Analysis Of Representations Of Women In "The Big Family ( A Grande Familia) "

he way cultural products are built for mass reveals patterns and negotiations with the traditions of the culture that consumes them. In Brazil, this relationship is most noticeable in the fictional television, which expose the habits, beliefs, tendencies and contradictions, triggers the process of recognizing the public from the stories developed.

Television imposes itself as a privileged space in contests of strength between the traditions and cultural practices emerging.Although favoring at first the conservative social sectors, the tendency of producers of audiovisual narratives is to balance the multiple expressions of culture. This interferes with the negotiating permanent individual and collective behavior of people in their daily lives. Consumption - understood here as an active practice, regulatory, cultural products, and they also changed - from fictional narratives can reinforce or introduce new values in society.

All these values shape social identities, which interfere and suffer interference of social representations, a circular process.Individuals and social groups are formed as social subjects from the representation, expressed in speech and also the difference from the other's place.

As regards the formation of the subject, gender issues play an important role. It is the feminist movement that integrates important issues related to the subject and subjectivity in social theory through a design that part of the psychological unconscious.

It is on this premise that we intend to examine the representations of women in "The Great Family," because the high ratings suggest that a good part of Brazilian women identify with the representations constructed there. To achieve the proposed objective, we will use the concepts of television series, sitcom, social representation, social identities, feminism and social representation of women.

The characters are to be analyzed Nene, and Marilda Bebel. The remarks refer to the first ten episodes of the second season of 2006, therefore, is not seeking an overall analysis of the sitcom, but a statement of general characteristics that can detect the representation of women in cultural product chosen.

1. The television series

The show consists of a dramatized production made especially for TV. Different attractions like the miniseries and soap operas, this program is built from a mixed structure, where the episodes can be understood separately, and in relation to the broader set where they live. This alternative is only possible because, within the larger unit of the series, each episode features a relative autonomy (beginning, middle and end), which turns off allowing the understanding of the viewer.(Pallottino, 1998)

The unity of the series is given by fixed accompanying the entire program, such as, for example, the narrative structure, characters or a central theme. However, as stated Pallottini, such cohesion is primarily provided by another reason. "The drive is through an author's purpose, a goal by copyright, a worldview that he intends to convey.." (Pallottino, 1998, p. 30)

So, so you can meet such a vision in the works, the show runs from a connection process, in which events appear in an episode must be in accordance with the features present throughout the series. For Pallottini, there must always be careful "not to conflict with what was established as basic and fundamental in the character of the characters in his will, in its objectives" (Pallottino, 1998, p. 48). Moreover, one must be attentive to the character of the cumulative series, since, because it is a sequential product, any changes appear in the episode today also passed on the program tomorrow [1].

1.1 The Sitcom

Abbreviation for Situation Comedy [2], the term sitcom refers to a particular format of TV series that operate from the comic [3]. Always seeking to explore the funny side of situations, the operation of the program revolves around the events that permeate the everyday lives of central characters. The problems and confusion, are the main narrative and schemes tend to be developed within a few stationary environments that make up the central theme of the program - hence the use of a few scenarios, which ends up cheapening production.

The narrative structure of each episode features the deployment, development and solution of a particular conflict, which ensures a degree of autonomy to the parties that make up the show. Moreover, like all humor is based on the posture of the characters at this key position, the sitcom requires that there be a strong characterization of the people involved in the plot, so the public can learn quickly the ways and personalities who were present - is precisely why the costumes, settings and behaviors are so striking in this format.

However, one must take into account that laughter can only be achieved if there is a set of ideas and values in common between the public and the situations that are intended to be funny. As pointed Saliba (2002, p. 29), for something to provoke laughter, there must be "a kind of tacit culture, silent, glued to men as a shadow (...)". Furthermore, that this mood is always reinforced, clear and easy to grasp, it is necessary to use elements such as repetition and redundancy in the narrative development of the program.

1.1.1 The Sitcom in Brazil

Inspired by television comedy I Love Lucy [4], the first sitcom made in Brazil was Alo Sweetness (1953-1964), followed years later by programs geared towards the Brazilian reality, as The Big Family (1972 - 1975). However, domestic production of format only bolstered from the nineties, when competition among the broadcasters' advertising has intensified with the entry of closed channels in the country. Aiming to capture a larger share of audience, Globo decided to bet on the sitcom,recognizing the success of the format in other countries.

