Will you love me with love like a man loves a woman?

Or, How I am reliving my pre-teen years, part I.

So I know that I last wrote a mere 3 or so hours ago, but since my last entry I've stumbled upon the YouTube goldmine of Mexican soap episodes. I jumped on it, like a ten dollar hooker, or a fat kid on cake. I was addicted to these things when I was about 11 - 12 years old. I took them very very seriously. Now I watch..and Lele mocks me because I can't stop laughing. It's so hard not too. They take themselves so seriously.

Someone has been kind enough to upload clips of every single episode of "La Usurpadora" - not the whole episode, just ten minute clips of the eventful parts of every episode. I know I just complained about how sexist it was, but this way I get to skip around to the parts that I like. I watched clips of the last five episodes and the post-finale special.

• The dialogue in these things is so remarkably awful. I know, I know, it's a Mexican soap and it's supposed to be that way, but in one scene, when Carlos Daniel, in complete seriousness, tries to get Paulina back he says a line kind of like this: "You're a good woman, isn't that enough? Can't we love each other with love, like a man loves a woman?" Love each other with love?! How else is someone supposed to love? And furthermore, why aren't' these shows marketed as comedies? They say things like that and expect people to keep straight faces. I can't believe I took these so seriously when I was 12.
  
• Gabriela Spanic is really bad. Actually, she's really bad when it's a sad, dramatic moment which is like 99% of all the scenes Paulina is in. She's much better at happy scenes or scenes where she can show personality or be somewhat evil. But Paulina is a void of personality and happiness, and so are a lot of the characters I've seen her play. Still, why do I keep liking her so much?
• One of my favorite games to play when I watch these things - though I should really should make up some drinking games - is "Spot the Accent". Spanic is really bad about letting her Venezuelan accent slip out. Libertad Lamarque (RIP) mostly slips up with "y" sounds (Also, Abuela Piedad is totally one of the only likeable characters in this thing. Along with Patricia, Rodrigo's poor wife, but I digress). Juan Pablo Gamboa is not bad I think; but you can definitely tell he's Colombian.
• One for the shrinks: I only find Fernando Colunga hot when he's an asshole. When he's playing the hero, he's dead to me. This probably explains my luck with men.
• Everytime I hear the "Mas alla" inserted into the theme song for the special, I LOL.
• Does Chantal Andere ever play good characters? I like her. Though I hate how her mental illness is represented in the last episodes. Is a decent representation of the mentally ill too much to ask of a late 90s cheesy soap? ;) I'm glad she ends up relatively normal - and with better hair - in the end.

This stuff is crack, I tell you. I'm going to find episodes of "Por Tu Amor" (More Spanic, please. Nothing beats the last scene with the cross floating in the air), or "La Mentira" (tequila farming and spousal abuse) or "El Privilegio de Amar" (what didn't happen in this one? Tamara going crazy and shaving her head personal favorite). Aaaah, good times.