World Building in Brazilian Telenovela : A Case Study from the Top Five Most Remembered Characters Maria Immacolata Vassallo de Lopes (Coord.) Ligia Prezia Lemos (Vice-Coord.) Larissa Leda Rocha Andreza dos Santos Lucas Martins Néia Mariana Lima Tissiana Pereira Daniela Ortega1 In our theoretical and methodological readings on the development of storyworlds that cross various media, we came across a gap: few texts deal with the character in the issue of world building. The creation of worlds – as well as the communities imagined through the media – is a matter that has for long caught the attention of communication and culture researchers. For example, Anderson (2009) and Appadurai (1996) take the idea of imagination for understanding the role of the media in the production and constitution of subjectivities of modern societies. While the former explores how newspapers and novels provided the technical means for representing a national imagined community, the latter points out the ways in which electronic media reconfigured the sharing of emotions, inasmuch as it offered new resources for building “selves” and imagined worlds. 1 The following scholarship students of the Telenovela Studies Center at Universidade de São Paulo (CETVN-USP) contributed to the research: Vital Soares da Silva Neto, Helena Sabino Rodrigues Cunha, Diana Soares Cardoso, Gustavo Slachta Rodrigues, Leticia Stamatopoulos and Marcella Medeiros de Oliveira Silva. 21 In the Brazilian case, it is well known that telenovelas historically create an imaginary of Brazilian nation (Lopes, 2009). The concept of “world”, far from being given, can refer to several ideas, such as social and historical scenario, themes, images or even to general ideas and an author’s philosophy of life (Ryan, 2014). At the audience end, it is worth emphasizing that the acceptance of the work takes place through a game of make-believe, in which the public enters an imaginative world and uses their vision to explain emotional reactions to these works (Zipfel, 2014). It is fundamental to reflect upon these imaginary worlds, which runs through characters, plots and ideas, and is an agreement between producers and at audience end. Our aim was to study the complexity of the worlds built from the characters of telenovelas, using those that most called the public’s attention and its affectionate relationship with them. The long extension of the narrative enables the telenovela to be confused with life, which tightens the audience’s bond with the characters. The creation of the character in the telenovela can be taken as a collective construction, which is born from the author and goes through the director, the staging and the actor to then reach the public, who dialectically transforms it, building worlds shaped in the national imaginary, because they symbolize or express a collective feeling. This perspective dialogues with the approach proposed by Eco (2002) as regards interpretative cooperation in narrative texts. 1 Possible worlds: origin, concept, developments The concept of possible worlds emerges in the second half of the twentieth century, inspired by Liebniz’s philosophy, as a mean of solving problems in formal semantics (Ryan, 2012). Initially developed by philosophers of the analytical school, the theory of possible worlds was, in the mid-1970s, adapted to the fictional worlds by philosopher David Lewis and literary theorists such as Umberto Eco, Lubomír Doležel and Marie-Laurie Ryan. 22 Based on the idea that reality is an universe composed of a plurality of distinct worlds, Ryan (2012) points out that the theory of the possible worlds starts from the assumption that this universe is hierarchically structured by opposition to an element, which works as the center of the whole system (Kripke, 1963 apud Ryan, 2012). The central element is known as the “real” world, while the others are possible alternative or unreal worlds. For a world to be possible, it must be linked to the actual world by a relation of accessibility. The boundaries of the possible depend on the particular interpretation given to this notion of accessibility. The most common interpretation associates possibility with logical laws: every world that respects the principles of non-contradiction and of the excluded middle is a possible world. (Ryan, 2012, p. 4). Another development is the concept of storyworld, which comprises in its genealogy a mixture of the legacy of possible worlds of philosophy adapted to literary theory, represented by Richard Gerrig, David Herman and Paul Werth (Ryan; Thon, 2014). Unlike what literary critics or readers have in mind when talking about the “world of Marcel Proust” or the “world of Friedrich Hölderlin”2, the concept of storyworld is projected by individual texts – and not by the entire work of an author – where each story builds its own storyworld.3 As for the influence of the concept of possible worlds4, Ryan and Thon (2014) point out that, in literature, it is used to solve problems such as definition of fiction, truth value, ontological status of entities, semantic classification of literary worlds, relationships between worlds of distinct texts, as well as the description of plot mechanisms in terms of conflicts 2 Which considers the typical social and historical scenario of the works of a given author or the main themes and recurring images of this work. 3 Except in transmedial narratives, where the representation of a world is distributed across texts of different media. 