One of the series that marked the beginning of these productions was Sai de Baixo (1996-2002). Aired on Sunday on Globo TV, the program was taped in a theater of São Paulo, which had enabled a greater interaction between the actors and the audience throughout the show. Three years after the end of production, the diarist and opened under new management,serials for success that remain in the air until today [5] the same station. However, such productions are not restricted to Rede Globo. In 2006, for example, launched overwhelming Record, sitcom inspired by the movie namesake Mara Mourão.

1.2 The Large Family

Launched in 1972, the first version of The Great Family was originally inspired by the television comedy All in the Family. After the first two years of display, the program has set aside its foreign roots and was adapted to the national reality, incorporating Brazilian elements to his story. However, due to the death of one of the authors [6] of the show was ultimately canceled the sitcom soon the next year. Return only occurred thirty years later [7], when the Globo decided to invest in.

The Great Family [8] chronicles the daily situations faced by a Brazilian family of lower middle class and its neighbors. The show tackles issues such as unemployment and sexism, but everything always from a perspective of humor, which does not invalidate the social critique present there. These issues constitute one of the main features of the program, which is the proximity between the cases being narrated and the reality of many Brazilians - the reason for which is usually attributed much of the success [9] program.

The main characters are: Linnaeus (Marco Nanini) Nene (Marieta Severo), Bebel (Guta Stresser), Tuco (Lucio Mauro Filho), Augustine (Pedro Cardoso), Marilda (Andrea Beltrão) and Beiçola (Marcos Oliveira).

2. Social Representation

After presenting the concepts of television series and sitcom, and brief contextual format (sitcom) in Brazil, it is necessary to a presentation of the concept of social representation so that we can understand the strategies of female representation in "The Great Family," which is the main objective of this work.

The complexity of post-modern societies has created new ways of understanding reality. Developed, therefore, a practice that brings people into groups and those in society (understood as a heterogeneous and dynamic).

The social representation is then theorized as a practice adopted individually and collectively. It is a set of values, ideas and practices developed and identified in groups, which guides individuals to recognize, both to each other, for the training materials of society (institutional entities and facts). People create and share ideas about reality that are embedded to understand it and also to communicate with each other with each other. Since it involves cultural systems and values, the term combines cognitive and affective aspects.

It is through discursive practices that the social representation operates, allowing the claim and the reinvention of tradition.The accumulation of cultural products (art, myths, linguistic expressions) how the social imaginary, whose relationship with the cultural productions in development, structure representations. It is a collective process that relies not only on scientific knowledge, but also on common sense.

The collective aspect of social representations is characterized by the fact that these individuals take ownership so active, though not independent producers. This appropriation is publicized and incorporated into society through communication.Having a privileged space for development in the public sphere, social representations maintain a relationship of dependency with the media, mediating the individual and collective representations.

The media functions as space-borne and construction of discourses common to the repertoire of representations of the society of which it forms part. Whereas the object of this study, we focus our analysis on the social representations produced in the fictional narratives on TV. On the fictional text, Leal (2004, p. 8) states that:

The textual space is the place of a game between reality and imagination that not only breaks through any language referentiality as open to infinite semiosis. (...) For real, it is understandable if not exactly a "given" raw, sensitive, but also systems of thought, diversity of texts and discourses that lead to the arrest and the organization of everyday worlds. Thus, one can see that the nature of the relationship between the fictional and the real challenges a conception of representation as imitation. Once the dummy, to be constituted, transformed the data to associate it with the non-given, with the invisible, he has something to be compared, which results from the fictional transfiguration of reality is another that can not be deduced from empirical data.

