Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are doing
something a little different. Yeah, definitely
not our usual territory. We aren't looking at
a tech giant. We aren't breaking down a new scientific
discovery. No, political movements. Nope. We
are spinning the globe, setting the time circuits
back to 2009, and dropping ourselves right into
the middle of Caracas, Venezuela. But not just
anywhere in Caracas. No, we're going to high
school. Specifically, an urban high school that
serves as the battlefield for the high -stakes,
high -emotion world of the juvenile telenovela
Que Classe de Amor. Which translates to What
Kind of Love? And before you tune out thinking
this is just about, you know... teen angst and
prom dates. Hear me out. Right. We've pulled
the production notes, the casting sheets, all
of it. Yeah. And what we found isn't just a soap
opera. It's this fascinating case study in how
media builds social hierarchies. It really is.
We're looking at the classic Casanova versus
nerd trope. But with this very specific late
2000s Latin American energy. It's a total time
capsule. And to set the stage, you have to look
at the pedigree. This wasn't some small indie
project. No, not at all. This was produced by
Venivision. with BCC Producciones, created by
Benjamin Cohen. And Venevision is, I mean, it's
a titan in the industry. So this was a machine.
It was designed to capture a youth demographic.
A demographic that was becoming a massive cultural
force in the region right at that time. Exactly.
So for the next 15 minutes, consider us your
cultural anthropologists. We're going to break
down the warring factions, the incredibly literal
character names. Oh, they're very literal. And
my absolute favorite part, how a boy band serves
as the primary villain. It's a unique narrative
device for sure. We'll definitely get to the
singing villains. Okay, good. But first, we should
probably establish the mission for this deep
dive. We're just recapping a show. Right. We're
exploring how these stories use music and rivalry
to, you know, drive a whole narrative forward.
Precisely. So let's start with the setting. The
source material just calls it an urban high school.
Yeah, which sounds simple enough. But looking
at the plot summaries, it feels less like a school
and more like a pressure cooker. That's the perfect
word for it. Well, that's the intent of the genre.
The notes describe it as a place filled with
adolescents experiencing specific emotional extremes.
Joys, sorrows, love, triumphs. All of it. The
writers aren't interested in a realistic depiction
of, like, passing a geography test. No, the school
is a stage. every single hallway interaction
is high drama. And that performance is organized
into a kind of cast system that is delightfully
unsubtle. It really is. In American shows, you
get these vague cliques, right? The jocks, the
plastic. The skaters, yeah. Here, the show just
explicitly names the two main factions. No nuance.
First up... Los Populartes. The popular ones.
Yeah. Doesn't get much clearer than that. You
know exactly who they are and where they sit
in the cafeteria. And the leader of Los Populartes
is our protagonist, Diego Padilla, played by
Andres Gomez. The character breakdown on him
is fascinating. It doesn't just say he's cool.
It calls him a Casanova. And that's a key distinction.
His defining trait isn't that he plays a sport
or has the best car. Right. His power comes from
the fact that he makes all the girls fall in
love with him. He's at the top of the food chain
because he's desired. Which makes the opposing
faction so much more interesting. If you have
the Casanovas, you need a counterbalance. And
this show gives us Las Nerdas. The nerds. Again,
the show is not trying to hide its archetypes.
No, it's putting them in neon lights. And honestly,
I appreciate the directness. It saves time. It
does. And the leader of Las Nerdas is Alejandra
Martinez, played by Asha Stambouli. And she is
the classic new girl. The notes describe her
as brilliant and clever. So you have this setup,
right? The force of social dominance, Diego,
versus the force of intellect, Alejandra. It's
the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.
Sort of, yeah. But usually in this kind of story,
you know, think Grease. The whole thing kicks
off with romance. Love at first sight. The cool
guy sees the new girl. She takes off her glasses.
Boom. But that's not what happens here, is it?
It's much more transactional. It is. The love
at first sight thing is totally subverted. Diego
doesn't approach Alejandra because he likes her.
or thinks she's secretly beautiful. He approaches
her because he's failing his classes. He needs
her help with his studies. I love that. It completely
flips the power dynamic from the start. The king
of the school actually depends on the outcast
to survive. Precisely. It disrupts the hierarchy
in episode one. He has to go to Las Nerdas for
academic survival. And the source material says
she slowly conquers Diego's heart. Yeah. It's
not a lightning bolt. It's a slow burn that comes
out of study sessions. It implies that her intellect
is what actually seduces the Casanova. But this
is a telenovela. It ran for 83 episodes. Right.
You can't just have study dates for that long.
