Telenovela reception in rural Brazil: Gendered readings and sexual mores

In The Cattle King, a Brazilian telenovela, melodramatic elements of class ascension, love and betrayal, adultery, and pre-marital sex played a central role in the lives of the main characters. This ethnographic study of viewers in Macambira, a small rural community in the backlands of northeast Brazil, discusses how these rural viewers appropriated telenovelas in their daily lives and how the meanings assigned to the texts were interpreted according to their own values and beliefs about gender roles, relationships, and sexuality. I argue that the geographical isolation and the local patriarchal culture mediated the process of reception, interpretation, and appropriation of telenovelas. The isolation in which Macambira is located in relation to the urban representations in the telenovela narratives intensified the perceived gap between the local patriarchal culture and the urban reality constructed in the television text.

Telenovela reception in rural Brazil: Gendered readings and sexual mores Academic Article