The appropriation of the symbolic elements of culture, associated with the creation of the "invisible" produces meaning, identities and subjects. Audiovisual works of fiction are the property of reflecting the culture that produces and consumes from the exposure of habits, beliefs, tendencies and contradictions. They can enhance or change patterns of behavior, insofar as their fictional universes dialogue with the culture in a continuous negotiation with the social paradigms. Duarte (2003, p. 2) draws a profile of the relationship between audiovisual products and the companies that host them:

There seems to be a dynamic interplay of forces that causes the large producers and backers of audiovisual narratives that have, somehow, reflect the trends of innovation that arise within complex societies, if only to criticize them. The media tends, in principle, to favor the positions of the majority, generally more conservative. However, when it discusses emerging issues and puts them in debate, even trying to capture only the voices of the many hegemonic discourses produced around that theme, favors the emergence of new ideas

Stuart Hall, the theoretical ground for Cultural Studies, puts the representations on immediate basis of cultural identities and policies. The way individuals and social groups are represented interfere in the formation of social subjects. This category - social subject - assumed identities, aware that they are always representations, and that representation is always built on difference, detected from the place of another.

2.1. Social representations social identities x

The concept of identity is related to a fragmented conception multiply constructed across discourses, practices and positions (which may even be antagonistic). Globalization is the process responsible for the current understanding of the term, which begins to evoke aspects of a common origin, using the resources of history, language and culture for the production, not what we are, but what we can be. (STUART, HALL, 2000)

The identity is constructed, therefore, from the relationship between discursive practices and the reconceptualization of the subject. They relate to the invention of tradition and the tradition itself. According HALL (2000, p. 109):

They (the identities) narrativization arise from the self, but the necessarily fictional nature of this process does not diminish in any way, its effectiveness discursive, material or political, even a sense of belonging, that is, the "seam to history" by through which identities arise is, partly, in the imagination (as well as the symbolic) and therefore always, in part, built on fantasy, or at least within a fantasy camp "

By being constructed within the discourse, identities must be seen as produced in specific institutional and historical sites, for strategies and specific initiatives. The audiovisual fiction as one of the spaces in which identities are constructed, has specific ways of producing representations of individuals and social groups. The possibilities of identification of subjects with these representations vary with the target audience for whom the stories are created, characters and scenic elements that establish the relationship between product and viewer. To understand the strategies of representation of women in 'The Great Family, "we need to draw a general picture of women's identities, which are related to their specific forms of social representation.

3. Social History of the Representation of the Feminine

3.1 Patriarchate and Feminism

Patriarchy is a form of family organization, which, through sexist arguments of inferiority of the female figure, focuses on the role of man as family provider. It is not here, however, a system dedicated to the power of the father, but an organization that excels in male power as a social category.

With the discovery of agriculture, hunting and fire, nomadic communities are of fixed territory, a process that would culminate with his sedentary. Would be up to men the responsibility for procuring food by hunting, while women would increasingly be responsible for caring for children and the cultivation of land.

Once known for male participation in reproductive and later established a private property, relations began to be predominantly monogamous in order to guarantee an inheritance to legitimate children. The body and sexuality of women came to be controlled by men and have set the sexual and social divisions of labor. Is this how we are establishing the patriarchate, a new social order centered on patrilineal descent and the control of men over women.

Over time, however, society has been organized by the decisions taken in public areas - politics, economics, religion and production - led by men. The logic patriarchalist continued restricting the role of women within the private domain, namely, the reproductive and family sectors. Restricted to domestic life and the knowledge of the emotional domain, women did not participate in the processes of discussion, deliberation and formation of social norms.

Thus, female identity was being constructed from characteristics such as passivity, emotion and devotion to family. The ideology of love, built on the subordination of women within the private domain, contributed to reproduce a representation of your social and dependent upon man for the role of wife, professional inactivity and the need to escape through the imagination. Love-romantic linked, therefore, the patriarchal logic, spreading the representation of domesticity of women and marriage as the only means of attaining happiness of women.

The feminist movement has emerged to oppose the repression against women and to challenge the barriers that hindered women's participation in political life and productive in their communities. Socio-political or social movement theory, feminism brought profound criticism of sexism and patriarchy.

Feminism broke even in the '60s, the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, CCCS, directed at the time, Stuart Hall, in Birmingham, England. The move represented a disruption of the theory that was being made, allowing a reorganization of the field where they were located. Issues related to power that the culture within a society had left the narrow scope of criticism to the social division of classes, to question the inequality between genders. It was the first time that personal issues were beginning to take a political character.

