When Latin American Melodrama Meets Nordic Noir: How SVOD Reshapes Chilean TV Fiction

Abstract

This article aims to understand the impact of subscription video-on-demand commissions on locally produced content in Latin America's smaller markets. It focuses on the case of 42 Days of Darkness (2022), the first Netflix Original in Chile produced without the participation of local broadcast channels nor with contributions from state funds. Through a contextualized textual analysis of the series, focusing on Netflix's strategic approach to national/global production, a shift has been identified in both the look and practice of national TV series programming with this new stakeholder. Although the local industry has already ventured into the detective genre based on local crimes, Netflix's first production in Chile adopted narratives and visual motifs congruent with melancholic elements of Nordic noir. We conclude that one of Netflix's main strategies in this project was to embrace the global popularity of the Scandinavian genre's aesthetics while maintaining elements of Latin American melodrama, a predominant genre in the region, in order to appeal to local audiences, creating content with a negotiated, "glocal" appeal. The participation of subscription video-on-demand giants in small industries such as Chile could help to create captivating TV series and energize the local audiovisual production industry. However, it might lead to the homogenization of content and the erasure of cultural specificity.