Televised Transformations
Brazil is a country with one of the largest television audiences in the world. Ninety percent of the households in the country have at least one television set. What is broadcast on Brazilian television ? Soccer, of course is shown more or less continually. News and entertainment programs also make up an important share of television’s programming. But one of the most broadcast – and most watched – types of program is the telenovela. Telenovelas are saturated with images and narratives of characters who, in order to achieve love, happiness, and social mobility, engage in the transformation of themselves and their bodies. These transformations affect personal relationships, personal assets and social hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race, and class. Based on several periods of fieldwork in the state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, this article summarizes and presents some of the main findings of a larger research project about Brazilian telenovelas. The article briefly introduces this genre and presents a new take on their reception, moving the focus away from a study of viewers’ interpretations of telenovelas’ plots, to an analysis of viewers’ everyday engagement with the telenovela flow : messages, products, stories and desires that intercept with telenovelas’ plots and circulate throughout Brazilian society. It then takes a closer look at the way the telenovela flow relates to Brazilian society and how Brazilians relate to this flow : What impact does it have on viewers ? Does the telenovela flow work as a guideline, shaping how viewers think and act ?