Associated with gender and sexuality, necessary for the understanding of social power, now expanded beyond the notion of public domain, feminism has brought, in addition for Cultural Studies, important issues related to the subject and subjectivity, through a theory social thought from the unconscious psychological (subject capable of resisting). Michel Foucault summarizes the changes wrought by feminism from the new relationship that now exists for him between power and subjectivity, between power and sexuality, and especially between power and gender constitution.

Initially denying the existence of a power founded on the social division of labor between men and women, the feminist movement had its first major victory in the Industrial Revolution in the nineteenth century, with the inclusion of women in the labor market. From this moment it occurs rapprochement between the feminist and left movements. Only in the 30s, however, is that feminism is to focus more on subjective questions, going to add to your list of Claims the right of women as subjects of sexual satisfaction.

In years 70 and 80, women began to revolutionize the way they live their sexuality, especially when they discovered the possibility to control the playback through the pill. Moreover, they began to migrate into the public domain, collapsing with the cult of domesticity. The patriarchal order, though still prescriptive and normative in the structuring of roles and family relations was thus in many situations, subverted. The men began to devote more domestic chores, while women increasingly took on professional independence.

Even traces of which still persist sexist elements determining norms and customs in today's society, issues relating to gender broadened the horizons of society for the formation of woman as an individual and the importance of building their multiple personalities. More important, however, than to describe the types of existing women's identities, is to analyze how the social representations of women, important factors influencing the construction of these identities have been made today.

3.2 Women's Representation

When analyzed in television products, different elements of utterances (clothes, costumes, images, sound, speech) about the various groups of women, we understand that in that particular place there, rather than specific individuals to speak, subject is constituted and constituting, since, as Foucault writes, the subject of the statements is a "particular place and void", which can be effectively occupied by different individuals. That "something else" here relates to the feminine and the ways to be a woman.

After so many changes, today's woman, it is thus, among other things, from different representations of women that have been made by the company, based on characteristics such as autonomy and subjectivity of women. However, while they are influenced by such reproductions of the feminine, the women are acting through their multiple behaviors on their own representations, bringing more and more, issues of sexual freedom and independence of the professional woman to the media.

For Foucault, however, while acknowledging, in the current media, the many achievements of feminist struggles in the ways we build representations of emotion, body and sexuality of women, there are still many elements in the patriarchal discourses television, which put the woman in permanent position culprit. This means that if on the one hand, she has overcome many obstacles, achieving greater sexual freedom and increasing the female love beyond the home closing, on the other, patriarchal remnants still hold to the ideal of romantic love and sexual modesty.

The result is a contemporary woman who, despite not being more willing to fully relinquish their professional aspirations in the name of love and family, still yearns strongly share your life with an ideal partner, having set aside, inevitably part of their individuality in favor of a relationship. However, this ideal love is being increasingly postponed to the moment when the woman has gained some financial autonomy and professional.

Faced with a significant increase in the rate of unmarried women with a high level of professional training, financial independence and freedom from sexual experience, the great conflict of women today is, therefore, to combine professional success and individual autonomy, so battles for movement feminist, with the romantic ideal, still regarded as essential to seal the feminine ideal of happiness.

Based on different identities and at the same time acting on the formation of the various personalities of the contemporary woman, the current representations of women reflect the diversity of behaviors, located between the independence of women, won by the feminist movement, and the ideal of romantic love, inherited from the patriarchy . The study therefore aims to examine the representations of women on the show The Big Family, from the analysis of its three characters Nene, Bebel and Marilda.

4. Analysis of characters

4.1 Nene

Performed by actress Marieta Severo, Nene is the female character that reproduces most brands of patriarchy that still exists in much of Brazilian society. Wife of Linnaeus (Marco Nanini) and mother of Tuco (Lucio Mauro Son) / Bebel (Guta Stresser), Nene is the woman who believes in man as provider relationship, while reserving for itself a limited role to tasks domestic and emotional support the family.

