Colombian telenovela “Rosario Tijeras” was deemed too violent by Ecuadorean state television and was taken off the air.
TC Television, a channel managed by the Ecuadorean government, suspended broadcast of the telenovela “indefinitely” as of last week.
The program, shown on RCN in Colombia and based on the novel by Colombian author Jorge Franco, follows the adventures of a beautiful girl from a poor neighborhood in 1980’s Medellin who becomes involved with “sicarios,” or assassins that kill for money, usually while riding motorcycles.
The marketing manager of the channel, Cesar Gomez, spoke about the series’ suspension to Ecuadorean newspaper El Comercio.
“We should be in tune with the reality that is worrying our country, such as violent deaths and the presence of hired assassins. For that reason, we want to show sensitivity,” said Gomez.
The manager further said that all costs for suspension of the program would be assumed by the channel and not the series.
“Rosario Tijeras” had been broadcast in Ecuador since May 17, and had been scheduled to air for the next six months.
The article in El Comercio highlighted varying responses to the cancellation of the series.
Nelsa Curbelo, director of an organization that works with at-risk youth in Ecuador, supported the decision, and said the show was like a “violence school,” and that young people were watching the program to see what they could learn from it.
However, television critic Cesar Ricaurte disagreed with the decision, saying that the media in Ecuador was pretending that taking fictional violence off television was the same as reducing actual violence, which they could still see on the news every day.
The decision to take “Rosario Tijeras” off the air in Ecuador comes on the heels of a new law restricting the hours in which alcoholic beverages can be sold, including a blanket ban on selling alcohol on Sundays. The measures were taken in part to deal with insecurity and crime in the country.
