By Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO, Jun 16 1998 (IPS)

A typical episode in a new soap Opera on Brazilian TV has a husband beating to death his wife and one of her lovers, two elegant women revealing their lesbianism, and drug traffickers shooting their way into a mansion in search of the drug addict son of a business magnate.

All this and more was thrust into Brazilian homes this month in the opening episodes of the soap opera “Tower of Babel” – in the prime time 8-30 pm slot – produced by the Globo network.

In general, Brazilian soap operas, which have flourished in a broad, international market, feature an intense rhythm in order to seduce audiences and define the characters and the narrative structure to capture the public’s attention for the next eight months.

The scenes of adulterous sex, an addict committing an assault in order to buy drugs and later killed by a drug trafficker, the tension inside a jail and in a poor family proved too much for Cardinal Eugenio Salas, Archbishop of Rio de Janeiro.

“This kind of programme destroys moral values.” thundered the head of the Roman Catholic Church here. “Those responsible will be accountable to God.”

The violence had a greater impact because one of the executors was actor Tony Ramos, who TV viewers were used to portraying the role of the typical “good guy” – peaceful and generous.

In “Babel” he plays a worker who kills people with a shovel, and then does 20 years in jail, harboring the desire to get back at the businessman who testified against him at his trial. Once he finishes his sentence, he starts executing his plan to bomb the large commercial center owned by his enemy.

The soap opera has divided public opinion. Some psychologists have criticized the fact that it exposes children to scenes of aggression and issues related to drugs and sex that they cannot understand, but others believe that it exposes a reality that is true and puts the issues out for public debate.

Experts in the treatment of drug addicts have praised the crude form in which the cocaine addict is depicted. The addict lives in a hell hole, commits assaults and is threatened with death by drug traffickers because of unpaid debts. His parents, though rich, are incapable of saving him and also suffer the violence of the drug traffickers.

The controversy comes at a time when the Senate is discussing the creation of a council that would control television programming, in response to the complaints from several sectors of society and studies that attribute negative consequences to the excess of sex and violence, particularly among children.

The “Tower of Babel” only “reflects reality as it is” and alerts authorities to the need for measures, argued Carlos Manga, director of Creative Team of the Globo network, and who is also in charge of fiction programs.

The show’s chief author, Silvio de Abreu, agreed. “It is realistic, a synthesis of contemporary society,” he said.

After the initial episodes, the story line develops a more romantic theme, but it could be the violence and the treatment of controversial issues, – considered a way of attracting audiences – may have had the opposite effect.

The “Tower of Babel” has only a 40 percent rating, one of the lowest in the history of the “8 o’clock soap operas” shown by TV Globo, the so-called “noble hour” (prime time).

The soap opera has a lower rating than the news show that precedes it, an unprecedented situation that has forced the channel and the screenwriter to discuss changes in order to regain the usual public for Globo’s main program.

“Babel” is the network’s most expensive production and its producers built a large building, the luxurious commercial center around which the story revolves, to be eventually destroyed destroyed by an explosion as part of the plot.

The lesbian couple was cited as the main reason for the turnoff among wealthier viewers. Played by well-known actresses Christiane Torloni and Silvia Pfeifer, their characters of elegant entrepreneurs who own exclusive clothing stores apparently didnt sit well with high society.

This is not something new for Abreu. In a previous screenplay, the writer had dealt with the issue, bringing together two adolescent boys in doubt about their sexual orientation and under pressure from their families. Gay organizations applauded the ways in which the author had developed the story.

The treatment in this new soap opera is similar, but the reactions indicate that homosexuality is still an issues that makes society uncomfortable, and even less acceptable when it deals with lesbianism.

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