In ten episodes observed for the production of this present work, the character of Marieta Severo proved dependent on the male figure and the children, demonstrating believe that their personal development was focused only on the happiness of his family. Because of this, Nene seemed to spare no effort to devote himself entirely to the home, which includes everything from serving the table during meals, to comfort and protect your loved ones when you want it to be accurate.

Another turning point in the representation of character is the benevolence and kindness that exudes Nene - Feature traditionally assigned to be female. Always trying to understand it all and end all fights that take place, the wife of Linnaeus introduced a goodness that comes to forgive enemies (as seen in "Wicked") and sometimes to the verge innocence (as in "The bastard "when her friend's character says" just yourself, Nene, to trust Augustinho ... "- a well known trickster).

But the features do not contain the character there. Always glad to say how Linnaeus is a man of values [10] "and a" hero [11], Nene often shows a certain fear to say harsh words to her husband. In "The bastard," for example, the character is fairly cautious about disclosing to Linnaeus what to really think about it: "I think you're sometimes a little too strict." In yet another episode [12], after renting a house 'falling apart', realizes that Nene will not be able to account for all storage alone.However, instead of trying to talk it out more forcefully with her husband's character, merely saying "do not know if I'll have the strength to straighten it all here, not ... [13th]."

Moreover, often using phrases that require the approval of Linnaeus [14], Nene often gives clues not to call their own interests in terms of what her husband wants. In "The Lord of the Castle," for example, the couple's home is rented for the son-Augustine, which ends up triggering a series of conflicts, since all the family are now having to live under one roof. Facing the crisis, Nene promptly throws the decision to her husband: "Linnaeus, if you are dissatisfied, we leave (the house)."

Another important character is that Nene also has demonstrated over the episodes, some vanity - trait commonly associated with the feminine image. Proof of this is that in addition to frequent the salon [15], the celebrated character enough to win a hair dryer on "The Pagodão's Mama." In the episode "The Day Surprise," the vanity of Nene seems to be, somehow, criticized and challenged as something incomprehensible. That's because Linnaeus, amazed with his wife, mocks the fact that lend character to her friend's husband [16], but not do the same with the dress you just win.

4.2 Bebel

Maria Izabel, Bebel, is a typical example of the contemporary woman. Married Augustine Carrara, Tinho, she is a character ambiguous, which is divided between work life and love addiction in relation to her husband. Despite helping to support the house with his income as a hairdresser in the salon Marilda, Bebel abdicated much of their individuality for the sake of his relationship with Tinho, with their happiness, yet very tied to the ideal of romantic love.

While that has close ties of dependency with Tinho, Maria Isabel, however, charge constantly husband's rights as a woman, which generates the constant fights witnessed by the viewer. The division of housework and their sexual desires are the main demands of the character. "I'm young and I need sex," is what it says Bebel, when he seems to want it enough, in the episode "The mocro.

The concerned mother is another essential element in the representation of character. Built for almost all life on her parents' house, Nene and Linnaeus, Bebel has a great dependency on the mother. No wonder she and Augustine, even after marriage, decide to live next to Nene. Small rooms and simple combinations fancy, antique furniture and a side door giving direct access to the mother's home is home, sweet home, Bebel, located in the suburbs.

Despite having, then, that the elements depicted as a woman, like your sex life and her profession, Bebel has also a childlike side that is clearly reinforced by the attitudes of the character in the face of quarrels with her husband . As shown the first scene of the episode "Every jack to his trade," the first thing you do before Bebel any disagreement with Augustine's pack our bags, grab your huge teddy bear and moving to her mother's house to occupy, along with his brother Tuco (perhaps more childish than her) the rooms of them since they were small.

That their ambiguity between girl and woman can also be observed in the clothing of the character itself. On one side, red nails, red hair and skirts just show all the sexuality of Bebel. The other, the combination of bold colors and style of clothing, socks and shoes to remind the viewer of a doll figure, showing the side of the child character.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the coexistence of the couple and Bebel Augustine with Linnaeus and Nene, sometimes becomes a strategic element in the construction of episodes, which are drawn parallel to compare the two relationships. Although Bebel be less subject to the mother of Augustine and be more macho than Linnaeus, many similarities can be detected in both marriages. In "The mocro," for example, the secret sexual desires of Linnaeus and Augustine are presented from reactions almost identical Nene and Bebel. The two fight, leaving to speak with their husbands, leading them to ask them for forgiveness.

