaps are too familiar.
American soaps are too alien. Latin American ones are neither, he says. The Manila Daily Inquirer newspaper says Marimar offers relief to Filipinos trying to escape from the ugliness of their surroundings, the ugliness of their poverty, the ugliness of their public officials. These universal situations and the feeling of identification with a story inspired by real life without being a carbon copy of it explains the popularity of soap operas with such an eclectic range of audiences. Viewers live through the sufferings and misfortunes of the characters and develop a real sense of complicity with them.