Machos

Machos is a Chilean drama telenovela. Produced by Canal 13.

The series debuted on Canal 13 in Chile on March 10, 2003. It ended its original run on October 27, 2003, after one season and 163 episodes in its original Chilean version. The international version (syndicated or not in Spanish) has 151 episodes.

The telenovela tells the story of the Mercader family, led by its patriarch Ángel Mercader, a retired, macho and manipulative doctor, who is married to the sweet Valentina, whom he regularly cheats on with other women. The couple has seven sons, all men, between the ages of 40 and 18 years old. The seven bros must face the authoritarianism established by their father throughout the story. As the chapters go by, the different dramatic knots become more acute as the end of the first stage approaches. The family structure is broken to by the appearance of an illegitimate daughter of Ángel with a prostitute named Mirna, who tries to recover her rightful place within her family, for which she must face the rejection of her father and her brothers. In the telenovela, one of the brothers confesses his homosexuality, a subject that at that time was taboo in Chile, and within the story, this generates a strong impact on his family and the immediate rejection of his older brothers, who became to assaulting him, being this a criticism of the conservative Chilean society of those times.

Broadcast
The telenovela was extremely successful in its country of origin. The series was also broadcast on television channels in Latin America such as Argentina, Ecuador, Uruguay and Venezuela. But, in most of these countries, the series was broadcast with a dubbing into Latin American Spanish. This is because the Chilean Spanish accent is characterized by its speed, by the enormous use of idioms typical of the country, and other peculiarities that make it unique, and often difficult to understand for other Latin Americans.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, and ironically, the telenovela was only broadcast in its original audio in Spain.

International versions

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