Pantanal (soap opera)

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Pantanal

A small sub-category of the telenovela genre is the ecological or environmental telenovela, whose purpose is to dramatize, and hence raise audience awareness of environmental degradation or deterioration. [1] One of the best known of these is Pantanal, which was produced by Brazil’s TV-Manchete and ran for 216 episodes in 1990.[2]

Pantanal brings to the screen a visually lush and enticing product in which traditional telenovela storylines and plot-devices are wed with cinematic audiovisual techniques that make the production look more like a movie than a television program. It is this visual appeal, coupled with the introduction of female frontal nudity to Brazilian prime-time television that allowed TV-Manchete to dominate the audience share in this prime-time slot for the first time, overcoming perpetual ratings leader TV-Globo. [3]

While the unusual storyline, special effects and erotic nature of the novela certainly attracts the attention of viewers, it is the location that truly makes this production stand out in the crowded telenovela line-up. Typically, the majority of telenovela productions are filmed indoors, in order to streamline production schedules and minimize costs. For example, TV-Globo’s scripts are habitually located in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo,[4] allowing them (as is common practice throughout the industry) to use stock exterior footage of the city to complement the majority of the scenes, which are filmed in large, closed sound stages. Therefore, Pantanal, novel in its outdoor, rural setting, may be even more interesting to urban novela audiences because it introduces them to a part of their country few are familiar with – the Pantanal region of the southwestern Brazilian states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul.

The Pantanal region, whose name derives from the Portuguese word “pântano” (meaning “swamp” or “marsh” ),[5] is a wetland, or alluvial plain, that covers parts of central-western Brazil, eastern Bolivia and eastern Paraguay. Eighty per cent of the wetland’s total area is in Brazil, where it occupies more than 140,000 km².[6] It is frequently referred to as one of the largest freshwater wetland ecosystems in the world.[7] As part of the Paraguay floodplain, it is a depository for seasonal floodwaters from the Paraguay River and its surrounding tributaries (such as the Sao Lourenço, Cuiaba, Taquari, Miranda, Negro and Aquidauana).[8] The region has been called “an ecological paradise” and “an unparalleled wildlife sanctuary of spectacular beauty”[9] and has been compared to the Amazon rainforest in its density and its variety of flora and fauna.[10] It is one of the most densely packed hydrological eco-systems in the world; home to thousands of bird, butterfly, insect, fish, plant, reptile, and mammal species. Anaconda and caiman, tapir and giant river otter, toucan and macaw, among others, all make their home in the Pantanal – as does the jaguar.[11] It is this mysterious and beautiful world that provides the setting for Pantanal; a world that is home to river spirits who communicate with the human inhabitants and Juma Marruá, a beautiful young jaguar-woman who falls in love with Jovenito, an urbanite who returns to his birthplace to reconnect with his father and his roots in the land.

Pantanal’s producer (Nilton Travesso), author (Benedito Ruy Barbosa) and directors (Jayme Monjardim), Marcelo Barreto, Carlos Magalhães, and Roberto Naar)[12] use cinematic special effects to create a fantastic world in which they use the metamorphoses of a beautiful young woman into a jaguar (and then back into a woman again) as a plot-device. They also take advantage of the exotic locale to introduce a storyline that includes nudity and a more explicitly erotic style than had been seen in the genre before this point. This turned the up-and-coming Rio de Janeiro-born actress Cristiana Oliveira, who portrays jaguar-woman Juma Marruá, into a nationally recognized figure practically overnight and made Pantanal the most talked about program in Brazil.[13]

While Pantanal can be categorized as an “erotic” telenovela or a “supernatural” telenovela, it is as an ecological telenovela that its message still resounds more than fifteen years after it was first aired. Evidence of this can be found on the IMDb message board for Pantanal, in which a viewer/writer recently wrote:

Agora mais que nunca é que deveria ser transmitida, e não só em português, deveria ser traduzida para outras linguas para que o mundo se aperceba da importancia da Amazonia e tentar ajudar a preservar um legado que não pertence só ao Brasil, mas sim ao mundo...[14] (Rough translation– Now, more than ever, it should be aired, and not only in Portuguese, it should be translated into other languages so that the world can appreciate the importance of the Amazon and try to help preserve a legacy that not only belongs to Brazil, but also to the rest of the world…) The telenovela may be an entertainment medium, but they are most-watched genre of television program in the world, with at least two billion viewers worldwide. [15] It has been proven many times over that they have the power to transmit positive sociocultural messages that can have an impact upon the specific issue introduced by the novela plot. [16] In recent years, the ecology of the Paraguay River and the entire Pantanal Region has been threatened by plans to dredge the river and develop it as a waterway for commercial shipping. Pantanal, the telenovela, may serve to illustrate what would be lost forever if that were to happen.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Caesar, Terry; Eva Bueno (1998). "Introduction: The Politics of the Popular in Latin American Popular Culture". University of Pittsburgh Press. 
  2. ^ "Pantanal" (1990)
  3. ^ http://www.miradas.eictv.co.cu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=328&Itemid=48&lang=es
  4. ^ VEJA on-line
  5. ^ Yahoo!
  6. ^ UNEP-WCMC Protected Areas Programme - The Pantanal Conservation Complex
  7. ^ Waterland Research Institute
  8. ^ UNEP-WCMC Protected Areas Programme - The Pantanal Conservation Complex
  9. ^ Waterland Research Institute
  10. ^ A Brazilian Wetland, Burgeoning With Wildlife - New York Times
  11. ^ Waterland Research Institute
  12. ^ "Pantanal" (1990)
  13. ^ VEJA on-line
  14. ^ Register at IMDb.com
  15. ^ >Martinez, Ibsen (Nov-Dec 2005). "Romancing the Globe". Foreign Policy: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Iss. 151 p48 (9). 
  16. ^ >Brown, William J. (Winter 1992). "Sociocultural Influences of Prodevelopment Soap Operas in the Third World". Journal of Popular Film and Television, Vol. 19, 4 p157. 

[edit] External links

  • Please visit this web-site to learn more about the beautiful and endangered Pantanal region [1]
  • This link will take you directly to the Pantanal page IMDb [2]

[edit] See also

  • To learn more about the Paraguay River (Río Paraguay) that that runs through the Pantanal, and the controversial development plans that threaten the ecology of the entire region, please visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguay_River