Jane Addams has described in “The House of Dreams” the
negative influences that play can exert over young people by exhibiting
apparent realities and conducting them to over fantasize about certain aspects
of life (Peters & Simonson 2004). This notion of plays and its influence on
society, especially among young people and moreover women, could be compared to
the influence of television soap operas in Latin America. I took this example
because I had the opportunity to be part of the excitement generated by TV soap
operas among girls and even entire families and I have been always impressed
about the negative stereotypes that some of this shows are promoting among
young girls.
Storytelling is seen as the core of traditional and
modern media and as the reason for success of a mass medium, according to Debashis
Aikat in his work about Traditional and Modern Media. Street theaters,
television and staged melodramas are included in his category of traditional and
modern media. Thus, we can see the role of plays and television soap operas as
artifacts of storytelling and communication and how both serve in the
construction of a conception of life (Aikat n.d). In addition, both help to
build personal identity through identification with characters and they also
become moral guide for audiences, as Addams has discussed.
The stories and characters personalities’ has such a
strong impact on people’s lives. Addams does not “trust in media that promote
antisocial behavior and encourages flights of fancy among socially vulnerable
audience members” (Peters & Simonson 2004). She provided some examples of
different plays that encourage criminal behavior, revenge and moreover present
some negative stereotypes of how should woman behave in order to be “seen” and
keep attending those plays. She is impressed about how all these absurdities can
occupy an important part of leisure for Chicago society (Peters & Simonson
2004)
At the
end of the reading she proposes the idea of the city of Chicago offering more adequate
public recreation as whether plays in theaters could only have a negative
impact in society (Peters & Simonson 2004). If we also relate this notion
to the role and influence that television soap operas can have in Latin America,
we would say that they affect negatively the perceptions of people about moral
and life in general. However, there are some authors who present a different
perspective and say that soap operas in Latin America might serve as a vehicle
of both recreation and education.
In
fact, Umberto Eco, an Italian semiotician and philosopher, has described that
there are two contradictory perspectives regarding the role of television. One
group of people is called “integrated”
in they defend television as tool of communication and entertainment and the
other group the “apocalypticals”
rejected TV as they see it promoting violence and being superficial (Eco 1984)
Let’s
take a look of the perspective that, Beatriz Gonzalez, one Professor of
Communications and Master in Scriptwriting in a Mexican University has to say
about the role of soap operas. According the division that Umberto Eco has done
about perspectives on TV, she proclaims herself as an “integrated”. She
discusses that soap operas, especially in third world countries, have been used
as a vehicle capable of sending messages of social development and personal
growth. Of course, she makes clear that this has not been the initial purpose
that soap operas might have had initially (Gonzalez n.d).
The term “social” soap opera it has been
defined by Gonzalez in which it can become a tool to propose solutions and ways
to combat ignorance, abuses, misery, discrimination and sexual harrashment.
Thus, we see an opposite idea of what has been presented by Addams when she
states that plays in Chicago has served as a way to escape from reality and
that they had become a “veritable house of dreams”.
An
interesting phenomenon has taken place with TV soap operas in Brasil,
especially in those last 15 years. A famous production company of soap operas,
Red Globo (Red Globe) in Brazil have been including in their soap operas themes
such as alcoholism, sexual health, organs donation, preserving the environment.
This action has result in an award in 2001 of “Business in the community awards
of excellence”. A proof of this is new
approach to soap operas had been when a soap opera named “Lazos de Sangre”
(Blood Ties) has Camila as the main character. In the story, she has Leukemia.
Later, the producers of the show conducted a comparative study to detect
changes in health services. The study titled “Efecto Camila” (“The Camille
Effect”) revealed that the National Registry of Marrow Donor in Brasil
registered an average of 20 new donors per month and then in January of 2001,
when the soap opera emphasized the topic, there were 900 registrations
(Gonzalez n.d).
On the
other hand, another perspective on soap operas that I believe is aligned in a
way with what was presented by Adams is the work presented by a Mexican
researcher who is a Master in Philosophy Studies at University of Guadalajara. Tania Arias in her work named: “Telenovela:
Construccion del desarollo humano?” (Soap operas: Construction of
human development?). In this work, she focuses mainly in the effect of the soap
operas as a mass medium of communication which affects women as individuals
externally. According to Arias, feminine
identity as presented in the different characters is a representation of the
construction of patriarchal systems. Sexist stereotypes are presented to the
audience. She explores the example of a trilogy of novels shown during 1992 to
1996 in Mexico which were called: Maria la del Barrio, Maria Mercedes y
Marimar. All of them where characterized by the same actress in the main
character. They reached a massive audience in Latin America and in Europe as
well (Arias n.d)
Here it
is a trailer of this soap opera that was very famous around the 90’s in my
country and in Latin America. I am sorry that is in Spanish. I couldn’t find it
with English subtitles but at least you see the scenes and will have a sense
about what I am talking about:
Here is the same link in case you can't open:
Some
elements analyzed of these three soap operas are firstly the name of the main
character: Maria. In Mexico, this is one of the most common names and if is true
that the name Mary can evoke the name of the mother of God and a sense of
virginity it is true that the name Mary can also refer to a low level of social
and economic condition. This name has a connotation of poverty and marginality.
