Brazil's Novelas May Affect Viewers' Lifestyle Choices

Begging to Differ

Video

'Caminho das Indias' ('Passage to India')

This trailer introduces Brazil's hit novela, or soap opera, about two young lovers torn between Brazil and India. Novelas like 'Caminho das Indias' have shaped culture and lifestyle choices for many in Brazil.

» LAUNCH VIDEO PLAYER

Globo officials take pains to deny the premise that their programs have enough influence to change mass behavior in such a way.

"We know the seriousness of their work, but there is a fundamental mistake," said Luis Erlanger, Globo's director of communications. "It diminishes the capacity for free will of the people, to imagine that if the novela does something, the people follow along. . . . This is even antidemocratic."

Globo began exporting novelas in 1973 and now sells programs dubbed into 40 languages to 100 countries. The network is increasingly trying to take advantage of the growing Spanish-speaking population in the United States. It has reached agreements with networks such as Telemundo, which is owned by NBC Universal, to produce adapted versions of novelas.

"The U.S. market for us is our dream," said Ricardo Scalamandré, head of international business for Globo TV International.

Scholars say Globo's novelas have played an outsize role in shaping opinions in Brazil because, for many years, they were one of the few forms of free entertainment available to the masses.

"What's absolutely unquestionable is that the novelas have a big impact on people's lives; they pay attention," said Joseph Potter, a University of Texas sociologist who has studied the relationship between fertility and television in Brazil. "It's not a literate society, it's not a place where there are books and newspapers, outside the upper 10 percent, and television fills that space."

Artists' Refuge

Globo's first broadcast came in April 1965, a year after the Brazilian military took power in a coup. The military government's rule lasted more than two decades, and the artistic community suffered under the authoritarian rule. Television, and particularly novelas, emerged as one safety valve for creative output, a place where the country's most talented actors and writers could explore political issues of the day.

"The writers were very important in the process of telenovela-making. They were intellectual guys who had written for theater and cinema; some of them had relations with the left and the Communist Party, so they didn't have many other outlets to work," said Esther Império Hamburger, a professor at the University of Sao Paulo who has studied soap operas.

Globo novelas follow a consistent format year after year: They include more than 100 hour-long episodes that run six days a week. The story begins and ends in one season. At any moment, four novelas are running on the network at different time slots, the most popular being what is called the prime-time "8 o'clock novela," which actually starts after 9 p.m.

Like any American soap opera, "Passage to India" has its share of harsh whispers and slammed doors, scorned lovers and melodramatic piano music. Characters issue lines like: "He's dead to me."

The social issues on display this time are about technology and globalization -- young lovers blog and video-chat between Brazil and India -- and mental illness, with one actor, Bruno Gagliasso, performing a rather overwrought turn as a schizophrenic. During one breakdown, he sweats through his suit while wandering through traffic with tiny rapid steps and holding his ears to silence the voices in his head.

This subplot has sparked debates on other programs and publications about mental health issues in Brazil.

"It's like Globo throws up the ball and other people start to play," Gagliasso said.