4 As concerns the worlds of cognitive approaches, studies focus on how these worlds are constructed and “simulated” in the reader’s mind. 23 and general organization of the semantic domain as universe in which a real world is opposite to a variable number of alternative possible worlds created by the mental activity of the characters. Based on the principle of internal non-contradiction, the concept of storyworld contradicts the popular belief that nonfictional stories are true and fictional stories are false (Ryan; Thon, 2014). Considering that nonfictional stories can be true or false in relation to their reference world, fictional stories are automatically true in the world about which they are told. Defined by its horizon of possibilities, it can be said that, “If the storyworld is someone’s world, this world is that of characters (Ryan; Thon, 2014, p. 32). In this regard, Eco (2002, p. 89) states that fictional worlds are parasites of the real world, that is, those points of fiction that are not explicitly differentiated from what exists in the real world correspond to “the laws and conditions of the real world”. It is worth underlining the importance that Eco (2002) gives to the character by borrowing from other disciplines – such as modal logic –, emphasizing that his idea of possible worlds is only realized from “furnished” worlds: a world consists of a set of individuals with given properties. Since some of these properties or predicates are actions, a possible world can also be interpreted as a development of events. As this development of events is not real, but precisely possible, it must depend on the propositional attitudes of someone who affirms, believes, dreams, wishes, anticipates, etc.” (Eco, 2002, p. 109). Such a substantive notion of world has as its smallest unit, also described by Eco (2002, p. 111) as a semantic mark, the notion of property, that is, characteristics that, as combined, will compose the individuals of particular worlds. Such individuals are therefore “Spatiotemporal clots of a number of physical and psychic qualities (semantically expressed 24 as ‘properties’), among which also the properties of being in relation to other property clots, performing certain actions and tolerating others” (Eco, 2002, P. 110-111). In the worlds imagined and affirmed by the author – that is, when the propositional attitudes start from the one who created and shaped the story – the possibilities lie in the composition plane of the individuals that integrate the plot, through property combinations chosen to act in the narrative force field. From these properties, characters and readers may weave propositional attitudes – the latter case equals the reader’s worlds. The characters, with their actions, are primarily responsible for gestating other directions and possibilities to the story – be it from its creation by the author or its apprehension by the reader –, giving us the illusion that they are, in fact, autonomous individuals. The properties that constitute them, after all, were borrowed from the “real” world of reference. Such statement finds support as we look at the Brazilian telenovela: its tendency to naturalism creates correspondence between the habitus (Bourdieu, 1975 apud Lopes, 2009) of the narrated world and the lived world. In discussing the individuals of storyworlds, Eco (2002, P. 112) stresses “discussing the epistemological conditions of constitution is a problem of delegating to other types of research as regards building the world of our experience.” This is the challenge of our investigation, because speaking of Brazilian telenovela is to refer to our greatest cultural, social and aesthetic narrative, able to reflect and refract our reality. Accompanying Eco’s perspectives (2002) on the reader and his role in constructing the meaning of a text requires understanding at first that the text is incomplete, both because it depends on the receiver as operator of rules that will make it intelligible and because it is always interspersed by the “unsaid”.5 That which is not manifest on the surface 5 Eco (2002) makes it clear that his considerations were thought from written and narrative texts. But it is reasonable to consider that his concepts can be used for narratives in other languages, such as the audiovisual one. 25 must be actualized from “cooperative, conscious and active movements on the part of the reader” (Eco, 2002, p. 36). These “unsaid” elements, gaps that demand contribution to actualize their meaning, constitute the text, built with the reader’s cooperation. The “unsaid” elements are intentional for two reasons. The first is that, for Eco (2002, p. 37), the text is a “lazy (or economical) machinery that lives on the appreciation of the meaning that the receiver introduced there”. The second is that the text leaves the reader the “interpretive initiative”, after all, “every text wants someone help make it work.” It is therefore possible to say that the text provides for the “model reader”, who is an imagined reader that follows textual instructions or even a set of sentences or other signs (Eco, 1994, p. 22). This guarantees textual cooperation that would avoid the possibility of “aberrant” interpretations. This model reader is not the same as the empirical reader. He has a spectral, speculative nature, but is someone able