To sum up, the three novels presents the poverty and struggles of a humble
woman whose life it is going to be transformed by a man who lives in more
privileged conditions. Those stories are fake, distortion the reality and are
full of patriarchal content. What they present is the role of the women as a
passive individual who has to wait for a man to transform her condition. The
stories present a woman subordinated to comply with some moral rules where she
is dominated by men, conditioned only to marriage, procreation and protecting
children, as Arias described in her work.
The author even remarks that there are some
soap operas which even depict a woman of high social and economic status and professionally
developed who is still emotional dependent and subordinated by men. Those kinds
of soap operas as seen by Arias do not promote equality of sexes or equal
rights to both genders. In addition, they do not promote awareness in woman
that is conducive to their self-development. Thus, those types of Mexican soap
operas reproduce patriarchal systems where woman does not find growth and
development by herself instead she is subordinated to others (Arias n.d)
By
trying to reconcile those two contrasting points of views about the role of
soap operas in Latin America and how this relate to the notion of some media
and recreation can lead to negative behaviors and thoughts, as Addams
described, I have two thoughts about this:
1) As we
have seen that some Brazilian soap operas are creating awareness and promoting
social actions such as donating organs or preserving the environment…why they
haven’t start to change and present more positive role models for woman in
which they are happy and achieve success by living their lives in a different
way and not only being subordinated to men? Does American soap operas depict the
same reality? I am not trying to be seen as a super feminist. It is just that I
believe maybe soap operas are really misleading women by not helping them to
build a more positive, realistic and independent vision of themselves and their
potential. They aren’t even portraying a healthy view of relationships and love
and I think that is dangerous. In some way, I agree with Adams in the way she
sees some plays as promoting undesirable behaviors.
2) All the
stories are displayed in those plays and soap operas are just imposed by the
creation of producers, scriptwriters or are a reflection of the current state
of society and main aspirations of man and woman? Is this what people wants to
see or it is something imposed by others?
Sources:
Aikat, D. (n.d.). Traditional
and Modern Media. In Journalism & Mass Communications Vol I.
Retrieved January 18, 2013, from http://www.eolss.net/Sample-Chapters/C04/E6-33-02-04.pdf
Arias,
T. Y. (n.d.). Telenovela: Construccion del desarrollo humano?. In VIII
Congreso Iberoamericano de Ciencia, Tecnologia y Genero. Retrieved January
18, 2013, from http://arcaz.ppgte.ct.utfpr.edu.br/eventos/cictg/conteudo_cd/E11_Telenovela.pdf
Eco,
U. (1984). Apocalipticos e Integrados. Spain: Ed. Valentino
Bompiani. Retrieved January 18, 2013, from http://www.bsolot.info/wp-content/pdf/Eco_Umberto-Apocalipticos_e_integrados.pdf
Peters, J. D., & Simonson,
P. (2004). Mass Communication and American Social Thought. Key
Texts:1919-1968. Maryland, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Rubin,
B. G. (n.d.). La telenovela como fenomeno social. Retrieved
January 18, 2013, from http://www.alaic.net/alaic30/ponencias/cartas/Telenovela/ponencias/GT22_4rubin.pdf
Maria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the interesting perspective. As I read Addams' The House of Dreams I couldn't help but think of the recent debate about gun control in the U.S. In particular, many attribute gun violence in part to desensitization due to excessive exposure to violent video games. While I don't necessarily subscribe to this view, Addams seems to argue that attendees of the turn of the century theater stepped out of the playhouses with a new inability to distinguish between the fantasy they saw and what was reality. She felt this affected their moral compasses. Many people today argue the same thing about excessive video game use, that it warps impressionable minds. Personally, I think it is one factor, but hardly the only one. When I lived in Japan for example I noticed that video game usage, violent games especially, was much higher there than here in the U.S., particularly among children. Despite that, it didn't equate to higher violent crime, and there were only a handful of gun deaths. I can only imagine how Addams would react to the media of today.
Brent
Brent, thanks for your comments. That is an interesting perspective because it would mean that violence is not asociated with video games only. I am curious to see what other factors might play a role on this. Maybe other types of media? Movies? Social media? Books? Or even they might be other factors outside of media like family influences, where parents are gun collectors and they transmit all this gun "culture" to their kids as The last case of shooting in Connecticut where the mom was a long time gun collector.
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