7 A Lachrymose Heroine for

the Masses
The Origins of the Cinderella
Plotline in Mexican Telenovelas,
1968–1973
Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
The Cinderella plotline is the single theme with which most people identify
Mexican telenovelas. A beautiful young woman—always poor and most
likely a teenager—migrates to a large city in search of economic opportu-
nities unavailable to her in her hometown. She lands a job working as a
maid (or something similar). Hardworking but naïve, she meets and falls
in love with a rich, handsome man. Their love, however, is immediately
challenged because they are from different social, economic, and often eth-
nic backgrounds. As the story develops, the young couple overcomes these
obstacles to consummate their love, and the final episode often consists of
a beautiful church wedding. The happily-ever-after ending has, before the
eyes of the patient viewer, come true! The persistence of the Cinderella story
in Mexican telenovelas is tied to the economic and social changes of the
post-Revolutionary period.
These changes were connected to the transition from a rural and agri-
cultural society to an increasingly urban and industrial one. This transi-
tion was part of the “Mexican Miracle,” and, as many other processes of
industrialization and urbanization, it had modernization, following the U.S.
and European paradigms, as its goal. Particularly in the period between
1968 and 1973, the state was in the midst of several projects, such as the
organization of the XIX Olympiad, the expansion of the electrical grid,
and the construction of roads and highways. These projects aimed to rep-
resent Mexico as a modern state on the international stage. However, the
goal of modernization was not fully achieved; instead Mexico developed
an uneven modernity. The popularity of the Cinderella story in telenove-
las is connected to this uneven modernity. If in real life complete moder-
nity was not possible, at least on these serials the main character would
successfully survive the transition from her rural hometown to life in the
big city.
The government’s economic nationalism, including policies such as the
Import Substitutions Industrialization that called for replacing foreign
imports with domestic production, significantly influenced the relation-
ship between broadcasters and the state. Doubtless, the business class, of
which broadcasters were a part, owed a good portion of its success to these
128 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
protective policies. The “Mexican Miracle” of the 1940s and the following
three decades was strongly based on crony capitalism, which put the busi-
ness class in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis the economic decisions of the
state and the political class.1 In the case of television, the vulnerability of the
business class was highest during the politically turbulent late 1960s and
early 1970s, and the television industry survived this period thanks to a per-
ceptive entrepreneurial leadership with strong political ties and experience.
As broadcasters were navigating through these changes, telenovelas
emerged as one of the few Mexican products, outside of traditional raw
material or agrarian exports, to successfully reach international markets.
The internationalization of telenovelas illustrated the ideal path of the
Import Substitutions Industrialization policies of the Institutional Revolu-
tionary Party (PRI) government. Within the national market, telenovelas
became prime-time programming that replaced foreign imports; subse-
quently, they emerged in their own right as exportable cultural products.
In the early years of telenovelas, during the late 1950s and early 1960s,
the Cinderella story was only one of several plot devices. During this period,
however, telenovela stories developed around a diverse range of themes:
family dramas like Senda prohibida (Forbbiden Path); adaptations of pop-
ular nineteenth-century feuilletons (such as Rocambole in 1967, which told
the story of a con man);2 and even a medical drama titled Sala de emergencia
(Emergency Room) in 1964.3 This chapter addresses the emergence in the
late 1960s and early 1970s of the Cinderella narrative as the primary theme
in Mexican telenovelas. To understand and follow the rise in prominence
of this plot over others, it is necessary to contextualize it within the violent
and unstable political environment that challenged the authoritarian PRI
regime at that time. In the midst of this political and social upheaval, it
is also necessary to consider a parallel development: the regime’s embrace
of Telesistema Mexicano (Mexican Television System, TSM), the television
network that would eventually become Televisa (Television Via Satellite),
the largest and most powerful Spanish-language media network.

