Revising the press articles that arrive daily to our editorial office, we read today a piece of news that shocked us. Well, I’ll be clearer; first it made us laugh, then it left me with a poker face and then I decided I should write an article because I needed to tell it and mainly to know your opinion about the subject.

The shocking piece of news, which I read it in Todotvnews (the new TodoTV webpage; by the way, we recommend it, it’s very good), is the following:

‘ “La Trepadora” from RCTV International, chosen to represent Venezuela in Japan, is going to be presented in the Asiatic country as insignia of its genre.

The RCTV International telenovela “La Trepadora” will be presented in Japan the next November 30th , in the cultural and entertainment program “NEXT”, which belongs to the biggest public Japanese channel, Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK).

This program is broadcasted by the satellite channel BS1 every Sunday at 9.00 p.m., with a duration of 50 minutes, and its aim is to let the Japanese audience get acquainted with the cultural differences which exist among the countries from the hemisphere, through their most popular and representative programs.

The producers from the Japanese channel selected “La Trepadora” from RCTV International to represent Venezuela as insignia of the production of this genre, which is considered a cannon in the Latin-American television culture’.

Poker face because I don’t understand the piece of news very well. The Japanese have a program which shows other programs from other cultures to see the differences. Culturally, I see it very interesting, mainly if they want to compare the Japanese telenovelas with the Venezuelan ones; the shock they’ll get will be extraordinary. In fact, it’s as if we would compare an egg to a nut. I don’t mean to say one is better than the other but that the approaches and themes in each of them are very different.

It really surprises me that the Japanese decided that “La Trepadora” is the most representative telenovela. We want to think that the choice of this telenovela is due to the fact that it’s recent and that there must be some kind of advertising and publicity behind it on the part of the Venezuelan production company to try to win the Asian market, Japan in particular, like other production companies are already doing (Televisa, Record TV) who have landed in countries such as China and Philippines to give an example.

“La Trepadora” is just another telenovela and if we would make the Venezuelans a survey about which is their most dear or significant telenovela we really doubt that it would be in their list - maybe it would be in the young ladies’ list for being one of the first telenovelas they’ve seen.

The press release swears they chose “La Trepadora” as an insignia of the genre… I think it’s too much to say that a telenovela which is a version of a story by Romulo Gallegos at will is the most representative of the Venezuelan genre.

If the idea is make the clichés and genre topics known then it’s ok, the choice isn’t bad. If what it is intended is to find a marked contrast with the Japanese telenovelas then they’re absolutely right, because just by seeing the little numbers Norkis Batista wears in the telenovela (something she wonderfully does) then inhabitants from the land of the rising sun, you’ll be breathless when you see such a beautiful woman (I love her hair) who flaunts body, legs and breasts.

We don’t know how this contrast has been made in other programs, but it would have been more correct to present a retrospective from different Venezuelan telenovelas from all times as a presentation of a genre and of a style of making telenovelas with a non-transferable mark.