Ever wondered what happens if you mix Degrassi The next generation with a telenovela and mix in the attitude of the 90s? You get Girl Dreamers or Soñadoras. A Soap Opera that details the senior year of Preparatory (High School) the school year of 1998 – 1999. You have drama, jail time, 90s outfits, substances, rich and poor…oh and a Ghost! Airing in Mexico, Latin America and the US this Telenovela became very influential and it’s rather nostalgic for many people since it does represent the late 90s perfectly. Boy, I didn’t now what I was getting myself into with 174 1 hour episodes and a 1 hour beach summer special after that.
I cannot stress enough that this is Degrassi and a Telenovela mixed together. It really does feel like that and you just change all the tween appeal of Degrassi with soap opera tropes to better mix into latino cultures. And it does envoke the 90s very well from the stuff that was happening to the way people lived like the movie the 90s in a way. Except here it was made during that time and not after.
For those reasons alone it’s a show worth watching if that appeals to you. But make sure you can endure telenovela plots. They are messy and if you analize them too much you start to wonder what is really going on in that world. None of the characters are ‘good’. They’re all bad if you really look at the stuff they do even the role models. I guess you can view it as no one person is perfect but I’m pretty sure that’s not what they were going for as the “role models” are meant to be that. You overlook that with all the cool 90s fashion and style that the characters wear tho..
They are in high school but even though they’re 17 and I guess they turn 18 at some point since no birthdays are ever mentioned besides one but they do change ages. They all have relationships most of them with older men in their 30s in continuity. It might seem creepy and it is but in reality all the teen actors are in their mid 20s and you can defintiely tell that they aren’t teens and the 30 year olds are actually closer to being 40 year olds
in real life so they funnily enough there is more of an age gap than the show portrays.
As a ture telenovela people get cancer, go to jail, and stuff happens in a matter of days including the resolutions to the problems; it’s drama after drama. Some other teenage aspects like bullimia and anorexia are tackled but slowly and kinda given solutions and kinda aren’t. A lot of plot points are about being rich or becoming rich or just wanting to be. There are mentions of having sex and being virgins making love but they’re inconsistent about it. Sometimes they do everything to avoid saying it and other times it’s just randomly discussed. Suicide is an aspect one week and forgotten about the next. The main theme of the show is drugs, and cocaine/extasi for the most part and while they resolve it many times they rehash the arcs again and again.
The girsl fall in love in one episode and are absolutely in love, and the relationship might last 2 weeks but they act as if they had been dating for more than 2 years. So yeah..things would make more sense if you think more time has passed and you are just seeing events passing faster since it’s a tv show, but you know it hasn’t because stuff like halloween and christmas happen in real time not to mention the start of the show is the beginning of the yar and the end is the graduation. so yeah all these events getting pregnant and losing the baby literally 2 weeks later, going to jail, all these mix and matches of relationships between the main cast, the hospital, near death experiences all happen in a matter of months.
It’s hard to watch but addciting, it’s like cringy to watch but so over the top, i don’t know if it’s somehov worse or better than Degrassi. it’s odd, not a classic but a staple, defined an era, enough that it deserved this tribute. the theme song is fantastic and full 90s Europop. The acting is mostly hammy and i cant believe that it’s meant to be taken seriously, tons of catholic referenes and even an episode dediacted to the Pope visiting the city that happened in the late 90s.. As mentioned all of them are bad so i’ll mostly just focus on the main characters but basically Jaqueline saves the day.
So let’s meet the characters:
Jaqueline: She’s basically the main character since she’s the hottest. She’s a spoiled brat that wants things in her way only. She really is a great actress, now sometimes her acting I’m taking it out of context and she’s meant to be portaryed as a poor lonely girl but she seems more like a psycho, which adds to her character but it was not intentional, she’s easily the best character. She’s just chaos, the reasons the soap gives you to like her don’t really fit as mentioned it’s the fact that they don’t that make her a great character. Think a live action Shampoo.
David: Cuban, greeat character
Eugenio de la pena: Second best character is her dad. A drug dealer and main villain in a way that tries to be like Xanatos but his gambits fail since he’s too stupid. A cheap version of him then. But also many years before breaking bad so in a way he was one of the first in the smart yet in dirty business executives.
David the Cuban: He has a right hand man, doesn’t get as much screentime as he should but he makes sure to steal the spotlight everytime.
Emilia: A dancer who does terrible things all through out, cheating on her boyfriends and changing her mind every 2 seconds, she somehow is meant ot be more of the level headed. Ane the “good cool girl” of the group. Her actress’ body language makes it seem like she’s trying to upstage the other ones in being the hottest one there, but in a way that only makes her character more dislikable.
Adriana / Lucia: She changes names! But she is a nun in her way of life and supposed to be the “purest” one and kidnest one as well but but even then she does bad things and she’s portaryed as always good. She changes her name and attitude to a slutty Adrianna but only to do worse thigns and get rid of anything for redeeming her as a character that isn’t a selfish c-nt.
Julieta: She is poor pretends to be rich, has problems with her weight. She’s annoying but in a way she knows shes bad she’s more human because of it. She isn’t pretending to be better, and that in a way likely makes her the only true character not full of themselves in the show. Kinda I mean she still does terrible things because she’s full of herself, she’s just aware of it.
Ana: addedd later to be this tough rock girl only to be in generic telenovela mode just a week after her debut, she is boring an they actually had a better character that had the same characteristics and even look earlier in the show that played in a band no idea why they got rid of her, but I guess star power is the real reason.
Benjamin the Terco: one of the most interesitng characters sadly he never gets a redemption arc at the end since they had to kill him since his music career was being revived in real life and left the show. He’s a drug addict and likes to play jokes.
The Ghost: There’s a dumb mystery of a dead person in the school which they forget and revisit all the time but it was interesting. It was handed very cartoonish the whole time but it was fun. Sadly there’s no conclusion to this.
Ruben: added later near the end to replace Terco, he’s super rich and he’s an ass and his personality works by just being like that.
Manuel: Another good character that actually got some growth like Julieta. He’s a jock with problems an his actor is good, not a huge range but he does well with what they give him. I mean he’s still bad he kills a person for driving under the influence and never has to pay for it.
Jan/jerry: The rocker, supposed to be the voice of reason and the good guy but he’s one of the worst people because of that since he’s also just as bad as the others cheating and doing stupid stuff but he gets a pass becuase he didn’t mean to and wants the best for world. Ugh hipocrite.
Beto: He wants to be rich, comedy relief, has the most interesting stories, not too smart despite seeming like he has good plans.. Great facial range, perhaps second best character along with his friend.
I won’t take a look at other recurring caharacters or even the adults since they’re all terrible and boring, and i mean all fo them they do terrible thigns to their kids in different telenovela ways even the ‘good’ ones, and you’re supposed to forget that those events happened and are now for the most part good, but yeah all terrible!
Ironically one of the worst parents, the mother of Lucia is the only one who gets to face real consequences to her actions and she never recovers despite learning her lesson, it makes sense but she’s literally the only one who gets that while pretty much every other parent gets a happy ending. well I guess Eugenio the main baddy ends up in Jail but yeah all the others ones don’t and get happy endings. Any event no matter how shocking gets either forgotten or just forgiven it’s so silly.
It is school so the teachersall have personality, more could’ve been done with them but they are barely. School barely is. The soap is all about drugs are bad, super fantasized version of how they work are and it’s super silly, makes no sense bad message and full of lies. I don’t see how this is supposed to be taken seriously, it’s silly as hell. Still…my favorite Telenovela.