MEXICAN TELEVISION, TURBULENT TIMES,

AND TELENOVELAS

Mexican television went live in 1950 with its first broadcast station, Chan-
nel 4. This channel was owned by Romulo O’Farril Sr., a businessman from
Puebla, who also owned newspapers and had a close relationship with then
president Miguel Alemán (1946–1952). The second station to debut in
October 1950 was Channel 2, owned by Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta, the
owner of XEW, the most popular radio network in the country. The third to
emerge was Channel 5, which belonged to Guillermo González Camarena,
a widely respected engineer whose research would contribute to the devel-
opment of color television. These three stations were in competition until
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 129
1955 when they merged to create Telesistema Mexicano. With the merger,
Azcárraga Vidaurreta and O’Farril Sr. became the principal stockholders of
a company that would be the only television network in Mexico until 1968,
and again from 1973 until 1997.
In 1968 President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (1964–1970) allowed the creation
of Channel 8, Television Independiente de México (Independent Television
of Mexico), thereby breaking Telesistema’s monopoly. This change was a
reaction to a series of challenges faced by the authoritarian regime of the
PRI. The PRI was the ruling party of Mexico from 1929 to 2000, but during
the late 1960s and early 1970s, its authority came under intense questioning
by students and sectors of the urban middle class.4 The tensions between
the state and the student movement reached a tragic climax on October 2,
1968, when the granaderos (riot police), a specially designated government
attack force, opened fire at a rally attended by unarmed students. The inci-
dent, known as the Tlatelolco Massacre, ended with many dead—possibly
dozens or even hundreds—the exact number is still unknown. This tragic
event proved to be the flash point for a major change in the relationship of
the PRI’s authoritarian regime with Mexican society.
Unfortunately, the Tlatelolco incident was not the only student massacre
that occurred during the years under analysis here. In June 1971, another
violent repression of students took place: the Corpus Christi Massacre.
These experiences radicalized some students who responded by creating
guerrilla groups. A few such groups achieved notoriety when their mem-
bers kidnapped prominent business and political figures. One such figure
was Eugenio Garza Sada, the patriarch of the Grupo Monterrey (Monterrey
group), a powerful business group from the northern city. Sada’s kidnap-
ping failed and ended in murder. Fernando Aranguren Castiello, a prom-
inent businessman from Guadalajara, was also kidnapped and eventually
murdered. Aranguren’s kidnapping occurred at the same time as that of
Anthony Duncan Williams, the honorary British consul. However, Williams
survived his captivity.5 These high-profile incidents orchestrated by urban
guerrilla groups illustrate the level of violence and instability unleashed after
the Tlatelolco Massacre, which touched many aspects of Mexican society.
In the midst of the student demonstrations against the PRI, the govern-
ment attacked television broadcasting for contributing to the youth rebel-
lion. Its particular target was American programming presented by Mexican
broadcasters, which was allegedly introducing foreign values and ideas but
failing to show programs with national cultural significance. In response, a
debate erupted in newspapers, in political speeches, and even in fan mag-
azines such as Tele Guía (TV Guide) about the intervention of the state
as it pressed for better television and quality programs. The government
then attempted to resolve the issue with threats: it would nationalize the
airwaves if TV executives did not upgrade the “quality” of the material
that it broadcast. Telesistema responded to this threat with self-policing and
social and political conservatism, not only in its news coverage but also in
130 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
the entertainment it offered, including telenovelas. It was during this period
that Simplemente María (Simply Mary), a Peruvian telenovela featuring an
unlikely (at first glance) heroine, provided both the state and private inter-
ests with a vehicle that permitted them to make conciliatory gestures.
Simplemente María, created in 1969, was a Peruvian production based
on a script by the Argentinean writer Celia Alcántara, and it will be the pri-
mary program of three discussed here. Although María was not produced
by Telesistema, it influenced Mexican telenovela production for years to
come. The second, María Isabel, which at the height of its popularity was
frequently compared to Simplemente María, was a Mexican production
started in 1966 and written by Yolanda Vargas Dulché. Both productions
highlighted concerns about the position of women in Latin American society
and their roles outside the home. A third, very popular telenovela was Los
Hermanos Coraje (The Courage Brothers), founded in 1972 and based on
an original script by Brazilian author Janete Clair. This production offered
a masculine thematic contrast to the two Marías. The main characters were
three brothers who lived in a small mining town and stood up against the
local boss.6
Looking at the influence of the PRI on broadcasting in general and on
telenovelas in particular offers startling glimpses into the ways the party
negotiated with the members of the Mexican economic elite to stay in
power. It also illustrates the resilience of the leading broadcasters and busi-
nessmen, in particular the father-son teams Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta
and Emilio Azcárraga Milmo and Rómulo O’Farril Sr. and Rómulo O’Farril
Jr. Together these four men founded Telesistema Mexicano and successfully
negotiated their way through a very difficult period of government attempts
to control and direct the industry for its own purposes. Another factor in the
PRI-media equation was the Mexican television audience and the opinions
of its most vocal members, from the urban middle class.
The Mexican middle class was by no means a homogenous group; among
its members were PRI loyalists, student protesters as well as Catholic activ-
ists, and those who were simply indifferent. Nonetheless, the middle class
grew the most during the post-Revolutionary period and benefited from the
expansion of state services and infrastructure. For this reason, television
producers targeted the middle class as their main audience. Members of the
middle class were very active in writing to fan magazines such as Tele Guía
where they ventilated their hopes and disappointments with local television
productions. The dissatisfaction with Mexican television was just one of
the many disappointments the urban middle class was experiencing. By the
1960s, multiple sectors of the middle class started to make clear their dis-
satisfaction with several aspects of the economic, social, and political life
under the PRI. Complaints about the quality of Mexican television and its
offerings were one more of the instances when the middle class realized that
the promises and discourses by politicians did not match the realities of the
nation. Telenovelas evolved in the midst of this complicated relationship
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 131
where the audience was starting to become disenchanted with the promises
of PRI, and where the business class in charge of television had to reconcile
its audience and patrons.

POLITICAL CHALLENGES AND MEDIA PRESSURE

During its early years, the presidency of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz demonstrated
little interest in the broadcasting industry, but this apparent indifference
should be interpreted as cautionary. During Alemán’s incumbency as pres-
ident nearly 20 years earlier, the government had made obvious interven-
tions in favor of the business class, particularly on behalf of the president’s
friends. Moreover, it is widely understood that Alemán was in an unde-
clared partnership with Romulo O’Farril Sr. when the latter received a gov-
ernment permit to establish a television station in 1952.7 Presidents after
Alemán kept a more prudent distance from entrepreneurs, although they
continued to maintain favorable policies. Groups like the Cámara Nacio-
nal de la Indústria de la Radiodifusión (National Chamber of the Radio
Industry, CIR), whose members were the industrialist owners of radio and
television stations, often offered their services and demonstrated their coop-
eration with the government. It was not uncommon to encounter in Boletín
Radiofónico (Radio Bulletin), the weekly newsletter of the CIR, statements
like this:

We must inform you that it has been unanimously approved that Mex-
ican radio and television will continue to collaborate closely and exten-
sively with the government of Mexico in all social service campaigns
and their implementation because it means the prosperity of our people
and the aggrandizement of our country.8

