ABSTRACT
Although much discussed, the question of transnational television formats remains vital, exemplifying as it does conicts between culture and commerce, production and reception, style and substance (see most recently Oren and Shahaf). Here I treat what is a perhaps a unique case: the Spanish adaptation of a Colombian series on drug dealing and prostitution. Both of the series are named with knowing and showy salaciousness Sin tetas no hay paraíso [Without tits you won’t go to heaven]. As we shall see, the implications of the show for audiences’ gender identication and desire are more complex and less retrograde than this title suggests. And the series proposes, most unexpectedly, a new mode of televisual masculinity that is hypersexualized and feminized, one focused on the male protagonist called El Duque, played by new star Miguel Ángel Silvestre. This new commodi- cation of the male body was not planned in the series’ production process but rather actively created by female spectators evaluating and appreciating the physical attractions of the protagonist.