to participate of the textual actualization, in a dynamic of completeness with the author. If it is true, then, that the empirical author presupposes this model reader, it is also true that he institutes his competence. So, he seeks to articulate the text, make it move towards its construction, that is, the text does not wait in inertia for the competence of its model reader, but offers its contribution to such ability. And there arises the doubt: the text would be less “lazy” than makes one think and would offer less freedom than what it seems? Eco thinks of two extremes in relation to texts – closed and open – the distinction between the use and interpretation of texts, and, essentially, understanding that the issue of model reader and model author rests on the logic of a textual strategy. Intuitively, Eco (2002, P. 42) proposes to understand the open text as one that decides “up until which point he must control the collaboration of the reader, how it should be deployed, where it should be directed, and where it must turn into a free interpretive adventure”. Possible interpretations do not clash but reinforce each other. And it is necessary to make it clear that there are limits to these 26 interpretive possibilities that involve “a dialectic between the author’s strategy and the model reader’s response” (Eco, 2002, p. 43). That is the necessary distinction between free use of an open text and its interpretation. The latter does not take place without boundaries and without cooperation, thought as a strategy between writing and reading, even if aberrant and malicious readings can be made. Eco is speaking about textual strategy when he thinks on the questions about author and model reader. On the one hand we have an empirical author, the subject of textual enunciation, who establishes a (hypothetical) model reader and, in doing so, translates such a strategy into configuring himself as a subject of the enunciated – itself also a strategy – and this organizes a textual operation. On the other hand, the empirical reader – subject who concretely cooperates in the production of the meaning of the text – configures for himself an idea of author, the model author, precisely from the data of the textual strategy. The model author and the model reader “are entities that become clear to each other only in the process of reading, so that each one creates the other” (Eco, 1994, p. 30). 2 Methodological paths To make a diagnosis of the status of the Brazilian telenovela character and its possible worlds from the empirical reader’s perspective, we followed a theoretical and methodological path composed of four stages: (1) bibliographical research referring to the concept of character based mainly on narratology; (2) questionnaire6 shared by a link to Google Forms randomly on the social networks Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp and by email (Nov 2018 - Jan 2019); (3) interpretative analysis7 based on the variables: (a) five most cited characters; (b) gender of these 6 A questionnaire with three questions: age; most remarkable character of your life; the reason for your choice(s). 7 With the aid of MaxQDA software. See: http://www.maxqda.com/brasil/. Accessed on: Jan 2019. 27 characters; (c) period of the showing of telenovelas; and (d) age group of respondents; and (4) development of categories of “use and interpretation” (Eco, 1994), based on the analysis and recurrence of reasons for “reader/ receiver” responses. There are ten categories with the same weight: acting, character construction, cultural memory, empathy, feminine/feminist issues8, feeling, art direction, affective memory, repercussion and villainy. In the universe of 716 answers, 360 characters were cited. We chose to study qualitatively the top five most mentioned due to editorial limits. Thus, the most cited were: 1) Carminha (Brazil Avenue, original title: Avenida Brasil, Globo, 2012); 2) Nazaré Tedesco (Her Own Destiny, original title: Senhora do Destino, Globo, 2004); 3) Odete Roitman (Vale Tudo, Globo, 1988); 4) Viúva Porcina (Porcina, the widow) (Roque Santeiro, Globo, 1985); and 5) Jade (The Clone, original title: O Clone, Globo, 2001). One of the problematics revealed by the clipping of our object was that of gender: the five most cited characters are women. This thickens, but does not distort, the research problem. To Lopes (2009), it is in the trajectory of female characters – as well as in the representations of love and sexuality – that the capacity of the Brazilian telenovela to agglutinate public and private experiences expresses itself in a more well-finished way. Aware of these issues, we set out to establish categories according to relevant properties (Eco, 2002) which, based on our theoretical framework, we consider as structural when building storyworlds of female characters in the Brazilian telenovela: romantic love (RL), confluent love (CL), maternity (M), social rise/maintenance (SR), work (W) and villainy (V). To measure the presence or absence of these relevant properties, we prepared Chart 1, inspired by the diagrams proposed by Eco (2002), where the + symbol means presence of the property, the – symbol means absence, 0 refers to undetermined, and parentheses indicate essential properties. 8 We understand as feminine/feminist issues the attitudes and behaviors of the characters that violate behavioral prescriptions established by power relations between genders. 