The sympathies expressed in Boletín Radiofónico were practical: in the face

of the 1939 nationalization of the oil industry, the industry was battling to
avoid the same fate. Although it was doubtful that the state ever seriously
considered nationalizing television, the broadcasters’ fear answered to the
threat that the government would indeed assert its political hegemony.
CIR documents prior to 1968 reflected the PRI’s principles concerning
nationalism and the important role of “Mexico’s nervous system” that it
had assigned to the media.9 It is true that up to and including the 1968
Summer Olympics, the communications infrastructure benefited greatly
from state cooperation. However, even though the surface looked relatively
calm, relations between the state and the CIR and media in general suffered
many stresses during the late 1960s. Just as the media, television in partic-
ular, were gaining importance, the power of the PRI was being called into
question by an increasingly critical urban middle class and other educated
sectors of Mexican society.
132 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
The XIX Summer Olympiad is considered a climax in the PRI’s modern-
ization project, but also a critical political point.10 The Summer Olympic
Games, held in Mexico City in 1968, served as a great vehicle for Tele-
sistema to initiate color broadcasting, thus contributing to the development
of a consumer culture in Mexico.11 Many months prior to the opening cere-
mony, Tele Guía began running a standing advertisement for new color tele-
vision sets. Radio and television companies were doing their best to cover
the event and to bring together all corners of the country in the preparations
and fanfare leading up to and surrounding it. However, the political events
that erupted around the time of the Olympic Games, including student pro-
tests and the bloody Tlatelolco Massacre, changed the tone of the speeches
and publications coming from the CIR.
The government position toward radio and television also changed after
Tlatelolco. In November 1968, Luis Echeverría Álvarez, interior secre-
tary under Díaz Ordaz and later president (1970–1976), gave the keynote
address at the inauguration of that year’s national broadcasting week. The
anxieties about media, the youth, and the state were palpable in Echeverría
Álvarez’s speech: “. . . in facing the media that you manage, children and
young people are unarmed. When a receiver is turned on, they are helpless
in the face of its effects and at the mercy of the sense of responsibility of
those who create the broadcast.”12 The politician here was reminding the
broadcasters of their great responsibility, echoing old concerns about tele-
vision and its influence over the audience. His remarks about children and
teenagers were an allusion to the central role of high school and university
students in the protests against the government and the Olympic Games
earlier that year and marked a government effort to transfer a significant
part of its responsibility for those protests to the media. At the same time,
Echeverría was calling on those in the media to cooperate with the state’s
efforts to control the situation.
As Echeverría continued, he detailed the varying responsibilities of the
state, parents, and the media, clarifying his belief that society had a respon-
sibility to Mexican youth. He stated specifically that the children and youth
living in urban areas of Mexico were most at risk. This statement was prob-
ably due to the fact that most of the protests and violence had occurred in
cities. For this, both the media and parents were tasked with responsibility,
but when he turned again to the duties of the state his rhetoric became more
direct and focused: “It is the state’s role to ensure, as it does, the wider
enjoyment of public liberties, especially the free expression of ideas. It is
also the state’s duty to ensure that no [narrow] interest should take prece-
dence over any part of the vital interests of the community.”13 As the speech
continued, the interior secretary outlined the duties of the state in ensuring
that special interests would not stand in the way of the concerns of the com-
munity. A speech like this one, to a business group that was significantly
benefiting from the policies of the one-party state, has to be interpreted as
an order to support the status quo.
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 133
Echeverría was not suggesting that the broadcasters had aligned them-
selves with the protesters—indeed, they had demonstrated their loyalty to
the state by keeping silent about the true outcome of the Tlatelolco Massa-
cre. However, during the 1960s, Mexican television had evolved into a sig-
nificant medium, and by 1969 it was broadcast in the nation’s main urban
centers and thus became an important vehicle for reaching the urban middle
class.14 At the same time, the medium had raised official concerns due to
its broadcasting shows from the United States, which the state perceived
as a vehicle for conveying allegedly liberal foreign values and therefore a
bad influence on the younger generation. Presidents Díaz Ordaz and later
Echeverría believed in the powers of radio and television, especially in urban
areas. Broadcasters needed policies that would let them continue to grow
and the state needed broadcasters’ cooperation to demonstrate to the pop-
ulation that it was in control. After 1968, state officials and representatives
