Desperate Housewives

Amas de Casa Desesperadas

by Leora Israel Zellman on June 16th, 2006

Wow, is it just me or does this sound a bit strange?  ABC and some Argentinian channel are producing a Amas de casa desesperadas, the Argentinian version of Desperate Housewives.  They’re using the same scripts and characters but reshooting the show in Spanish.  Don’t they usually just use subtitles or dub it over in another language?  I wonder how the show will do ratings wise when it starts airing in August.  I’d love to watch an episode of it so I hope they have them available for download like they do with the American version.  Check out this article all about the show:

And the cameras roll on another episode of Desperate Housewives, the one where Gabrielle throws a fashion show featuring the femmes fatales of Wisteria Lane.

Only in this version, the ladies actually are starring in a Moda Show in Buenos Aires, and their home is not Wisteria Lane, but the Manzanares neighborhood. Here, sexy Gabrielle Solis is Gabriela Solís and the saucy blond divorcée known to U.S. audiences as Edie Britt is a curvy brunette named Carla Otegui.

Meet Amas de casa desesperadas, the Argentine version of the hit U.S. show.

Since May 8, an Argentine team of actors, producers and directors has been preparing for the scheduled August debut of the first Latin American version of the hit series.

The brains behind this production — the Miami-based Buena Vista International, which is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Co., along with local Pol-Ka Productions and Channel 13 — say this is a breakthrough venture, the first time that a TV series at the peak of its popularity has been adapted for individual countries in Latin America.

The Argentine version will be shown in Uruguay and Paraguay as well. Separate casts and teams from Ecuador, Colombia and Brazil will film their own versions on the same set in Argentina later this year. Versions for Mexico, Chile and possibly Venezuela are in negotiations.

”The idea is to not use . . . an old series, but a series in one of its best moments,” said Fernando Barbosa, senior vice president of Buena Vista. “This has the potential to break new ground.”

Writer and director Marcos Carnevale’s team of about 50 crew members scurried around the set in Buenos Aires last week, adjusting lighting, touching up makeup, fixing shoes, checking sound.

Actress Mercedes Morán, who plays the role of frazzled mom Lía Salgari (Lynette Scavo in the original), was on stage in a bright pink dress, her brunette hair dyed blond and pulled up in a twist. She waited patiently for her cue, chatting with other actors.

Carnevale made several subtle cultural tweaks in the Argentine version, apart from the translation into Spanish. Many of the characters, like many Argentines, have Italian surnames. Names will change in the other versions, said Barbosa. In the Colombian script, for example, surnames likely will be more Spanish.

Carnevale also exchanged Thanksgiving for Easter, and instead of Frank Sinatra, the characters in the Latin versions might listen to Colombian singer Carlos Vives.

But the script will stay as true to the original as possible. ”The characters don’t . . . listen to tango music,” Carnevale said. “But we had to change some things, like the funeral traditions. Here people don’t go to church and they don’t eat or bring food. But we do have a lot of flowers and Italian-style sobbing.”

He added, “The women are very similar to the modern-day Argentine women. Many are very independent. They divorce. They work. They are professionals while they keep their homes. They are very different from our grandmothers.”

Actress Araceli González, 39, who plays Gabriela, said she also was intrigued by how the personalities, faults, strengths and struggles of the women in the U.S. series — though exaggerated — were so much like those of women in any country.

”This is how women live — that is fundamental,” González said last week after filming an early-morning scene. The Sex in the City fan had never watched Desperate Housewives before being offered the chance to act in it. “The essence of the stories of these women is comparable in any part of the world. That’s why it should work here.”

Unlike in the United States, where Desperate Housewives made some moderately known actresses very famous, the actresses starring in the Argentine series are already among the nation’s most beloved stars.

The face of model and actress González graces billboards and magazine covers; Morán, 51, has starred in many Argentine and international movies, including The Motorcycle Diaries, and popular television shows, including current hit Female Assassins. Carola Reyna, 41, who plays Vera Sherer, the Argentine version of Bree Van De Kamp, has been in several films and TV shows, including the Argentine adaptation of The Nanny. Uruguayan born Gabriela Toscano, 41, who interprets Susana Martí — Susan Mayer — has appeared in dozens of movies and television shows since the 1970s. Romina Gaetani, 29, who plays Edie Britt counterpart Carla Otegui, has starred in various television series.

Carnevale said he chose the actresses based on their likeness to the original actresses and characters. However, he said he encouraged them to interpret the characters as they see them.

Morán, González and other actresses acknowledged that playing already established characters in a popular series was a bit scary at first. They said they run the risk of being compared with Emmy-nominated and winning actresses who interpreted the characters from scratch.

Crews still are building 10 new homes in the actual neighborhood of Manzanares in Pilar, a city about 45 minutes outside Buenos Aires. Manzanares is a private, gated community that looks much like U.S. suburban neighborhoods, with middle- and upper-class families living in cookie-cutter homes with perfectly manicured lawns.

The original U.S. series has been playing on cable with subtitles, but Barbosa said a low percentage of viewers in Latin America have seen it.

The Argentine version is tentatively planned to hit

primetime during the second half of August on Channel 13, which also airs the original.

Why would viewers want to see two versions of the same show that are almost exactly alike? It’s like seeing The Nutcracker year after year, said Barbosa: Audiences like to see how different actors and production teams interpret the same piece.

TV executives are watching the success of the adaptations closely with an eye to doing the same thing with other popular shows, such as Lost, and in other regions of the world, including Asia.

Although Carnevale has had fun making Desperate Housewives, he hopes the big U.S. production companies proceed with prudence.

”It scares me a little, the idea of too many adaptations of American shows, for the sake of Argentine production and writing houses,” he said. ‘But then I see Lost and think: `I would love to do that.’ ” Via Miami Herald

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