28 Box 1 - Relevant properties of characters with more mentions Characters RL CL M SR W V Carminha Nazaré Tedesco Odete Roitman Viúva Porcina Jade – – (+) (+) (+) (+) (+) + + + (+) (+) (–) 0 + (+) + (+) (+) 0 0 – (+) 0 0 (+) (+) (+) 0 – Source: Obitel USP Team We are, therefore, moving towards the definition of two categories based on Eco (1994, 2002): use and interpretation, related to the reader’s world; and relevant properties, linked to the author’s world and to the world of characters. Finally, in the text, the words of the audience, our reader, are highlighted by quotation marks and italics. 3 Corpus: The Top Five Most Remembered Characters Table 1 - Quantitative Data 99 Character % of votes Predominant age group Carminha 11.3 18-34 Nazaré Tedesco 10.4 18-34 Odete Roitman 4.1 35-49 Viúva Porcina 3.2 50 2.4 18-34 Jade Source: Obitel USP Team The most remembered character in the empirical research, Carminha (Adriana Esteves), is the villainous protagonist of Brazil Avenue10, a telenovela that galvanized the country’s attention and became a successful case in the broadcaster’s exports.11 Revenge is the theme of the story, centered on the conflict between Carminha and Nina/Rita, 9 The percentages presented are relatively low due to the large amount of caracters mentioned, in addition to the number of telenovelas already shown on Brazilian television. 10 Globo’s 9 p.m. telenovela; 179 chapters; Mar-Oct 2012; by João Emanuel Carneiro, with general direction of Amora Mautner and José Luiz Villamarim (nucleus direction by Ricardo Waddington). 11 Most licensed work in the history of Globo (more than 120 countries). Available at: http://www. globotvinternational.com/newsDet.asp?newsId=351&random=1381768708310. Access on: Jul 2019. 29 the antiheroine. Carminha wants to stay rich under the appearance of happy wife of Tufão, whom she married just to ascend economically and socially, while having an extra-marital relationship with Max. Her main weakness is the love for her son Jorginho, who feels deep rejection to the mother. Marked by a comic and ironic tone, she eventually becomes humanized and is surrendered at the end of the plot. She has the opportunity to take revenge but chooses to confess (the murder of her former lover) and be punished. As she leaves jail, she makes up with Nina/Rita, at this point Jorginho’s wife and her grandson’s mother. Nazaré Tedesco (Renata Sorrah) came second in the reader’s memory. She is the antagonistic villain of the character Maria do Carmo in Her Own Destiny12 and responsible for the kidnapping of two children – one of them raised as her daughter - and a few murders. The story begins during the military dictatorship, with the young Nazaré as a prostitute. She has a lover, to whom she lies about being a nursing assistant and being pregnant just to marry him. The plan works out and life improves: she leaves the outskirts of Rio and goes to Copacabana, becomes wife of a deceived husband and mother of a kidnapped baby. In the second phase, Nazaré continues with the sham undisturbed, until her picture with the baby on her lap on the kidnapping day is shown to Maria do Carmo’s boyfriend, a journalist. Nazaré’s goal is to keep the love of her daughter, Isabel/Lindalva, and the sustaining lie. For the sake of it she will lie, assault, murder and seduce. But she also suffers the consequences throughout the plot, which is not common in telenovelas, where villains are usually punished in the end. The author, Aguinaldo Silva, acknowledged inspiration from Tom & Jerry13, creating an almost caricatured, clumsy villain with a strongly humorous tone and hyperbolic narcissism, the victim of her own set-ups. 12 Globo 8 p.m. telenovela; 221 chapters; Jun 2004-Mar 2005; by Aguinaldo Silva, with general direction and nucleus direction by Wolf Maia. 13 KNOPLOCH, Carol; JIMENEZ, Keila. Naza teve a quem puxar. Estado de S. Paulo, Oct. 17, 2004. Available at: http://bit.ly/2LCneMd. Access on: Jun 2019. 30 The character Odete Roitman (Beatriz Segall) of Vale Tudo14 was voted as the biggest villain of the Brazilian telenovela ever in a poll by newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo in 2004, with spontaneous answers.15 Authoritarian and strong, she took over as president of the Almeida Roitman group since her husband’s death. She lived in Paris but had apartments in other cities. She hated Brazil, where she traveled to only when strictly necessary. She had conflicts with her daughter, Heleninha, whose weaknesses she would not forgive. She did not accept the idea that her son, Afonso, wanted to live in Brazil. She manipulated the lives of children and humiliated subordinates. She only wavered in her goals in the name of her lover, César. She was murdered (by mistake) in the final chapters, causing a national commotion over the mystery: Who killed Odete Roitman? Viúva Porcina (Regina Duarte), in Roque Santeiro16, with exaggerated makeup and fancy colorful costumes full of accessories, stood out among the inhabitants of the fictional city of Asa Branca in the northeastern interior. The sparkle of the jewelry and turbans complemented by high heels alluded to exuberance and sensuality. Her trajectory is marked by the condition of widow, a sham supported by her lover, Sinhozinho Malta, a rich landowner and politician. The myth of the widow begins when the then clerk Porcina (from a neighboring town) meets Roque, a sculptor and seller of saint statues. The two of them would have fallen in love and married. Then Roque returns to Asa Branca and is apparently killed while defending the city from the bandit Navalhada, becoming considered as a local patron saint and raising Porcina to a prominent place. With the return of Roque, it is then discovered that Porcina was neither widowed nor married, which did not stop them from starting a relationship soon. 14 Globo 8 p.m. telenovela; 204 chapters; May 1988-jan. 1989; from Gilberto Braga, Aguinaldo Silva and Leonor Bassères, with general direction by Dennis Carvalho. 