Rebelde (English: Rebel) is a Mexican telenovela produced by Pedro Damián for Televisa, broadcast by Canal de las Estrellas (now known simply as Las Estrellas). It is a remake of the Argentine telenovela, Rebelde Way, adapted for the Mexican youth audience, leading to differences in characters' backgrounds. Rebelde originally aired from Monday, 4 October 2004, to Friday, 2 June 2006. It was replaced with Código Postal.
Rebelde is set in the Elite Way School, a prestigious privateboarding school on the outskirts of Mexico City, with a major plot line revolving around six adolescent students – Mía Colucci Cáceres (Anahí), Roberta Pardo Rey (Dulce María), Miguel Arango Cervera (Alfonso Herrera), Diego Bustamante (Christopher von Uckermann), Guadalupe "Lupita" Fernández (Maite Perroni) and Giovanni Méndez López (Christian Chávez) – forming a band. Additional subplots involve the school's faculty and the students' parents. One trademark of the telenovela is the random use of English words and phrases, often used by fresa characters.
Another notable aspect is that the actors playing the band members are themselves in an actual group named RBD and perform most of the music used on the telenovela, including the openingtheme song, "Rebelde". The group achieved international success from 2004 until their separation in 2009 and sold over 15 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling Latin music acts of all time.
Univision aired Rebelde weekdays afternoon at 3pm/2c from 21 March 2005, to 15 December 2006, replacing Corazones al límite. The last episode was broadcast on Friday, 15 December 2006, with Las dos caras de Ana replacing it on Monday, 18 December 2006.
In 2021, Netflix announced a reboot of the show, set for release the following year. The series, also titled Rebelde, was released on 5 January 2022, and is set 16 years after the end of the soap opera.
Caesars Entertainment Group announced that Rebelde will take residence at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas for six months in June 2024.[citation needed]
Plot
The Elite Way School is a privateboarding school with international prestige where high-class students receive a high level of education to be prepared for a great future. The school has a scholarship program for people with low financial resources who have an excellent academic level. However, few even graduate since they are persecuted by a secret society called "La Logia" ("The Lodge"), whose purpose is to conserve the purity of the privileged class. Among the students are Mía (Anahí), Roberta (Dulce María), Miguel (Alfonso Herrera), Diego (Christopher von Uckermann), Lupita (Maite Perroni) and Giovanni (Christian Chávez). Six adolescents who, despite their differences, discover something that will unite them above all – their love for music.
Both girls and boys wear red sport jackets with matching ties, and long-sleeved white dress-shirts. Boys wear blue jeans and black dress-shoes with their jackets and shirts, while girls wear blue denim miniskirts and black knee-boots. Moreover, girls often untuck and tie up their white dress-shirts, exposing their midriff. Girls also wear regulation underwear: full-cut black briefs with matching sport-bras, as demonstrated by Mia in the series' pilot. In the last season, girls wear denim blue skirts with blue knee boots.[citation needed]
Alternate casual
In later seasons, some girls wear a different ensemble with their white dress-shirts: ochre plaid miniskirts and brown sport jackets, with black Mary Janes and white knee-socks.
Formal
Both girls and boys wear black sport jackets with matching ties, and long-sleeved blue dress-shirts. Boys wear black dress-slacks with matching dress-shoes, while girls wear dressy black miniskirts with matching knee-boots. Girls rarely tie up their formal dress-shirts.
One of the topics that marked the success of the telenovela was the formation of a group named RBD(abbreviation for "ReBelDe"). The production of the series conceived the idea of the musical group to promote both the characters and the show itself. The project quickly surpassed the telenovela in success, so much so that it can now be considered as a separate concept (as Erreway of Rebelde Way did in Argentina). The series was a great promotion for the group since it was able to reach all of Latin America, United States, and several European nations. The group is one of the most impressive in the Latin pop genre and has had great success in Hispanic countries, the U.S. and even Brazil, where the telenovela and the group were highly successful. The show's success was so great that during the third season, the producers decided to lengthen the time of the episodes to one hour and a half, being the first telenovela with such duration.