Do you (or did you) watch telenovelas?

[CassieFan]

Promo for a Brazilian telenovela called Tres Irmas (Three Sisters).....Loved it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIyUEYd9thc

[YRBB]

OMG, I'm just discovering CUNA DE LOBOS for the first time through DVD and it's just soooo good!

[CassieFan]

I am currently watching Brazilian novela called "Caminho das Indias" (Indian Ways). The author is Gloria Perez, who also did novelas "O Clone" (The Clon) and "America". I decided to put some of the screen caps (don't know if it's allowed), so here you go...

First, some landscapes:

[CassieFan]

And now the actors/actresses:

[CassieFan]

[Sylph]

Could someone tell me what was Paraíso Tropical about?

[CassieFan]

Well, the main love story was about a bussinessman Daniel and a girl Paula, but the main two storylines were sex tourism in Brazil and Who killed Tais? She was the main villain, Paula's twin sister. I watched the whole show and loved it.

[Sylph]

And you wouldn't know if there's a synopsis available in English somewhere?

[CassieFan]

I looked for it, but I couldn't find it

[Sylph]

Thank you for trying!

[CassieFan]

RIO DE JANEIRO -- The first patrons of the afternoon had not yet taken their seats at Malik Jamil's Indian restaurant in Rio when one of them started in with the questions.

"Why do Indians always shake their heads like this?" Sandra Maria Carvalho asked, wagging her head from side to side.

Jamil groaned. The queries about India are endless these days: Does India still have a caste system? Do elephants roam the streets? But he knew why people were asking.

"We've seen 'Passage to India,' " said Carvalho's husband, Paulo, referring to a wildly popular Brazilian soap opera. "Everyone is curious."

Soap operas, known here as novelas, have long triggered fads in Brazil. After "The Clone," a soap set in Brazil and Morocco, aired in 2001, belly dancing became the rage. Brazilian girls started wearing yellow flowers in their hair after a character was so adorned on the 1994 soap "Four by Four." And this year's prime-time hit "Caminho das Indias," or "Passage to India," has made all things Indian -- from saris to vacations to the subcontinent -- hugely popular.

But in Brazil, a country that watches more television on average than any other besides Britain, novelas have a more lasting effect by influencing lifestyle choices, researchers say.

"Novelas have become very much a part of the fabric of Brazilian society," said Antonio La Pastina, a professor at Texas A&M University who has studied the influence of the programs on Brazilian society. "It's hard to think of contemporary Brazil without thinking of novelas."

New Lifestyles

The Inter-American Development Bank released two studies this past year that found a link between the consumption of novelas produced by Rede Globo, the network that dominates the industry here, to declining fertility rates and rising divorce rates in Brazil. The fertility rate in Brazil fell sharply over the past half-century, from more than six children per family in 1960 to about two by 2000, the study noted. This drop is comparable to that of China, but without any government family-planning measures.

By looking at census data from about 3,500 jurisdictions in Brazil, the authors found that the areas reached by the Globo signal had lower fertility rates and that parents were more likely to name children after popular novela characters in the years the program aired. They say that novelas celebrate a specific conception of family: An analysis of 115 Globo novelas between 1965 and 1999 showed that 72 percent of main female characters had no children, and 21 percent had only one child.

The novelas portrayed the "small, beautiful, white, healthy, urban, middle and upper middle class consumerist family," the study noted. "Novelas have been a powerful medium through which the small family has been idealized."

The study of the influence of novelas on society has a long academic history in Brazil. In 1989, sociologist Vilmar Evangelista Faria first drew the connection that television might play a role in declining fertility in Brazil. But this factor was just one interesting aspect of the country's development into a more urban and industrialized society, Faria and others wrote. Women played a greater role in the workforce, and improvements in medical care and social security made having many children relatively less necessary in terms of helping parents survive. Television reflected those changes.

"Pregnancy, birth, children were always associated with drama and headaches," La Pastina said. "You had this representation coming in every day: If you want to be urban, modern, middle class, children were not a good thing."

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.
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"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.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...60702401_2.html

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb7oVP4b4JU

[Ben]

I don't know if any of you can help me, but I'm looking for the name of an old Brazilian telenovela, which is apparently the most famous one. I think it was set in a fictional soap opera, and the main character had to kill someone. But in RL, the actor didn't want to act out said storyline, so killed the actress.

OK, I think I have that right. Does any of that ring any bells?

[Ben]

OK, so my above post was slightly wrong (thanks 3rd party info!), but I've now found the actors name who died: Daniella Perez.

Does anyone know the name of the telenovela, which (she starred in), continued after her death? Her mother was the writer... It's kinda important; I was advised to watch it.

Any help is appreciated.

[CassieFan]

Sorry, I just saw this. Yup, the killed actress was Daniela Perez, daughter of a famous writer of Brazilian novelas Gloria Perez.

The soap opera was called "De Corpo e Alma".

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniela_perez

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Corpo_e_Alma

[Sylph]

When is Caminho scheduled to end?