You need friction. You need obstacles. And the
biggest obstacle is usually the current girlfriend.
Enter Stephanie Mendoza, played by Mayela Caldera.
And the production notes are, well, they aren't
very nice to Stephanie. They're pretty brutal.
She's described as the prettiest and most spoiled
girl in the school. But from a writing perspective,
she serves a really critical function. The text
says she's the complete opposite of the type
of girl Diego should be with. So she represents
the status quo. Exactly. Stephanie is the anchor
keeping him tied to Los Popularis. She's the
superficial popularity he's supposed to grow
out of. If he stays with her, he stays stagnant.
If he chooses Alejandra, he evolves. It's a very
moralistic setup. Okay, so we have the jealous
girlfriend archetype. But this is where the show
takes a turn into something really special. We
need to talk about the main villain because Stephanie
is an obstacle, but she's not the antagonist.
That title belongs to a guy with maybe the most
ominous nickname in high school history, Alon
Camacho. A .K .A. Oligren. Which translates to
scorpion. You know, subtlety was not the goal
in the writer's room. I'm just saying, if a guy
in homeroom introduces himself as the Scorpion,
maybe don't lend him your pencil. That would
be a good call. But what drives him, it's not
just, you know, evil for evil's sake. No, it's
actually pretty grounded in teenage angst. It
is. The source points to this complex web of
jealousy. So Alan is jealous of Diego's popularity.
He wants to be the king. But the real kicker.
The real kicker is that he's secretly in love
with Stephanie, the girlfriend we just talked
about. The one who rejected him. So he hates
the guy who has the girl he wants. A classic
triangle, but twisted. But what really distinguishes
Alon isn't his motivation. It's his method. Right.
He belongs to a group called Los Alacranes, the
Scorpions. And the source material notes something
really specific about this group. They aren't
fighters. They aren't delinquents. They're noted
specifically as being composed of singers. Wait,
hold on. I want to make sure I'm getting this
right. The villain gang is a boy band. Essentially,
yes. The antagonism is expressed through performance.
That is incredible. It implies that the way to
destroy your enemy isn't to fight them behind
the gym, but to out -sing them. I'm going to
ruin your life, but first let me hit this high
note and do a spin. The stakes are serious for
them, though. Ellen sets a trap. He does. The
plot summary says he sets a trap for Alejandra,
but the goal is to completely ruin Diego's image
and reputation in this school. And reputation
is everything in high school. It's currency.
Exactly. If Diego's the leader of Los Populares,
his image is his currency. Alan's going right
for his bank account. And doing it through a
group of singers suggests that public performance
humiliation, diss tracks, that's the weapon of
choice here. Well, let's pull on that thread,
the music. Yes, let's. Because looking at the
musical themes section of our records, music
isn't just background noise in this show. Not
at all. It's like the entire narrative is built
around a musical landscape. When you look at
the track list, you see this very distinct use
of leitmotifs. So specific songs are assigned
to specific characters? Specific dynamics, yeah.
It cues the audience on how to feel about a scene,
like a musical map of the relationships. Okay,
give me an example. The main theme of the show
is the title track, Kiklasta Amor. And notice
who performs it. Manuel Larad and Aisha Stambouli?
Wait a minute. Manuel Arad plays Alain, the villain's
scorpion, and Aisha plays Alejandra, the heroine.
Right. So the villain and the hero are singing
the theme song together. It's a fascinating meta
layer, right? It blurs the line between character
and performer, which is really common in this
genre. So while they're enemies in the plot,
they're partners in the spectacle. Exactly. But
look at the love themes. Alejandra and Diego,
they don't get one song, they get two. Quindiria
and Masala. Quindiria. Who would have said? That
fits the popular guy dates nerd girl vibe perfectly.
Right. Who would have guessed we'd end up together?
The song title tells you the plot, and it trickles
down to the supporting cast. I see a song here,
Mi Niña Bonita, for characters named Tita and
Manu. Then there's Enamorarte de El for Andrena
and Rafa and Locoporti. For Desire and Felix.
So if you hear the song, you know who is hooking
up or breaking up. And you have to remember that
diegetic element. Since Los Alatranes are singers
in the story, music is happening inside the reality
of the show. Plus, the lead actress, Aisha Stambouli,
has solo tracks listed. Yeah, Estevez and Mi
Central, which is used in the very first chapter.
So Alejandra isn't just a nerd. She's a nerd
with a solo career. It creates this interesting
duality. In the plot, she's the academic outsider,
but the production elevates her through music
to be the star. She has the voice. I love that.
