The History of Brazilian Telenovelas

The telenovelas broadcast are among the most popular television programs in Brazil. The target audience is extremely faithful and is feverishly following the actors as they plot new intrigues and put complicated love affairs to the test. On your journey to Brazil, you will certainly see one or two novela flickering in the background, and you may even be able to follow the action without having to speak much Portuguese. The well-rehearsed music, a melodramatic play, and plenty of retrospectives let you get into the action relatively quickly.

However, before the first telenovelas were broadcast on television, they were limited to radionovelas. These were already broadcast in the 1940s by radio stations in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. A few years later, after television was also used as a popular medium by the Brazilians, they began to produce the radionovelas, which were initially only spoken, as film material.

In 1951 the first telenovela finally went on air. In the early phase, the popular love melodramas dominated, but soon isolated excerpts from "Brazilian reality" were also presented. At first, broadcasting was not a priority in the TV program and other genres were preferred to series. However, as more and more groups of viewers became interested in the telenovelas, they gradually became a basic ingredient of the daily TV program. The telenovelas gradually replaced other programs, and the broadcasting time grew from the original 20 minutes to half an hour per chapter.

The attempts of many producers to develop realistic Brazilian series failed in the early years due to a lack of capital. Brazilian broadcasters were dependent on sponsors with their agencies, which mainly produced Cuban, Mexican, and Argentinean scripts. The desire to portray Brazilian reality grew, however, and so an attempt was made to at least make the action in Brazil at home. An active advocate of this tendency was the Brazilian director Avancini. He worked hard to make explosive topics from Brazilian everyday life appear in the scripts. The director was faced with the challenge of asserting himself against the commercial interests of the sponsors. It was difficult to dissuade them from the concept that had been practiced up to then, which only showed the audience fantasy worlds far removed from Brazil.

The breakthrough finally came in 1968 with the telenovela "Beto Rockfeller". This series had its setting in Brazil and differed from the previous novelas mainly through its modern staging. The series is about a young shoe salesman who pretends to be a millionaire under a fake surname and thus runs in the upper social circles. At the same time, however, he continues his life in the lower middle class, creating a complicated double life. For the first time a colloquial language was used and the plot described situations in which large parts of the audience could find themselves. The modernization of the genre celebrated great success with the public, and many broadcasters followed this example by trying to portray parts of Brazilian reality. Major TV stations, such as Rede Globo, organized their programming by dividing the telenovelas into three subgenres. Thus, at 7 pm mainly humorous formats were shown and the series broadcast at 8 pm was about love, intrigue, and adventure. The telenovelas that were broadcast in succession at 10 p.m. addressed an audience with educational aspirations with socially critical stories. Not all novelas are the same, and the topics presented are aimed at different target groups. The stories and the situations they deal with not only serve to entertain, but also to disseminate modern ideas and new approaches.

If you too want to experience a piece of the Brazilian world, the best way to start your adventure on your trip to Brazil is to start your adventure. On the 10-day round trip Best of Brazil, you will discover the lively metropolis Rio de Janeiro and make your way through the untouched nature of the Amazon landscape. Relax on the beautiful and famous beaches in Rio and marvel at the huge waterfalls in Foz do Iguaçu. The varied country will captivate you. If you can't wait for your trip to begin, you can soothe your wanderlust by watching a telenovela.