Enjoying sameness and difference - competition and convergence of Latin American telenovelas and Swahili video films in Tanzania

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2173186
AutoresClaudia Böhme (0000-0002-1717-0028, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume31
Fascículo2
Páginas226-241
Data de publicação2019-05-04
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoJournal of African Cultural Studies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1369-6815 • E-ISSN: 1469-9346
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13696815.2018.1552126
OpenAlexW2904289748
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas3
Referências citadas17

Since the early 2000s Latin American telenovelas have become a very popular and widely received genre in Tanzania. At the same time, a huge video film industry has developed with local films made in Swahili and released on DVD. Although very different from local culture and storytelling in style, aesthetics and language, telenovelas are likewise popular with the Swahili audiences. Their popularity lies both in their foreignness, as well as their sameness with cultural practices, and audiences take pleasure in comparing the lives of the characters with their own. Rooted in the appropriation of early development soap opera, telenovelas are commonly read as educative and as giving moral lessons. In this way they function as open spaces for the imagination of other possible life worlds. For Tanzanian filmmakers telenovelas are important influences on and inspirations for their work. The formal and aesthetic influence of telenovelas has left visible traces on video films as well as on soap operas in Tanzania, which thus contributes to the wider discussion of the two media formats’ transnationalization

Advertising · Elite · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Popularity · Sociology · Swahili · Tanzania · African history and culture studies · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · Law