publicly criticized television repeatedly. The public discourse emphasized
the lack of cultural content in the medium of television.
Telesistema confronted additional challenges in 1968. Early that year, two
new commercial television stations were inaugurated. These were Channel
8, a part of Television Independiente de Mexico (Independent Television of
Mexico, TIM) an enterprise affiliated with the Grupo Monterrey, the very
influential and wealthy business group headed by the Garza Sada family, and
Channel 13, owned by Francisco Aguirre, a prominent broadcaster. Thus,
TSM confronted both state pressure and commercial competition. Publicly,
TSM reacted to the state pressure with indifference. Meanwhile, a leading
industry group, the CIR, through its publication Boletín Radiofónico, reas-
sured the government that broadcasters—TSM included—remained loyal to
the one-party state. This was treading a fine line.
To compete with TIM and satisfy demands for more culture in television,
TSM continued to produce historical telenovelas well into the 1970s and
even proposed a cultural channel to be operated with state subsidies. In this
context, culture meant a sort of highbrow nationalistic culture that aligned
with the values of the PRI and offered a higher form of entertainment. It
was for this reason that historical telenovelas, such as La Constitución (The
Constitution, 1970), which narrated the events that led to the Mexican Rev-
olution of 1910, were well received in government circles. These historical
dramas were considered an ideal vehicle for spreading the official version
of history and society. However, the proposal for a cultural channel was
rejected because the state’s only involvement would have been monetary—
that is, it would have had little say in programming.15 It is safe to argue that
the broadcasters were caught up in a situation beyond their control. The
government’s critical view of the quality of their telenovelas and programs
had little to do with the productions themselves and a lot to do with the
efforts of the PRI to maintain its political hegemony. The state wanted tele-
vision, yes—television it could use to maintain its power by broadcasting
nationalism dressed up as culture.
134 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
THREATS OF NATIONALIZATION

The discussion of nationalization centered on issues of television as a

broadly educational medium. After an open forum held in 1971 on that
subject, Alfredo Leal Cordero, an advisor to the secretary of state, told
reporters that the state should have definitive control of television. When
asked by a reporter what he meant by “definitive control,” Leal replied that
he was proposing the nationalization of television.16 Broadcasters were ner-
vous because nationalization meant losing not only television and radio pro-
duction, but the whole entertainment industry that had developed around
it, including fan magazines, record companies, clubs, and the like. It is not
a coincidence that this statement came out several months after the Corpus
Christi Massacre.
The reaction of the CIR industry group to this declaration was almost
immediate. In the issue of Boletín Radiofónico that followed Leal’s state-
ment, an article documented the visit of Carlos Flores Álvarez, president of
the CIR, to Mario Moya Palencia, secretary of the interior during Echever-
ría’s presidency. According to the article, the motive of the visit was to assert
that “. . . aware of its inescapable responsibility to national public opinion,
[the broadcasters’ group] put constant effort into creating programs worthy
of Mexican households.”17 The wording avoids any mention of state pres-
sure and instead frames the meeting as an act motivated by public service.
As in its other public statements, the CIR was careful to recognize broad-
casters’ responsibilities toward the audience and the state. In the meeting,
Flores Álvarez had expounded to Moya Palencia the ways in which broad-
casters would collaborate with the state to improve the quality of radio and
television. They would produce programs of cultural importance, contrib-
ute to national campaigns, and deliver any other “practical information to
the Mexican nation.”18
It should be recognized that the CIR put its members and the stations
they owned at the service of the state with the clear intent of defusing
the threat of nationalization. By assuming publicly their responsibility to
educate and inform the Mexican people, they were tacitly accepting the
government’s charges that they had been inciting the public (and deflect-
ing criticism for possibly having done so). The governing chamber of the
broadcasters’ organization knew that open defiance of the government
could very well trigger more repression, so broadcasters played a submis-
sive role, at least in public. Clearly, Mexican broadcasters had always, for
economic reasons, been conservative and cautious, staying close to official
discourse. Now, however, the possibility of expropriation led them into
still-deeper levels of conservatism and, when possible, extreme nationalism.
Under these circumstances the number of foreign programs broadcast on
Mexican television was reduced and more local productions were created.
It was as part of this effort that the development of local telenovela produc-
tion became more important.
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 135
MARÍA: A HEROINE FOR DIFFICULT POLITICAL TIMES

