Out of any known shows within the Latin world, ask any mother and their parents and they'll tell you about Mujer.
Mujer, Casos de la Vida Real (literally "Women: Real Life Cases") was an anthology telenovela series that ran from 1985 to 2007 by Televisa and through Mexican channel Canal de las Estrellas hosted by Silvia Pinal.
The program started off at first as a response to the 1985 Mexico City Earthquake, with reenactments based on what citizens dealt with during the incident. Each hour long episode would focus on two unrelated stories (or "cases") and ended with Pinal giving her opinion and a moral to the events seen (or at times having a guest specialist if it was a much heavier theme). Eventually the show began to deviate away from earthquake related stories and focus on more lighthearted ones involving relationships, love and the like.
Then the 90s came in, and something changed.
Indeed, Mujer began to change it's format in the 1990s to be more darker and grittier,focusing squarely on topics involving child abuse, sexual assault, LGBT rights, domestic violence, and other topics that normally wouldn't be present on Mexican television. As a result, Mujer became highly praised (and a bit controversial) due to it's unapologetic and blunt showing of such topics to a Mexican audience.
The early-late 2000s still continued this trend, where in 2006 the series changed its format to a miniseries of sorts, focusing instead on expanding cases to a week instead of it's usual thirty-minute format. The show however stopped airing in 2007 on Canal de Las Estrellas, with Pinal confirming two years later that it had been cancelled.
Despite it's cancellation, Mujer was always one of the more succesful productions of Televisa and is still looked upon these days as a brilliant show, despite it's low-budget and it's visceral stories. Its presentation even inspired later programs such as Lo que callamos las mujeres and La rosa de Guadalupe, which have continued after Mujer's cancellation.
Mujer contains examples of the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: And how. The nineties in particular were very much into showing how horrible certain parents are to their children.
- "El silencio de Dios" is arguably one of the most brutal example: Rosa is shown verballly and physically abusive towards her daughter Alma, eventually even beating her to death with a broom.
- "Aborto en casa" focuses on an unnamed girl (called "Cecila" by Pinal to respect her privacy) ends up pregnant. She tries to hide the pregnancy from her parents but eventually suffers a miscarriage. Her parents response to it (as it happens in front of them) is to blame her and disregard her pain.
- "Suicida en la escuela" has Diego's parents (mainly his mother) constantly be little him due to his low grades. This (along with just low-esteem and his girlfriend Adriana leaving him) is enough to push him commit suicide in the school.
- "Final Tragico" first averts this but then goes into it, with the mother first showing heavy patience to her disabled son before eventually snapping at him. This pushes him to have a fit and commit suicide afterwards.
- "Reina de la Prepa" has Olivia's parents literally up and abandon her after she is ousted to have contracted AIDS after infecting another student.
- Darker and Edgier: The show was essentially this for prime time television in Mexico, with it's brutal depictions of violence and topics usually not shown on the screen. The nineties to early-oughties of the series were in particular brutal.
- Death of a Child: Yep, especially in the 90s-00s the show's was unapologetic to how even children can tragically die.
- Gay Aesop: Surprisingly enough, the show was rather pro-LGBT, showing the cruelness of discrimination and even parents accepting their children as gay.
- The episode "Amigas" features Laura dealing with discrimination because she comes out as a lesbian. While first leaving Mexico to reunite with her lover Cici, she eventually finds a partner in Kate (as Cici is later on shown to refuse she was ever interested out of fear of discrimination). While at first disapproving of her granddaughter's sexual orientation, Laura's grandmother does come around at the end of the episode.
- The case "Corazon Herido" focuses on Nacho, who deals with discrimination when he was a young boy when his mother's threats to his lover caused them to commit suicide. Nacho runs away to the United States where he eventually finds a partner in Eddie years later. By Eddie's insistence, the two go to back to Mexico to patch things up with his father and brother. It doesn't go well, but the episode ends with Nacho telling Eddie that he sees him as his only family now, and he's okay with that.
- Karma Houdini: Considering the show focusing on cases that at times do not have an ending, this tends to be a reoccuring aspect of the show.
- Alma's teacher in "El silencio de Dios" doesn't get any consequences for never once actually noticing that Alma was abused at home.
- The episode "Paloma" never shows the titular character ever getting punishment for her death, leaving her mother in ruins.
- "Skato" never shows the store owner who shot Dario getting puinishment. Although considering Dario was graffiting his property...
- "El Aroma del Mal" never shows the men who sexually assaulted Carmen be arrested or even found.
- Manly Tears: Near the end of "El silencio de Dios", seconds before he rips into Alma's mom for causing her daughter's death, the doctor briefly weeps upon examining her lifeless body.
- My God, What Have I Done?: This tends to happen with characters who then have a horrible realization over what they've done.
- In "Remordimento", Lorena deals with this in the end when her constant bullying and vicious hatred of her adopted sister Alejandra pushed her to commit suicide.
- Zig-zagged with Rosa in "El silencio de Dios": While it first seems that she's remorseful over killing Alma, she tries hard to deflect blame, first blaming the fact Alma reminded her too much of her Disappeared Dad before going into how she only "raised her like how her parents raised her". And even before that, she tried to deflect blame by saying Alma was hit by a car.
- Diego's mother in "Suicida en la Escuela" hits this when she finds Diego's lifeless body after he kills himself.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Being a telenovela, this happens frequently.
- El silencio de Dios" features the school doctor rip into Rosa for abusing her daughter to the point of killing her, even making it clear that he's able to know that Alma's injuries were caused by a much stronger force than of a child.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The core of the show was that unlike later series like Rosa, the endings were abrupt and certain things aren't resolved, only leaving the characters to simply move on or push forward despite everything.
- "Corazon Herido" shows that no, sometimes parents aren't going to accept who you are despite being gone for so long. And while it is heartbreaking for Nacho to realize that, he's still in the end happy with Eddie, who he considers his real family.
- The episode of "Sombras en Casa" ends with the revelation by Pinal that Janita hasn't recovered from being molested and her father (despite killing her abuse and his lover for their affair and allowing the abuse) is still in prison for the murder.
- Despite Evilita's mother and her lover Salvador going to jail for allowing Salvador to abuse her, the ending of "Terror Nocturno" still shows Evilita struggling with the trauma of her abuse.
- Tranquil Fury: Downplayed by the doctor in "El silencio de Dios". He is visibly seething with rage towards Alma's mom, practically looking ready to strike, yet simply rats her out to police with the nearby telephone instead.