15 AGÊNCIA ESTADO. Enquete elege Odete Roitman a maior vilã da tevê. Estadão. Estadão, Oct 18 2004. Available at: http://bit.ly/2NDjsow. Accessed on: May 2019. 16 Globo 8 p.m. telenovela; 209 chapters; Jun 1985-Feb 1986; by Dias Gomes and Aguinaldo Silva, with general direction by Paulo Ubiratan. 31 Finally, Jade (Giovana Antonelli) is one of the main characters of The Clone17 and, unlike the other four characters, is not a villain or an antiheroine, but the goodie18 of the story. A hallmark is her ambivalence: Jade is divided between two cultures, since she is both a Muslim and a Moroccan, but, raised in Brazil, she does not accept the social and religious impositions linked to her origin. The love story of Jade and Brazilian Lucas guides the plot. Loving but rebellious, she seeks not only love but also personal fulfillment. She cherishes the desire to be a student and have freedoms similar to those of Brazilian women. Giving in to family pressure, Jade marries Said, a Muslim with whom she has a daughter. Her dilemma, then, lies in choosing between her love and living with the girl – which would be limited due to family, social and religious impositions. 4 Analysis of the author’s world and the character’s world according to property categories Unlike passionate love, a universal phenomenon (GIDDENS, 1992), the notion of romantic love (RL) is culturally specific and essentially feminized. Arising in the late eighteenth century, it is present in television fiction in the search for the soul mate and the encounter with the masculine (LOPES et al., 2015). In the case of the characters analyzed, the issue of romantic love remains strong even if we consider that only Jade is a goodie. Fruit of a structure already consolidated in melodrama (Lopes et al., 2015), the enduring nature of love by men who validate the female self-identity is something that – in different ways – is structurally present in the charac17 Globo 8 p.m. telenovela; 221 chapters; Oct 2001-Jun 2002; by Gloria Perez, with general direction and nucleus direction by Jaime Monjardim. 18 The characters considered as “goodies”, the heroines, linked to the good, are present in all telenovelas, originating in the archetypes, from the Greek archetypes (primitive model) of Jungian psychology: “the goody/heroine constitutes one of the main ingredients of a telenovela. An element inherited from feuilleton, melodrama, fairy tales, literature in general” (Brandão; Fernandes, 2015, p. 14 32 ters Jade, Odete and Porcina. On the other hand, Nazaré and Carminha, even as lovers, cherish feelings of love for their respective partners and break a paradigm: formal marriage is only a means of abandoning a position of oppression – poverty, in the case of Carminha; prostitution in the case of Nazaré – and ascend socially. As a result of female emancipation and sexual autonomy, confluent love (CL) refers to an active love, which presumes equality in emotional give-and-take and clashes with the “forever” and “only one” of the notion of romantic love (Giddens, 1992). In the Brazilian telenovela, confluent love, strongly linked to the sexual liberation of female characters, was the only category that united all the characters, which evidenced the way these different relationships are, as a whole, more based on equality and intimacy than on subordination or compliance with the law (Lopes et al., 2015). Considering, for example, that despite being a Muslim, Jade seeks a sex life associated with love, it is easy to see how feminine autonomy features all the telenovelas. From the rich and elegant Odete to the gaudy Porcina, we see women that are different – as regards religion, taste, social class, nationality – but sexually liberated. Some may even be open to romantic love, as long as that does not interfere with their goals (Rocha, 2016). Maternity (M), a highly valued theme and one of the main female representations in telenovelas (Sifuentes; Ronsini, 2011), continues to appear as fundamental in women’s lives, associated with femininity and “maternal affection”, very firm conceptions of female sexuality (Giddens, 1992). Pictured in four of the five characters analyzed – Nazaré, Carminha, Odete and Jade –, the weight given to the theme is so great that even villains find in motherhood their goal (Rocha, 2016) or weakness. If, on the one hand, motherhood is present in the lives of almost all the characters – except Porcina, who is not a mother –, on the other it does not necessarily appear associated with love for children. Carminha, for example, had an unreasonable love for Jorginho, although 33 she despised her other child, Agata, for being a woman and fat. And the controlling and authoritarian Odete manipulated the lives of children from her own interests. It is also worth mentioning that, before being mothers, they