The changes in television programming and particularly telenovelas were

an important outcome of the confrontation between the Mexican state and
television broadcasters. Telenovela production from 1968 to 1972 was also
influenced by the direct competition between TSM and TIM. The mere fact
that the state had granted a permit for the creation of TIM spoke volumes
about its concern over Telesistema’s broadcasting monopoly.19 To maintain
its prominence and avoid losing its lion’s share, TSM looked to develop
programming that attracted wide audiences, was exportable, and did not
threaten the state and its nationalistic discourse—a tall order. It was the first
time that TSM had had to confront both commercial competition and stron-
ger regulation by the government. It was not a coincidence that telenovelas
developed a certain edge during this period and that broadcasters stepped
up efforts to attract an audience beyond the maid and the housewife.
Looking at telenovela production from those years offers insights into the
ways the network coped with its new challenges. However, in an interesting
twist of events amid political and financial turmoil, it was an unexpected
heroine who won the hearts of all of Latin America, including Mexico. Her
name was simply María, she was from Peru, and her story, Simplemente
María, was a modernized version of Cinderella’s. The political pressure and
possibilities of censorship faced by Telesistema led the network to import
programming based on the model of the very successful Peruvian telenovela.
The adoption of this model was a setback in terms of production quality,
for it relegated the historical dramas and other telenovelas developed in this
period to a back seat.
The importance of Simplemente María to the history of Mexican tele-
novelas goes beyond its huge popularity in Latin America. María was mod-
ern in the sense that the young woman’s social ascent was due to her own
talents and drive toward self-improvement, not her connection to a wealthy
man. The Peruvian import influenced Mexican production and provoked
a long discussion about the telenovela genre and its condition in Mexico.
Debates on telenovelas swamped magazines dedicated to television, bring-
ing forth old arguments as well as new ones in favor of or against the genre.
Simplemente María has been called “the most popular telenovela in
Latin America of all time.”20 The story was the brainchild of the Argentin-
ean writer Celia Alcántara, and it was originally a radionovela (radio soap
opera) broadcast in Buenos Aires in 1948. The first telenovela version also
appeared in Argentina in 1967, but without the success of its later Peruvian
incarnation. In 1969, Panamericana Televisión (Panamerican Television), a
Peruvian station in Lima, produced and imported a second television pro-
duction of Simplemente María. Like Telesistema, Panamericana was search-
ing for ways to expand its market beyond national borders. With an eye to
the success of the giants of Latin American television, Mexico and Brazil,
Panamericana decided to use telenovelas as its cultural export product. In
136 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
contrast to common Mexican practice at the time, the Peruvian production
did not integrate nationalistic and folkloric concerns into the story.21 Sim-
plemente María tells of María, a young, naïve, and beautiful woman who
migrates to the city. She is from humble origins and illiterate. In the city,
she finds a job working as a maid in the house of a wealthy family. There
she meets Roberto, the son of the family, who is a spoiled but handsome
medical student. She falls in love, Roberto seduces her, and she becomes
pregnant. Roberto’s prejudices do not allow him to marry María, and he
abandons her with their child. As a consequence, María is fired from her
job and turns to a network of friends she makes in the working-class neigh-
borhood where she has moved with her baby. In this neighborhood, she
befriends a teacher, Esteban, who falls in love with her and helps her learn
to read and write. It can be argued that Esteban is some sort of Pygmalion
to the transformation that María’s character will undergo in the story. After
learning to read, she takes sewing lessons and, thanks to her Singer sewing
machine, becomes a seamstress and eventually an internationally renowned
fashion designer. Esteban’s love for María and his patience, tolerance, and
generosity are rewarded at the end: after more than 20 years of courtship,
María and Esteban marry.
Simplemente María was a tale of overcoming poverty, achieving finan-
cial independence, and ascending socially through the strength of one’s own
character and efforts, an ideal melodrama relatable to the real-life Latin
American urban migration. The melodrama presented an acceptable, to
members of the elite, path for social mobility for young women. In addition,
as a marketing tool, the show presented a realistic model of consumption.
Instead of luring women with cleaning products and new home appli-
ances, this telenovela featured a utilitarian device: a sewing machine. This
consumer object paid for itself many times over by providing Maria with
work as a seamstress. Buying a sewing machine to generate extra income
or achieve a certain financial independence was a far more attainable goal
than surrounding oneself with high-end appliances or an infinite variety of
detergents.
The debut of Simplemente María on Mexican television happened almost
by accident. Panamericana Televisión had transmitted several Mexican
telenovelas in Peru; in turn, TSM agreed to broadcast some Peruvian tele-
novelas produced by Panamericana.22 There was no expectation that any
of these telenovelas would become a hit. The actors who played the main
characters—Saby Kamalich as María Ramos, Ricardo Blume as Roberto,
and Braúlio Castillo Sr. as Esteban—were at that time unknown to the Mex-
ican public, and the story was broadcast on Channel 4 in an afternoon
time slot, not in prime time. However, María quickly won a considerable
audience, including people who usually eschewed telenovelas. During the
summer of 1970, discussion and commentary about the success of Simple-
mente María reached their height, particularly in fan magazines. “But we
have had the major surprise of hearing of gentlemen who left their jobs, in
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 137
the office or outside it, to run to watch episodes of Solamente María [sic].”23
For the contemporary observer, the fact that men also watched Simplemente
María was undeniable proof of its success. Comments like this reveal the
patriarchal character of Mexican society—a telenovela was not worthy of
discussion until men began watching it. At the same time, the observations
of writers in places like TV-Farándula (TV-Entertainment News) also chal-
lenges the long standing belief that only women watched these telenove-
las. TV-Farándula helps to document that men also watched telenovelas.
The fact that men publicly acknowledged their preference for Simplemente
María allowed for a longer discussion of this particular production in the
pages of Tele Guía and other publications.
In another issue of the same magazine a journalist noted the huge draw
of the show. “There was no meeting that we attended, and no adult I know,
who did not talk about María . . . What was behind this fervor, for a soap
opera?” Referring to the telenovela’s audience, the same journalist noted
that it consisted of “all kinds of people, including businessmen and women
who are not silly, superficial, or ignorant.”24 From the start, commentators
seemed surprised by the success of Simplemente María and the fact that
audiences quite different from the maids and housewives, who were the ste-
reotypical viewers of such drama, were watching and talking about it. The
journalist’s comment, unwitting or not, reflects the low esteem in which the
telenovela was held—it could be praised only by insulting the typical tele-
novela viewer. Although all the discussion legitimized Simplemente María
as a novela worthy of praise and lent social approval to the time spent in
watching it, it belittled the rest of the genre at the same time.
In another column, Raúl Velasco, at that time a show host on TSM,
noted differences between the María of Simplemente María and that of an
earlier Mexican production titled María Isabel (1966). The latter show, he
felt, had a negative effect because it was the product of a fantasy: the maid
who marries her rich, educated boss. Simplemente María, however, was a
positive fantasy because it taught people that work, however humble, was
a way to overcome unkind circumstances.25 Velasco considered the values
in Simplemente María worthy of a Mexican telenovela and proposed the
