CARACAS, Venezuela — President Nicolas Maduro has a new villain as he campaigns to bring down Venezuela's spiraling crime: TV soap operas. He accuses the telenovelas of spreading "anti-values" to young people by glamorizing violence, guns and drugs.
The criticism follows attacks last year by Maduro on violent video games and the Hollywood movie Spider-Man.
On Monday night, his vice president, Jorge Arreaza, met with broadcast and pay TV operators to review the prime time lineup, warning that they could be in violation of a 2004 law mandating "socially responsible" programming. The two sides will meet in a week with the aim of drafting an agreement on meeting those obligations.
It's unclear whether the government will take steps to restrict programming or impose harsher rules on telenovelas, which are hugely popular across Latin America.