Laura Esquivel (left) plays a not-so-attractive girl in a wildly popular Argentinian TV show. She won a contest (I think it was held in Mexico) similar to American Idol, and landed the lead role in this TV show called Patito feo. I think it’s interesting to American teens because of the similarity between this and American Idol and High School Musical. Wikipedia has a good summary of it. The concept is that there are two talented singing groups at the school and one of them is led by Patito (Laura) and the other one is led by her rival, Antonella, who is both the girlfriend of the boy Patito likes and the daughter of the girlfriend of Patito’s estranged father, who would like to get back with Patito’s mother. (Typical convoluted telenovela, ¿no?) LOL.
Anyway, Belinda does a guest appearance on the show singing a duet of Luz sin gravedad with Patito. It’s a shining moment for Patito in the face of her rival. My students know who Belinda is because she did another guest appearance on the Disney movie Cheetah Girls 2 (and here’s a monologue by her about the movie, in very clear Spanish).
You can see what Patito really looks like in this clip, where Laura sings a song in Hebrew for some talk show hosts. You can also see how young she was when all her fame began on that Mexican talent show, Código FAMA.
You’ll be amazed at how motivating it is for students to find out that teenagers in other countries are basically just like them. :o)
