The Tale of the Telenovela

Foreign Policy has a fun article on how Latin American melodrama came to dominate the world:

In post-communist Russia, the Mexican hit Los Ricos Tambien Lloran (The Rich Also Cry) became the country's top-rated show; roughly 70 percent of the Russian population, more than 100 million people, tuned in regularly. Latin American telenovela stars often find themselves mobbed at airports in places as distant as Poland, Indonesia, and Lebanon. In postwar Bosnia, U.S. diplomats intervened to ensure that the Venezuelan show Kassandra could stay on the air in the midst of a tug of war between Bosnian Serb factions for control of the media.