Authority, resistance, and representing national values in the Brazilian television mini-series

Abstract

This article examines how politics, class, family, and morals form discourses of authority and resistance in the Brazilian television mini-series’ representations of national values. The Brazilian mini-series is first placed in a global perspective of genres and formats, including soap opera, the telenovela, the Brazilian series, and film. Following a methodological discussion, the article considers conceptualizations of authority, resistance, and national values within a critical framework, which anticipates how tensions of authority and resistance are represented in the Brazilian mini-series, and enables seeing how the practice of authorship becomes a contested site for television creators and critics of the Brazilian mini-series. The article concludes by arguing that tensions of authority and resistance in the mini-series’ representations of political, class, family, and moral frameworks reflect both historical and contemporary value-conflicts in Brazil. It also concludes by arguing that discourses surrounding production and critique of the television mini-series provide an understanding of the roles of authority and resistance in Brazil’s continuing negotiations of its national values.