Maria Izabel, then, is a character with features that preclude a closed and complete description of its representation. With elements still patriarchal, who subordinate their will to the satisfaction of her husband, mixed with feminist characteristics - sexual desire and professional freedom - Bebel is divided between a woman of strong personality and a child who depends on the love of her husband and her mother's lap .

4 .3 Marilda 

Marilda is a single woman, owns a beauty salon, inseparable friend of Nene. She was married to Mendoza Tuco and dated. Their affective experiences are unfortunate, giving the character a pragmatic view of love relationships. Marilda has a tenuous connection with the representation of the romantic ideal, therefore, aims to reach its fulfillment in love, but do not have this desire as the main goal in life - his conception of love does not coincide with completion of the Nene. If Marilda find someone who wants to establish a stable relationship, she will not give up their independence, their vanities and their freedom. Perhaps that is why their relationships do not exceed certain limit. 

Marilda do not mind not being married, although belonging to a generation that values the "institution of marriage." This and other figures traditionally linked to female representation, such as gender bound only to the loving relationship or romantic sacrifice, are the main tipping points such representation in its characterization. She does not share the romanticism often attributed to females. However, the character is living a paradox. If, on the one hand, it presents itself as an independent woman, cool and avoiding moralism - that seems to worship the living dynamic and agitated maiden - in its intimacy, reveals that preserves traditional feminine ideals and values, as the exaltation of love and demand for individual fulfillment in love. 

The release of Marilda with most of the romantic ideals closer to feminist discourses, verbalizing some radical positions on the opposite sex. In the episode in which Linnaeus vacations from work to watch the World Cup, instead of traveling with Nene (who is furious with the situation), Marilda reveals his opinion about men: 

Where's Linnaeus and Tuco who are not watching the game? (...) By the time we wanted them to leave the front of the television they were here, stuck. There's time that we resolve to see the game they are not there?! (Nene) 

- Nene, you've never heard that for every action there is an opposite reaction? (...) Man just watching football on television to hurt women. When we're not around they do not care. It is a counter reaction to our action. (Marilda) 

Despite living alone, Marilda's friendship with the Silva family places as part of their conflicts, problems and celebrations. One example is his participation in the dinner hosted by Augustine (who actually received money borrowed from Nene to pay it) to celebrate Mother's Day in one of the episodes of the program [17]. 

In an environment where all residents of the neighborhood know each other's lives, Marilda is a kind of catalyst for the gossip of the place, which often reach the core of the program, because most of the plot takes place based on some "misunderstanding , which destabilizes the axis of the family. 

Regarding life, the character is more prominent when it comes to financial independence of women. Owner of the main hall of the neighborhood, Bebel employs and manages the venture alone. Is associated with female reality now works inside and outside the home. The professional autonomy and the fact alone allows you to live a pattern of consumption returned to their aesthetic concerns. The vanity is revealed by his costume, always composed of fancy dress, with exaggerated colors and prints. 

His shop is one of the locations where the plots develop. The episode where Tuco makes a technical course in hairdressing and he gets a place in the hall Marilda illustrates the feature of this environment in "The Great Family." [18] In this story, the character works as a key part in the development of the conflict: it is she who has the power to accept or not the ex-boyfriend as an employee. 

Generally speaking, the characterization of Marilda has links with traditional representations of women, however, the character is mainly associated to representations of the contemporary woman, considering the figures cited above.However, this approach with contemporary representations is not advanced enough to build an independent character performed professionally and emotionally. It is still common in fictional television the association between self-employed women and unhappiness in love. 

5. Final Thoughts 

This study sought to examine how women are represented in the show The Big Family, from the observation of the first ten episodes aired in 2006. For this, we sought to understand how the central characters were presented on topics such as family, love, marriage and career, always trying to highlight how the personality of each one of them interfered in that relationship. In addition, there was also careful not to reduce the work to a mere enumeration of the characteristics of each character, seeking to contrast, to promote a dialogue between the descriptions made and the dramatic situations in the present program.