OK, let's zoom out a bit. We've got the plot,
the singing villains. Let's talk about the people
who made this thing. Eighty three episodes is
a serious commitment. It is. The show ran from
April 20th, 2009 to August 14th of the same year.
That is a daily grind. And to sustain that, you
had a writing team led by Benjamin Cohen with
Anna Teresa Sosa, Veronica Alvarez and Gamis
Perez. And directed by Grazia D 'Angelo and Manuel
Diaz Casanova. It takes a village to produce
a daily telenovela at that pace. Speaking of
a village, I have to give a shout out to some
of the supporting cast names listed here. I mean,
we talked about Alacran, but there's a character
named Marcel Jimenez who has the nickname El
Distripedor. The Ripper. In a high school show.
The Ripper. I desperately need to know if he
was a horror movie fan or if he just like aggressively
graded papers. Or maybe he was just really messy
with his notebook paper. It definitely sets a
tone. And then you have Tita. played by Giannina
Alves. And this one is my favorite, a special
guest character, Professor Narciso, played by
Samir Bazzi, who is listed with the nickname
El Papi Profe. Which, yeah, roughly translates
to the daddy professor, the potty professor.
The Papi Profe. Even the faculty isn't safe from
the melodrama. It just reinforces that idea of
the school as a stage for desire. Nobody is just
doing their job. Everyone is part of the romantic
web. And presiding over all this chaos, the Scorpions,
the Rippers, the Papi Profes, is the principal,
la directora Ana Maria Sosa. Someone has to try
and manage that circus. Absolutely. Now, you
mentioned earlier this show is part of a legacy.
When we look at the list of Venovision telenovelas,
where does this one fit in? It's important to
see the bigger picture. Venovision has this long,
storied history. I mean, they've been making
telenovelas since the 1960s. Right, like Luchasita
in 1967. And then this massive explosion of content
in the 80s and 90s shows like Ligia Elena, Karasusea.
But those were largely adult melodramas. About
wealthy families fighting over an inheritance,
that kind of thing. Exactly. But in the late
2000s, you see this trend shift. Just before...
Que Clase de Amor. From 2007 to 2009, there was
a show called Somos Tuyo. It's you and me. And
that was a massive youth hit. It was basically
the Venezuelan high school musical. So Que Clase
de Amor was likely riding that wave. It seems
so. It launched in 2009, right as the other show
was ending its run. It was part of this whole
cohort of 2009 debuts. Like Alma and Dammable
and Los Misterios del Amor. Vanavision was clearly
firing on all cylinders, trying to capture that
youth demographic they primed. They realized
teenagers were a lucrative market. It's interesting
to see how those genres cycle. It really mirrors
what was happening in the U .S. with Disney Channel
around the same time. And the legacy continues.
If you look at the bottom of the source list,
under the 2020s, there's a 2023 title called
Dramaticus. The machine is still running. So
what does this all mean? We've got a study date
turn romance sabotaged by a boy band and a school
with the ripper and the poppy prof. Right. Is
it just campy fun or is there a deeper takeaway
here? I think Kate Klostea Moore. represents
this moment where the genre really understood
that school is just a stage. It blends traditional
telenovela structures with the energy of a musical.
It acknowledges that for teenagers, identity
is a performance. It really is. I mean, when
you're 16, you're performing constantly. You
have the popularas performing coolness. The alacranes
are literally performing songs to assert their
dominance. Even the nerdas. are performing intelligence.
The show uses these big, exaggerated tropes to
talk about how we define ourselves when we're
young. And it does it with a soundtrack. Always
with a soundtrack. The emotions are just too
big to be spoken. They have to be sung. So we've
gone from a tutoring session to a full -blown
sociological analysis of Venezuelan teen media.
Not bad for a deep dive. That's what we do. Before
we wrap up, I want to leave you, the listener,
with one final thought. We talked about how rigid
the groups are. The populars, the nerds, the
scorpions. Very structured. It seems that way.
But remember the inciting incident. The leader
of the populars realizes he cannot survive without
the help of the nerds. It completely disrupts
the hierarchy from the very beginning. Exactly.
So here's the thought. In a story where the villains
are singers and the cool kids are academically
dependent on the outcasts, is the social hierarchy
even real? Or is it just a performance everyone
agreed to put on? That's a great question. If
the king needs a tutor to pass 10th grade, is
he really the king? Or is he just the guy with
the best hair? It suggests the whole thing is
fragile, held together only by agreement. Something
to think about. Thank you for joining us on this
trip back to 2009. It was a pleasure to explore
this world with you. We'll catch you on the next
deep dive. Stay curious.