Ghosts on Telemundo?

Two Elenas, a wandering ghost and a man that morphs into a horse...What more could we ask for from a telenovela? 

For the last couple of weeks, Telemundo aired for the first time its latest production: El Fantasma de Elena. Featuring an international cast, the trailers leading up to its premiere promised a fresh take on the rather corny genre of the telenovela. Its premise: two women (both named Elena) will fight for the love of the male protagonist--one is alive and one is dead.

Thinking about the premise of the novela, I started to wonder why the writers would conceive of the antagonist as a dead bride. Being that audiences are expecting more and more reality from television, a trend which Hispanic audiences are not exempt from, wouldn't a corpse bride just seem plain dumb?

Perhaps, the answer is no. I can only speak from personal experience, but I have observed how superstitious Mexican Hispanics can be. I remember conversations around our American dinner table that could have actually been heard in a small Mexican town as well. My parents and uncles would talk about espíritus (ghosts) that would sometimes show up in the backseat of cars when passing through a certain road or of ghosts that would wake you up in the middle of the night taking your ability to scream for help. I don't think any of them believed those stories, but like I'm doing now, these are stories they heard and passed on to others.

Whether audiences will believe it or not, the more important question is whether such superstition will resonate with the mothers, fathers and their children who sit around the living room watching Elena every night. 

Thus far, El Fantasma de Elena, has tapped into our collective superstition.  Although most of us may not believe in ghosts, fantasmas or espíritus, we may remember our parents and grandparents talking about what so and so said happened to them in the old country.

As the novela unfolds, I will continue watching to see whether this topic is treated with subtlety or outright silliness.