are women: even if extremely zealous about her daughter Isabel/Lindalva, Nazaré never annulled herself as a woman, seeking her own pleasure, be it sexual, economic or otherwise. Jade, in turn, considered leaving her daughter to stay with Lucas. This way, oscillating between stereotypes and disruptions over the feminine, these women build a hybrid and contradictory world, where – as it happens in Latin America – the new and the old meet and clash all the time. Martín-Barbero (2003) lists social ascension as one of the themes worked on by the feuilleton in order to respond to the social aspirations of the XIX century. Consolidating itself in the imaginary of the Brazilian viewer from Dancin’ Days (Globo, 1978) – when the telenovela begins to retro(feed) on the lower classes’ desire to ascend to the class portrayed on television (Straubhaar, 2007) – social rise/ maintenance (SR) means power of action for female characters – mostly the villains –and enables them to move other nuclei of which they are part (Rocha, 2016). Looking at the relationship between social rise/maintenance and female villainy (V)19 in Brazilian telenovelas, we realize how much the construction of these characters is also structured from a moral becoming: the woman who longs for class mobility – like Nazaré, Carminha e Porcina – or the maintenance of her social status – the case of Odete – is mostly built under the stereotype of the ambitious, calculating and ruthless villain. Keeping up with and often anticipating liberalizing behaviors, telenovela 19 Developing the villainy column offered a challenge regarding Viúva Porcina. After all, her attitudes during Roque Santeiro do not grant her the status of goody, nor can she be classified as a villain. Based on the classification system proposed by Eco (2002) regarding the presence and/or absence of relevant properties, we seek to find the signifier most suited to the antiheroine condition – on a gradual scale, zero (0) seemed what would best represent this property. Porcina shares characteristics that fit the kind of anti-hero that Vogler (2015) describes as tortuous – the one that is “forgiven” at the end of the story. According to Rocha (2016), this is the most common anti-hero type in telenovelas due to the moralizing role inherited from melodramatic pedagogy. 34 villains shift from the Christian ethos of renunciation and redemptive sacrifice, sweetness, self-denial and family value to a representation that authorizes feelings and behaviors previously relegated to men, linked to structures of power and freedom, to personal and selfish desires. One of the possibilities open to female characters from the 1970s, according to Hamburger (2014), was the world of work (W), which dialogues with the fact that women’s inclusion in the Brazilian labor market is constant and intense from this period (Dantas, 2018). However, in both the “real” world and the fictional worlds of telenovelas, this movement still has disparities between races, classes and genders. Issues like money, employment and rationality, in the ideological-cultural division promoted by patriarchy, traditionally make up the masculine order (Rocha, 2016). Furthermore, character trades and tasks are often addressed superficially. The persistence of gender stereotypes is revealed by the fact that the question of work (W) is relevant to only one of the characters. Odete Roitman is the only character presenting this property as primordial in its construction; It is worth noting, however, that she is also the only one whose absence of maternity (M), in the aforementioned senses, is a structuring condition. Nazaré, on the other hand, has taken action to shirk the responsibility to work; her counterpoint in Her Own Destiny, the young Maria do Carmo, reinforces this perception, since one of her main characteristics is precisely her devotion to work, the way she thrived in life. For the other characters this question is almost irrelevant. Given the above, we emphasize that, anchored on a logic that catalyzes the development of Latin America’s audiovisual industry with “the old stuff and anachronisms that are part of the cultural life of these peoples” (Martín-Barbero; Rey, 2001, p. 115), the Brazilian telenovela can be perceived as a field of expression in permanent formation and transformation. Oscillating between themes already recurring in melodrama and approaches that change, the characteristics that emerge from the characters provides us with an exercise in reflecting on the changes in gender relations in our own society. 35 5 Analysis of the reader’s world from questionnaire responses classified as use and interpretation categories Carminha seen by the public was essentially remembered by the character construction and the actress’s acting. Her ironic comicality, mixed with a significant dose of ambition and malice, gave a tone to the character that was memorable to viewers: “She was comic, solar, despite all the evils.” The actress’s interpretation is another key point in this construction. The character is increasingly identified with the actor who embodies it, transformed, therefore, “in a psychological and moral entity, charged with producing an identification effect in the spectator” (Aumont; Marie, 2007, p. 226). Other elements have to do with feminine/feminist issues that allow the emergence of strong and powerful women, who fight for something, are revolutionary, free