Peruvian show as a model for national productions. His remark reflected a
common anxiety among the urban upper class regarding the societal role of
the urban working class and the millions of peasants who had been pour-
ing into Mexico’s cities since the 1950s. María reassured urban elites: she
became rich, yes, but she produced that wealth through her own hard work.
On the one hand, a Cinderella story gave hope to the urban working class.
On the other, novelas reinforced desirable values such as the work ethic
and perseverance. One thing that united the PRI political elite, the business
class, and the middle class was the idea of the working class as a reliable
source of cheap labor. The story of Maria reinforced elite notions about the
working class while simultaneously offering hope of a better life to working
class viewers. In theory, if all the rural migrants that poured into the cities
138 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
worked hard and adapted to the demands of urban living, eventually the
nation could modernize and maybe, just maybe, working class Mexicans
could strike it rich too.
In contrast, María Isabel deployed the stereotypes of what is understood
as a conventional telenovela. The character of María Isabel was a young
Indian woman who immigrated to the city where, despite humiliations and
a life of necessity, she remains an honest and chaste woman, becoming a
loyal servant and later a loving mother. During this process, she also under-
goes a transformation from rural Indian girl to modern urban woman. Most
of the change occurs with the help of Ricardo, her boss, who will later be
her husband. One of his first orders to María is to start wearing a uniform,
so that she will not be seen in the Indian dresses that mark her as a migrant.
He also encourages her to speak better Spanish and often compliments her
on her efforts to progress. Significantly, María Isabel is wooed by other men,
but she shows no interest in them. She has eyes only for Ricardo, the man
who is helping her “to progress.”26
The story can be interpreted as instructional for the generation of young,
rural women who had migrated to urban settings. From 1940 to 1970,
urbanization and the population in Mexican cities grew immensely. The
number of cities with a population over 15,000 went from 55 to 166. In Mex-
ico City alone, the population grew from 1,757,530 in 1940 to 7,327,424
in 1970.27 A story like María Isabel demonstrated that as “Indians” the
newcomers were discriminated against and mistreated. Despite it all, they
were urged to stay (like María Isabel) proud, honest, and hardworking. In
the course of the telenovela, the immigrant would leave behind the cultural
signifiers of his or her ethnic origins, most notably clothing and speech.
Despite temptations, María Isabel never stole anything, panhandled, or fell
into prostitution. She was efficient in her work as a maid, obeyed orders,
and rarely questioned her bosses. All this sacrifice was rewarded when she
married the perfect, wealthy man who had helped her “to progress.”
In Mexico, as in other Latin American countries, Indians were often con-
sidered an obstacle to modernity.28 By migrating to the city and doing all the
right things “to progress,” María Isabel obviously represented Mexicans
(especially indigenous Mexicans) who could, through hard work and vir-
tue, acquire the abilities to adapt to modern urban life. Moreover, the fact
that someone as poor and uneducated as María Isabel was able to adapt
to urban living gave hope to the rest of the nation. In addition, it has been
widely argued that such characters had represented the nation in similar
stories since the 1940s where female indigenous characters are portrayed.29
Thus, this story represented the possibility of Mexico overcoming its obsta-
cles and becoming a modern urban industrialized nation. Simplemente
María took this notion a step further with its plot of overcoming poverty
by hard work. This scenario reinforced the importance of self-improvement
and presented the illusion that a free-market economy could offer unlimited
opportunities.
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 139
The character of María Ramos in Simplemente María shared with María
Isabel a rural background and similar life experiences. Both migrated to the
city and worked at cleaning houses; each raised a child on her own; and
at the end of her story, each ascended socially, albeit by different means.
However, the two also had significant differences, for example in that the
character of María Ramos, unlike María Isabel, was not an Indian—or at
least not in the explicit way that the latter was represented in the telenovela.
Saby Kamalich, the actress playing the role of María Ramos, adopted for
her role what was supposed to be the accent of the Andean Sierra, thereby
implying some sort of indigenous background. This aspect is relevant partic-
ularly because the two telenovelas emerged in two of the countries with the
largest indigenous populations in Latin America. Despite this demographic,
Panamericana cast a white, light-eyed actress whose parents were European
immigrants living in Peru to play the role of a recent immigrant from the
Peruvian Andes.
Casting a white actress to play an Indian character was nothing new.
Since the 1940s, Mexican film actresses such as María Félíx and Dolores
del Rio had played Indian characters. However, the actress who played
María Isabel on Mexican television was Silvia Derbez, a woman who,
given her appearance, could be considered a mestiza. It is likely that the
success of Simplemente María had something to do with this casting deci-
sion. María Ramos was more palatable to audiences and thus considered
a character more suitable for export. By the late 1960s and early 1970s,
Latin American audiences had become used to seeing the white, and fre-
quently blonde, characters in the imported American series. The phys-
ical appearance of performers, particularly women who were featured
in the fan magazines, changed significantly from the late 1950s to the
early 1970s. In the 1960s, Amparo Rivelles and Silvia Derbez, both sweet-
hearts of Mexican telenovelas, were brunettes; Silvia Derbez looked like a
mestiza. However, by the early 1970s, new faces like Iran Eroy, Angélica
María, and Saby Kamalich had been introduced, all of them white and
often appearing as blondes.
Another prominent difference among these soap operas is their love
interests. Although both Ricardo in María Isabel and Esteban in Simple-
mente María played a sort of Pygmalion role in the transformation of their
heroines, the two men’s social positions were different. While Ricardo is
a wealthy lawyer whose love for María Isabel develops only as the story
unfolds, Esteban, a humble teacher living in a working-class neighborhood,
loves María almost at first sight. The fact that the Indian maid María Isabel
got to marry her wealthy white boss was a constant topic in critical discus-
sions of the Mexican telenovela—it was considered to be a highly implausi-
ble occurrence in any maid’s real life. In societies marked by great inequality,
such as those in much of Latin America, a marriage between members of
different classes and ethnic origins is far less common than it might be in
other social milieus. Thus, the marriage between the characters of María
140 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
and Esteban in Simplemente María was more acceptable because they both
belonged to the same class.
Both the Marías change through the course of their stories. María Isa-
bel improves her speech and leaves behind her indigenous apparel, but she
remains the good-hearted girl from a rural background. María Ramos not
only changes her manners and demeanor, but also gradually develops hos-
tility toward men, in particular the father of her son.30 Presenting a more
accurate portrait of migrant life, she experiences an internal change as well
as an external one, an outcome of the hardships she has faced. María Ramos
represented a role model for immigrants that was pleasing to the elite, but
the story was also a more realistic portrayal of migration to the city and the
consumer habits and values of the urban working class.
Thus, the praise for Simplemente María was due in large part to the
positive message that the telenovela sent to the mass of migrants to the
city. A new framework was emerging for the novelas Mexico would export:
stories should appeal to a broad audience, be cheap to produce, and cast
performers that met with standards of beauty exported from the United
States. However, not everything published about Simplemente María was
positive. Television critic Rafael Martínez, owner of Tele Guía and a regular
contributor, gave a mixed review to the actors in the Peruvian production.
He wrote,

