The Possibility of a Tear

Abstract

If the generic condition of the melodrama itself is in question, unraveling its own evolution in the light of the successive aesthetic, narrative and ideological paradigms that have prevailed throughout the history of the audiovisual —at the same time as the regimes in the contemporary world in general—, it is so much more arduous. In this section, five voices from different backgrounds and professional-academic affiliations debate around some of the fundamental questions related to contemporary melodrama, such as their concrete contributions to the general pattern, the existence or not of a causal relationship (and in what sense) between its changes and sociocultural transformations, the controversy about its reactionary or transgressive nature, the imprint from classicism and modernity that remains inscribed in its current exponents, and the possibility of updating the canon by incorporating relevant titles based on criteria of different types.