美国国家公共电台 NPR Why East Africa Is Hooked On Telenovelas

 

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

If you turn on a television in East Africa, you'll eventually see something like this.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "YO NO CREO EN LOS HOMBRES")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You asked for my trust, Daniel (ph). You asked for my support.

SIEGEL: That's a scene from "Yo No Creo En Los Hombres," a Mexican telenovela. It's a genre¹ that is booming across the continent. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.

EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE²: The offices of Dubbing³ Africa still very much feel like a construction site.

PASCAL KOROSO: So still under construction. We're setting up some more studios.

PERALTA: That's Pascal Koroso, whose company dubs⁴ Latin American soap operas. His company started just a few years ago with two people. Now, he's got 250 workers, and he's about to double. Across sub-Saharan Africa, he says, telenovelas have struck a nerve. Almost all cable companies now have at least one novela channel, and that means Koroso has people dubbing them 24 hours a day.

KOROSO: The themes are things that Africans identify with a lot - you know, the corrupt⁵ politician who rigged an election. You are in problem, your marriage is, you know, having a rough time. Who do you talk to? You don't - we don't know a psychologist. We know our priest (laughter).

PERALTA: Koroso says you also have to look at the economic boom taking place in Africa. People are making a ton of money right now, but the vast majority of Africans are still poor and telenovelas are aspirational⁶.

KOROSO: Everybody aspires⁷ to be rich. Everybody aspires to move into the middle class, so these sort of stories sort of reason it in terms of people seeing something that is possible for them.

PERALTA: And really, telenovelas are everywhere you turn.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WHAT LIFE STOLE FROM ME")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You sold me, Mom.

PERALTA: They're on billboards⁸, in restaurants, in government offices. This is from the Mexican soap "What Life Stole From Me."

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WHAT LIFE STOLE FROM ME")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Your very own daughter.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Understand me. We were about to lose everything, and I - I was very desperate, so desperate.

CAROLINA ACOSTA-ALZURU: These things resonate in cultures that have undergone historically upheavals⁹.

PERALTA: That's Carolina Acosta-Alzuru. She studies telenovelas at the University of Georgia. She says novelas are not about their ending. Instead, they focus on drawn-out struggles. It's storytelling that thrives in the middle, that savors¹⁰ suffering. And so it's no surprise, she says, that they come from Latin America.

ACOSTA-ALZURU: We endure. We suffer that heartbreak. We leave the heartbreak in a very peculiar¹¹ way.

PERALTA: What Acosta-Alzuru has found is that the export of telenovelas works in a cycle. They're first dubbed¹² in a local language, and then, as countries start coming to terms with their own heartbreak, they produce their own novelas.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LIES THAT BIND")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Move.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #5: (As character) Please, stop disrupting the church.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) You are disrupting this service. Who else would you be saving this seat for other than Richard Juma's second wife?

PERALTA: Dorothy Ghettuba produced "Lies That Bind," one of Kenya's most successful homegrown soap operas. It's about a magnate who dies and leaves two families fighting for his inheritance. Ghettuba says she remembers being inspired by Mexican soap operas since she was a kid. At boarding school, the girls would fill a TV room to watch "Rosa Salvaje." One time, there were so many of them sitting against a wall that the wall tumbled.

DOROTHY GHETTUBA: One girl was not very quick, so she had, like, her leg broken. She went to the hospital, like, saying, damn, I'm missing the (laughter) soap series.

PERALTA: And as a storyteller now, she realizes "Wild Rose" worked in Kenya because it was the story of urbanization.

GHETTUBA: A girl comes from the village, and she gets a job as a nanny or housemaid in a big mansion¹³, and then hell breaks loose when she's pretty and the father of the house sees her and the beat goes on. This stuff happens.

PERALTA: Bottom line, she says, is that telenovelas work in Africa because they feel authentic¹⁴. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Nairobi.

(SOUNDBITE OF CORNERSHOP SONG, "SLEEP ON THE LEFT SIDE")

1 genre   

n.(文学、艺术等的)类型，体裁，风格

参考例句：

• My favorite music genre is blues.我最喜欢的音乐种类是布鲁斯音乐。
• Superficially,this Shakespeare's work seems to fit into the same genre.从表面上看， 莎士比亚的这个剧本似乎属于同一类型。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 dubbing   

n.配音v.给…起绰号( dub的现在分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• There are mainly two forms of film translation: dubbing and subtitling. 电影翻译通常主要表现为两种形式：配音和字幕翻译。 来自互联网
• Its auspices, dubbing the program has won national awards in China. 其主持配音的节目多次获得中国全国奖项。 来自互联网

4 dubs   

v.给…起绰号( dub的第三人称单数 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

5 corrupt   

v.贿赂，收买；adj.腐败的，贪污的

参考例句：

• The newspaper alleged the mayor's corrupt practices.那家报纸断言市长有舞弊行为。
• This judge is corrupt.这个法官贪污。

6 aspirational   

志同的，有抱负的

参考例句：

• Most of the images that bombard us all are aspirational. 轰击的图像，我们都期望最大。
• Analysts said self-help and aspirational reading could explain India's high figures. 分析师们指出，自助读书、热爱读书是印度人均读书时间超过别的国家的主要原因。

7 aspires   

v.渴望，追求( aspire的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The fame to which he aspires was beyond his reach. 他追求的名誉乃是他所不能及的。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• An old steed in the stable still aspires to gallop a thousand li. 老骥伏枥，志在千里。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 billboards   

n.广告牌( billboard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Large billboards have disfigured the scenery. 大型告示板已破坏了景色。 来自辞典例句
• Then, put the logo in magazines and on billboards without telling anyone what it means. 接着我们把这个商标刊在杂志和广告看板上，却不跟任何人透漏它的涵意。 来自常春藤生活英语杂志-2006年4月号

9 upheavals   

突然的巨变( upheaval的名词复数 )； 大动荡； 大变动； 胀起

参考例句：

• the latest upheavals in the education system 最近教育制度上的种种变更
• These political upheavals might well destroy the whole framework of society. 这些政治动乱很可能会破坏整个社会结构。

10 savors   

v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的第三人称单数 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝

参考例句：

• His talk savors, of self-conceit. 他的谈话给人以自负的感觉。 来自辞典例句
• This sauce savors, of lemon. 这个调味酱有柠檬味。 来自辞典例句

11 peculiar   

adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的

参考例句：

• He walks in a peculiar fashion.他走路的样子很奇特。
• He looked at me with a very peculiar expression.他用一种很奇怪的表情看着我。

12 dubbed   

v.给…起绰号( dub的过去式和过去分词 )；把…称为；配音；复制

参考例句：

• Mathematics was once dubbed the handmaiden of the sciences. 数学曾一度被视为各门科学的基础。
• Is the movie dubbed or does it have subtitles? 这部电影是配音的还是打字幕的？ 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 mansion   

n.大厦，大楼；宅第

参考例句：

• The old mansion was built in 1850.这座古宅建于1850年。
• The mansion has extensive grounds.这大厦四周的庭园广阔。

14 authentic   

a.真的，真正的；可靠的，可信的，有根据的

参考例句：

• This is an authentic news report. We can depend on it. 这是篇可靠的新闻报道, 我们相信它。
• Autumn is also the authentic season of renewal. 秋天才是真正的除旧布新的季节。