. . . we find it [Simplemente Maria] to be “Simply María Isabel . . . The

only ones [actors] that need mention are Saby Kamalich in the role
of María and Lorena Duval as Alejandra, both very compelling. The
trouble is that a narcissistic complex influences the leading men . . . they
think they are very good-looking and care more about how they appear
on the screen than about their performances.31

One of the most interesting aspects of telenovelas is the depiction of gender

roles. The male characters, particularly the main love interests, are often
portrayed as pusillanimous pawns at the hands of their mothers, the hero-
ines, and the antagonistic female characters. However, this supposed matri-
archy still occurs within the framework of a patriarchal society that severely
restricts opportunities for female characters. María Isabel, Simplemente
Maria, and other shows like them were imperfect reflections of Mexican
society, with their portrayal of European and American ideals of beauty
and the almost complete absence of the state. Although both heroines chal-
lenged the patriarchal order—María Isabel when she and her childhood
friend Graciela abandoned their paternal houses to migrate to the city, and
María Ramos as she raised a son all on her own—that order was restored
at the end of the story with a wedding ceremony that created a heterosex-
ual marriage with a man as the head of the household.32 Thus, these were
fairly conservative melodramas that offered a mild critique of the patriar-
chal character of Latin American society but at the end reaffirmed the very
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 141
thing that they criticized. However, the Cinderella story was not the only
telenovela genre that developed during this period.
In an attempt to compete during prime time with Telesistema, TIM pro-
duced the “superseries” Los hermanos Coraje. For the filming, an entire
mining town was built on the TIM studios’ back lot. Los hermanos was a
co-production with Televisión Panamericana, the same company that had
produced Simplemente María, and the cast as well as the technical team
came from Spain and various parts of Latin America, including Mexico
and Peru.33 The series was broadcast at 9:30 p.m., from February 1972 to
January 1973.34 Los hermanos told the story of the three Coraje brothers
(Jerónimo, Juan, and Eduardo), who lived in Villa Colorado, a fictional
town devoted to diamond mining. They owned a mine and worked for
themselves, thereby flaunting the authority of the town’s wealthiest resi-
dent, Pedro Barros, who owned a bigger mine and had many men working
under him. Barros monopolized the price of diamonds and ruthlessly mis-
treated his employees and anyone who confronted him. Viewers witnessed a
significant degree of violence by telenovela standards, including the beating
of a man who dared to confront Barros and a fistfight between the Coraje
brothers and men loyal to Barros. Los hermanos was designed to attract a
broad audience with its fight scenes, a murder mystery, and men rather than
women as the title characters. The production faced stiff competition in its
prime-time slot: a movie on Channel 4; the American series FBI on Channel
5; Espectacular Domecq, a musical revue on Channel 2; and Teatro Univer-
sal (Universal Theater), a teleteatro (television playhouse) on Channel 11, a
channel administrated by a local public university. TIM’s tremendous prepa-
rations for the show and the choice of time slot indicate the organization’s
intention to compete with the prime-time entertainment offered elsewhere,
like the musical show and the American series. With this drama, TIM was
trying “to produce telenovelas for the nighttime that [were] more interesting
and had more dramatic force.”35
This story was an interesting hybrid of telenovela and action series, but it
also afforded a critical subtext for commenting on the state of the television
industry. The ruthless patriarch Barros, who monopolized an industry and
mistreated those who do not follow his will, was a thinly veiled representa-
tion of Telesistema’s administrators. Jaime Fernández, who played Jerónimo
Coraje, was then the president of the Mexican actors’ guild, the National
Association of Actors. The guild had not always been on good terms with
Telesistema, going back to the network’s creation in 1955.36 Further, Los
hermanos can also be interpreted as a critique of caciquismo in rural Mex-
ico or even of the PRI’s state monopoly.37 Either interpretation touched very
sensitive fibers in the power structure of the country.
A story like Los hermanos Coraje was supposed to appeal to a broad
audience, male and female, and especially to those of both genders who pre-
ferred the American series over the Mexican melodramas. It was certainly
one of the most interesting offerings of the time. In terms of quality, it was
142 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
a better production than Simplemente María. Yet Tele Guía, a publication
with a bias in favor of Telesistema, called Los hermanos mediocre and criti-
cized several aspects of the production. The fact that the show was produced
by TIM with the collaboration of Panamericana, a non-Mexican production
company that had exported the most successful Latin American telenovela
to date, was enough to create concern at Telesistema and to sharpen the
company’s ambition to become the most important exporter of Spanish-
language television. While the Tele Guía reviewer of the story recognized
the artistic quality of the sets, he claimed that the plot lacked direction and
expressed disapproval of the actors in the roles of Coraje brothers, without
explaining why. Instead, the reviewer pointed out that two Mexican actors,
Jorge Rivero and David Reynoso, should have been cast as two of the broth-
ers. Suggesting the Mexican actors was probably a response to having a
Peruvian actor play Eduardo, the youngest brother, and yet another appeal
to the ever-present nationalist sentiment.38
As an effort to differentiate TIM’s programming and thereby compete
with TSM, Los hermanos Coraje failed, in part because it was ahead of
its time and in part because TIM and TSM merged less than a year after
its first episode. Its place in the critical history of telenovelas depends on
the viewpoint of the writer. Luis Reyes de la Maza in his book Crónica
de la telenovela: México sentimental saw the show as an effort by TIM
to compete against Telesistema and pointed out that the production had
had to deal with the sudden death of the actor who played the role of Bar-
ros.39 In El gran libro de las telenovelas, the book published by Televisa in
2007 to commemorate its 50 years of telenovela production in Mexico,
neither Simplemente María nor Los hermanos Coraje was mentioned. As a
matter of fact, all the productions mentioned were from either Telesistema
or Televisa—this even though Televisa owned (and still owns) the master
tapes of TIM’s stock, including those from Los hermanos Coraje. The latest
Spanish-language version of the drama was produced in the late 1980s in
Argentina, but Televisa, a company known for its “refried” stories, never
touched the story again.40
The creation of Televisa was an important factor in the preference for
the María-type story. It was Telesistema that originally aired María Isabel
and later Simplemente María, while Los hermanos Coraje was developed
by TIM. After the death of TSM co-founder Emilio Azcárraga Vidaurreta
in 1972, TIM and TSM merged to create Televisa, and it was Emilio Azcár-
raga Milmo (Azcárraga Vidaurreta’s son) and his associates who bought
most of the shares and became the administrators of the new entity. It was
convenient and politically expedient for the newly created network to pro-
duce telenovelas like Simplemente María because of their non-threatening
characteristics and self-help themes—Simplemente María was harmless
because it dealt with migration without questioning the role of the Mexican
state in that process. It showed the migration as normal and natural and,
in doing so, neglected to address the defects of agrarian reforms and the
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 143
slipping away of Revolutionary ideals such as providing land for the peas-
antry. Furthermore, the story was set in an unspecific place that could have
been anywhere in Latin America; the ostensible aim was to make it easy to
export. The resulting stories, here and in other telenovelas, held messages
of self-improvement and held up main characters who achieved entrepre-
neurial success—such stories were seen as beneficial for the audience, which
might learn from the characters’ experience. María’s rags-to-riches story
was a form of praise for the capitalistic and consumer-driven culture that
the Mexican business class, and to some extent the one-party state, aspired
to bring to Mexico. Los hermanos Coraje handled its story well, but with its
suggestions of questioning authority and breaking from monopolies, it car-
ried a message that neither Televisa nor the PRI was interested in sending,
particularly in the post-1968 period.

CONCLUSION

Telenovelas achieved success because of their depoliticized, ahistorical Cin-

derella stories, which made them easily consumable across the Spanish-
speaking world and beyond. Cinderella stories were largely a response to
state pressure. Producing feel-good stories about modernization affecting
rural peasants allowed TSM to avoid censorship and potentially threatening
controversy. At the same time, these formulas worked perfectly to create
products suitable for export. The strong intervention of the Mexican state
in television production during the late 1960s and early 1970s influenced
the production of telenovelas for years to come. As an outcome of their
experiences during those years, the owners of TSM and the producers who
created its shows sought telenovelas that revolved around a romance and
reused the Cinderella story countless times. This model allowed the network
to portray, within the context of a conservative and nationalistic Mexico,
an image that pleased the state, satisfied urban audiences (particularly the
working classes and various segments of the middle class), and was palat-
able and thus exportable to other Latin American countries.

