Can They love Each Other? It Depends: Gendered Representation of Age Difference in Telenovelas

Carolina Acosta-Alzuru (2025). “Can They love Each Other? It Depends: Gendered Representation of Age Difference in Telenovelas,” in Louis, A. & Loxham, A. Gender and TV in Iberia and Latin America: Identities and Social Change. Bloombury.

Abstract: Telenovelas are signifying battlegrounds in which the articulations between media, culture and society are evidenced. This chapter focuses on Si nos dejan/If they let us (Mexico, 2021), a telenovela in which Alicia, the protagonist, is a 50-year-old married woman abandoned by her husband, a respected television anchor, who is in a relationship with a woman 20 years his junior. When Alicia falls in love with a younger man, she becomes the target of disapproval and disdain, evidencing the double standard regarding age difference between men and women. Based on textual analysis of Si nos dejan and conversations with its head writer, this chapter examines how this telenovela represents gender roles, underscoring the articulation between age and gender in Latin American society. The analysis fleshes out these representations’ strengths and shortcomings without losing sight of the restrictions imposed by the telenovela genre’s codes and production conditions.