Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Theodicy and Ideology: ‘Everybody Needs an Ideology to Live’
- Chapter 2 The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth; But in the Meantime They Shall Watch Telenovelas
- Chapter 3 Suffering Soaps; Fragmented Bodies
- Chapter 4 The Politics of the Vagina
- Chapter 5 The Redemptive Womb
- Chapter 6 The Invisible Back
- Final Feliz
- Illustrations
- Table: Women Respondents
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Foreword
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Theodicy and Ideology: ‘Everybody Needs an Ideology to Live’
- Chapter 2 The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth; But in the Meantime They Shall Watch Telenovelas
- Chapter 3 Suffering Soaps; Fragmented Bodies
- Chapter 4 The Politics of the Vagina
- Chapter 5 The Redemptive Womb
- Chapter 6 The Invisible Back
- Final Feliz
- Illustrations
- Table: Women Respondents
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Nietszche identified a general human propensity to find meaning in suffering. As he pointed out in The Genealogy of Morality, it is not the suffering itself that humans find so unbearable in life, but rather the fact that it is meaningless (1994, 127). Under conditions of poverty everybody suffers, but it is the women in the slums who are most creative in their attempts to glorify it. Men do not have the same notions of altruism and sacrifice – this is not how they define themselves as men. Nietzsche identifies Christianity as the most successful ideology to give meaning to suffering. The telenovelas give it a modern and glamorous gloss.
However, the telenovelas and the religious stories about the world are not ones that the women in the bairros have actively chosen, or ones over which they have any influence. Yet they are the most accessible form of sociability that the women have. This is reminiscent of their great grandparents' experiences of the dominant culture, as described by Gilberto Freyre:
The Slaves are not asked whether they will be baptized or not. The entrance into the Catholic Church is treated as a thing of course: and indeed they are not considered as members of society, but rather as brute animals, until they can lawfully go to mass, confess their sins, and recite the sacrament. As the result of contagious example and social pressure, the Negro slave in Brazil rapidly became infused with the dominant religion. […]
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Body Parts on Planet SlumWomen and Telenovelas in Brazil, pp. 121 - 124Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2011