NOTES

1. Sarah Babb, Managing Mexico: Economists from Nationalism to Neoliberal-

ism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
2. Tele Guía, “Guia de programas,” March 9–15, 1967, 66–68. The novela was
broadcast at 5:00 p.m. and is one example of the recycling of stories. The main
character started life in the nineteenth century in a series of novels written by
Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail. Rocambole can also be found as a character
in other nineteenth-century works. There is a stage version in English and a
Spanish operetta.
3. Tele Guía, “Guía de programas,” December 10–16, 1964, 40.
144 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
4. Tiziana Bertaccini, El régimen priísta frente a las clases medias, 1943–1964
(Mexico City: Consejo Nacional para la Cultura de las Artes, Dirección Gen-
eral de Publicaciones, 2009).
5. Darío Fritz, “Los secuestros de Garza Sada, Aranguren y Duncan Williams,”
in El libro rojo, continuación III (1959–1979), ed. Gerardo Villadelángel
Viñas (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2012), 305–318.
6. Cacique.
7. Claudia Fernández and Andrew Paxman, El Tigre. Emilio Azcárraga y su
imperio Televisa (Mexico City: Editorial Grijalbo, 2000), 121–139.
8. Letter from the Cámara Nacional de la Industria de la Radiodifusión to Pres-
ident Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, February 2, 1967. Archivo General de la Nación,
Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, vol. 41 (409) 1967–1969, exp. 725.1 /4–1.
9. Broadcasting Professional Improvement. Work Plan, 1964–1965. Archivo
General de la Nacion, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, vol. 187 (163) 1964, exp. 725.1 /3.
10. Eric Zolov, “Showcasing the ‘Land of Tomorrow’: Mexico and the 1968
Olympics,” Americas, 61 (October 2004): 159–188.
11. E. Sánchez Ruiz, “Los medios de comunicación masiva en México, 1968–
2000,” in Una historia contemporánea de México 2. Actores, ed. L. Meyer
(Mexico City: Océano, 2005).
12. Luis Echeverría Álvarez’s speech at the opening ceremony of the 10th National
Broadcasters Week (November 25, 1968). AGN Grupo Documental Investi-
gaciones Políticas y Sociales [hereafter IPS] Box 2970.
13. AGN, IPS. Box 2970 B.
14. “Canal 2, Cadena nacional de costa a costa en vigor a partir del 1 de enero
de 1969. Tiempos para anuncios cortos,” Televicentro: Boletín mensual de
Telesistema Mexicano SA 60 (nov–dic 1968): 3.
15. AGN, 1968 IPS, Vol. 2974 A, Folder 22.
16. Caraballo, M. A. “El gobierno abierto a consignas del pueblo: Leal C.” Excel-
sior, November 15, 1971.
17. Los radiodifusores con el Lic. Moya Palencia. Boletín Radiofónico-TV,
November 20, 1971, 4.
18. Ibid.
19. Fátima Fernández Christlieb, Los medios de difusión masiva en México (Mex-
ico City: Juan Pablos, 2005).
20. Arvind Singhal, Roberto Obregón, and Everett M. Roger, “Reconstructing the
Story of Simplemente María, The Most Popular Telenovela in Latin America
of All Time,” International Communication Gazette 54, no. 1 (August 1995):
1–15.
21. F. Vivas Sabroso, En vivo y en directo: una historia de la televisión peruana
(Lima: Universidad de Lima, Fondo de Desarrollo Editorial, 2000).
22. L. Reyes de la Maza, Crónica de la telenovela. México sentimental (Mexico
City: Editorial Clío, 1999).
23. “Esas raras cosas que ocurren,” TV-Farándula 286, June 29–July 5, 1970, 3.
24. F. Barona Anda, “Nuestra portada. Braulio Castillo, El Maestro de Simple-
mente María,” TV-Farándula 291, August 3–9, 1970, 12–13.
25. Raúl Velasco, “Aún hay más,” Tele Guía, July 9–15, 1970, 67.
26. AGN, Propiedad Artística y Literaria (hereafter PAL). Box 1178, Reg. 9; Fs.
197, 1956, “Indita” [Maria Isabel], argumento original de Yolanda Vargas
Dulché.
27. G. Garza, “El carácter metropolitano de la urbanización en México, 1900–
1988,” Estudios demográficos y urbanos 1, no. 13 (January–April, 1990): 7–59.
28. Alan Knight, “Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910–1940,”
in The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940, ed. Richard Graham (Aus-
tin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 71–113.
 A Lachrymose Heroine for the Masses 145
29. Julia Tuñon, “Femininity, Indigenismo, and Nation: Film Representation
by Emilio ‘El Indio’ Fernández,” in Sex in Revolution: Gender, Politics, and
Power in Modern Mexico, ed. Jocelyn Olcott, Mary Kay Vaughan, and Gabri-
ela Cano (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 81–96.
30. “Páginas del Director,” Tele Guía 959, December 24–30, 1970.
31. Rafael Martínez, “La crítica,” Tele Guía, January 15–21, 1970, 64.
32. Tania Modleski, Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for
Women (New York: Routledge, 1984).
33. Juan de Montán, “Televisión Independiente de México ofreció a la prensa las
primicias de la superserie Los hermanos Coraje,” La Voz del Actor, January
15, 1972, 24.
34. Televisa SA de CV, División Protele, Catálogo de títulos (detallado), Televisa,
private archive (Mexico City, n.d.).
35. Guillermo Ochoa, “Las telenovelas tienen algo de realidad,” Tele Guía, Sep-
tember 7–13, 1972, 18–19.
36. La Voz del Actor 1 (April 19, 1955). The cover of the first issue sported a cari-
cature of a David-like boy, labeled “ANDA” throwing a rock at a Goliath-like
figure labeled “Telesistema Mexicano S.A.” The history of the Mexican actors’
guild is yet to be written. Through my research, I have found that the guild is
something of an enigma and had a complex and conflictive relationship with
both the state and Telesistema. The discourse and tone of its bulletin is quite
militant but its actions were contradictory.
37. Louise Pare, “Diseño teórico para el estudio del caciquismo actual en Méx-
ico,” Revista mexicana de sociología (April–June 1972): 335–354.
38. Rafael Martínez, “La crítica. Hermanos Coraje,” Tele Guía, January
27–February 2, 1972, 13.
39. Reyes de la Maza, Crónica de la telenovela.
40. Alma Latina, “Hermanos Coraje” (accessed May 17, 2011, www.alma-latina.
net/HermanosCoraje/HermanosCoraje.shtml).

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Barona Anda, Fausto. “Nuestra portada. Braulio Castillo, El Maestro de Simple-
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Bertaccini, Tiziana. El régimen priísta frente a las clases medias, 1943–1964. Mex-
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Cámara Nacional de la Industria de la Radiodifusión. Broadcasting Professional
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Caraballo, M. A. “El gobierno abierto a consignas del pueblo: Leal C.” Excelsior,
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146 Melixa Abad-Izquierdo
“Esas raras cosas que ocurren.” TV-Farándula 286, June 29–July 5, 1970.
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Garza, Gustavo. “El carácter metropolitano de la urbanización en México, 1900–
1988.” Estudios demográficos y urbanos 1, no. 13 (January–April 1990): 7–59.
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Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870–1940. Edited by Richard Graham. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1990, 71–113.
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Díaz Ordaz, vol. 41 (409) 1967–1969, exp. 725.1 /4–1.
Los radiodifusores con el Lic. Moya Palencia. Boletín Radiofónico-TV, November
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Martínez, Rafael. “La crítica.” Tele Guía, January 15–21, 1970, 64.
Martínez, Rafael. “La crítica. Hermanos Coraje.” Tele Guía, January 27–February
2, 1972, 13.
Modleski, Tania. Loving with a Vengeance: Mass-Produced Fantasies for Women.
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Ochoa, Guillermo. “Las telenovelas tienen algo de realidad.” Tele Guía, September
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“Páginas del Director.” Tele Guía 959, December 24–30, 1970, p. 9.
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