and full of ambition, as well as for the fact that they are villains. Villainy appears as a feature that almost suffices to define why the character is remembered: “Carminha, an unforgettable villain”. The fascination with wickedness, characterized by an ironic and perverse comicality, in a character that is finally surrendered by the force of good, seems to have been the character’s seduction equation with the audience, who built a sense for Carminha and leaves her in a comfortable position of having the “good villains combo. Bad, good humored and popular.” And even though she is constantly remembered for her charisma and mockery, Carminha is the protagonist in a recently aired narrative with impressive audience numbers and remarkable repercussions on the digital social media. Other characteristics can be understood based on the Carminha read and constructed by the reader, a strong female character, bad, funny and ultimately human that was played by an actress who knew how to bring it to life by creating an empathetic and ironic villain, with freedom to speak and live what people can only achieve by proxy through the character. There is, in this repeated response of Carminha being the most remembered character of all, a dose of explanation that is at the work of character construction done by the author’s world, another in 36 the reader operation in giving Carminha the contours that appear in their memories (and answers in our questionnaire) and, finally, some justification that can be understood by the positioning of Brazil Avenue in the market context of the national cultural industry. The leading role of Her Own Destiny is played by Nazaré in direct opposition to Maria do Carmo. It was then expected that, for the readers, villainy was a category that would appear insistently in their reasons for reminding the character, an “authentic villain”, “incredible”, “villain archetype”. Two other striking categories from the reader’s world are character construction – “first crazy villain that captivated me enough to pay close attention to her story” – and the actress’s acting. He memorable phrases of marked derisive and comical tone resist oblivion. “Nazaré to this day is remembered for her lines and expressions.” Issues related to empathy, from Smith’s (1995) perspective of understanding its functioning as a matter not of sharing but of imaginative substitution, are present as well, although the character is a villain. Nazaré “revealed a side that everyone has but does not show through social filters, regarding comments and behaviors”, leading, after all, the reader to want to be as successful as the character – “the fact that things go wrong with her made her so close to the viewer that it was hard not to cheer for her.” Nazaré is the second most remembered character in the empirical research, but it is necessary to consider that the telenovela is eight years older than Brazil Avenue. However, Her Own Destiny has already been reprised two times and is also a success story.20 But it is its repercussion on digital social networks, resignifying the character through memes and GIFs, that allows its permanence in cultural memory: “The character goes on today because of the memes that went viral in social networks, making it impossible to forget it”; and even in readers’ affective memory: “I was underage and felt very afraid of Nazaré. Then 20 Prime time audience leader, considering the previous nine years. It was sold to more than 20 countries. Available at: http://memoriaglobo.globo.com/programas/entretenimento/novelas/ senhora-do-destino/curiosidades.htm. Accessed on: Jun 29, 2019. 37 I understood and began to love.” Renata Sorrah, interpreter of Nazaré, commented that the character changed her career more after it was co-opted as a meme in digital networks: “There is a whole generation that is a fan of Nazaré without ever seeing the telenovela. The memes were really a transformation in my career.”21 The @nazareamarga profile, for example, dedicated exclusively to the production of memes with the character, has 5.7 million followers on Instagram and 97,000 on Twitter.22 “It became a cult character of sorts, folks keep doing memes about her.” This scope of consumption, repercussion and reappropriation of telenovela content gives shape to a collective imaginary that is also woven by viewers’ historical and affective memories.” Nazaré surpassed the limits of the small screen. It won the Internet and remains alive to this day, many years after the end of the telenovela Her Own Destiny. It became an expression and part of the life of the Brazilian.” The construction of the character and the interpretation of the actress certainly guided the receivers to choose Odete Roitman. One of the reasons for the preference for Odete is her “striking, ironic and acidic memorable lines about Brazil that still make sense these days.” Thus, the character was mentioned as “the portrait of Brazil”, besides representing a “current reading of society”, validating that verisimilitude in the Brazilian telenovela is important for the viewer. Its function as a narrative of the nation allows the telenovela to operate as an agent of cultural memory – in the case of Odete, exemplified by the repercussion around her murder – insofar as the boundaries of collectivities become inseparable from the uses and appropriations of television. Another reason cited for choosing Odete Roitman was her villainy: “The best and biggest villain of Brazilian telenovelas” with “the delicious character failings we will never forget.” The villain is the antagonist who gives impetus to the narrative through his actions (Propp, 1984). Odete 21 Available at: http://revistaglamour.globo.com/Celebridades/noticia/2017/03/senhora-do--destino-renata-sorrah-comenta-os-memes-de-nazare-tedesco-e-volta-da-novela-em-2017. Access on Jun 28, 2019. 22 Data collected on: Jun 27, 2019. 38 was “a sophisticated villain who was wealthy, powerful, authoritarian and a successful businesswoman” (Rocha, 2016, p. 215). Even so, the public identified with the character, quoting her as “icon”, “striking” and “charismatic”, revealing empathy. For Smith (1995), the functioning of empathy is double: first, it acts as a search light in our construction of the narrative situation; and secondly it generates in the viewer, somehow attenuated, the predominant emotions of the characters in the world of the story. And the fact that she is an “ambitious” woman “with feminine force” shows us that feminine/feminist issues are also there. Viúva Porcina was remembered by readers especially by “exaggeration”, “humor” and “mockery”, characteristics that, besides her looks, were present in the loaded Northeastern accent, in gestures, in laughter and in the acting, considered by readers as “perfect, fun and playful”. So, the character, according to viewers, was “iconic”, “charismatic” and “funny” because “for the time it was remarkable, until today we remember, her unforgettable way of speaking and posture”. Due to her morally dubious behavior, Porcina was interpreted by readers from her “feminine empowerment”, a woman “ahead of my time, determined... beloved... extravagant”, “bold” and “authentic”. So feminine/feminists issues contributed to the rupture of the ideal of servile and well-behaved woman, establishing the counterpoint with the character Mocinha – Roque’s bride, who, after his “death”, made a vow of chastity and swore not to marry again. Porcina then broke with conservatism by following the dictates of her life as a false widow and subsequently composing a love triangle with Roque and Sinhozinho Malta, which made her be seen as “determined” and “strong”. Finally, Jade is especially remembered for launching fashion. The actress Giovanna Antonelli is recognized for being able to overflow her characters from the world of story to everyday uses and appropriations, which makes her an important value in marketing terms for the broadcaster. Her charisma, coupled with the character’s eccentric costume, inscribed Jade in cultural memory: “She was marked for the exoticism of the character, beauty and dance”; “For introducing me to a different culture as a child, I 39 found it beautiful to see her and other characters dancing.” Although she was from a highly male-dominated culture, Jade “was a strong young lady that fought against the family and Muslim religion because of the love of her life”– feminine/feminist issues that run through many of the readers’ words. 6 Final considerations Each of the characters carries the synthesis of the worlds of telenovelas to which it belongs and is interpreted in this work from the cooperation between the author’s world and the reader’s world. Even after becoming rich, Carminha brings with her the stereotype of the popular taste of Rio de Janeiro north zone – embodying the boundary between the suburban and south zone delimited by the avenue that gives name to the plot in question. Nazaré, in counterpoint to the prosperous Baixada presented in Her Own Destiny, summarizes the consolidated individualistic life standard of the Copacabana nucleus, where the rich are decadent and live to keep up appearances. Odete Roitman is an exponent of the maxim expressed in the title of her telenovela: Vale Tudo (Anything goes) – from allying herself with an ambitious (albeit poor) woman, controlling her children and even turning a blind eye to suspicious business in her companies. Viúva Porcina, “the one who was without ever having been”, expresses the trajectory of Roque Santeiro himself, the one “who died without losing his life”, and works metaphorically as a representation of coronelismo (colonels’ rule) in times of the New Republic. And Jade brings with her the threshold between western and eastern culture, narrative motto of The Clone. It is interesting to realize that even if it is configured as a force line in the projection of a multicultural and progressive society in Brazil (Lopes, 2009), the telenovela continues to build its characters and worlds from archaic models and ideas, establishing a negotiation with the viewer about the limits of how much the fictional worlds must advance in relation to the real world. These negotiations, based on the articulation between the poles of production and reception – that is, in the encounter 40 between the authors’ worlds and the reader/viewer’s worlds – must be understood as cooperation in the construction of the worlds of Brazilian telenovela. Such cooperation, more effective in the period when the telenovela is being aired due to its character of open work, continue to occur longitudinally due to the memory work of readers/viewers from characters whose possibilities insist on acting in an imaginary marked by aesthetically and culturally conditioned conditions. 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