argment response

Created by Yocelyne Angulo on Feb 13, 2014 5:36 PM

Avenida Brasil is a novela or soap opera filmed in Brazil. I currently started watching the novela ever since my mother introduced me to it. Of course, we view the subbed version in Spanish. I have always enjoyed watching soap operas because they are full of drama, deceit, and never consist of just one story. They are very complex-- depending on the one you pick of course-- depending on whether or not it is a comedy series or a more formal novela. (This novela can be found on Telefe.com)

Steven Johnson is an author, writer for the Discover column, and revolutionist when it comes to how television affects society. Television is a very contriversial subject because the common beleif is that T.V. is bad for you. To be more specific, many say it rots your brain and makes you dumber. Johnson presents his readers with his concept of Television Intelligence. He urges society to acknowledege that what individuals have viewed in the past is much different to the complex and deep context that appears on television today. for this reason, he claims "Multithreading is the most celebrated structural feature of the modern television drama, and it certainly deserves some of the honor that has been doled out to it. Audiences happily embrace [that] complexity because they’ve been trained by two decades of multi-threaded dramas"(289). I beleive this is definitely true. Without composite ideas and problems posed in a show, the audience gets bored because the show is too much of a no brainer, or predictable... pretty much not very exciting.

In the episode of Avenida Brasil, Rita sets her mind to get her revenge agaisnt a woman that ruined her life. This woman was with her father because she knew he was eventually going to sell the house he has lived all his live. In short, she set up Rita's father and stole all the money he had to his name. Carmina, the woman, decided to get rid of Rita even though she was a child because she did not want anyone to find out about her devious plans. Rita was abandoned in a landfill left to fend forherself and live despite all odds. Later the show speeds up time and shows us that cruel Carmina took advantage of a famous and succesfull futbol player and married him in hopes of stealing his money one day. She did this through deceit and guilt, but that's another story. Overall, the episode forshadows that Rita will get her revenge no matter what gets in her and that she one day gets to ruinite with the love of her life she met in the landfill as a child. Also, she will try to rescue the futbol player from the same fate her father had with the evil woman. I beleive this soap opera makes me smarter because it encourages me to filter many stories at once and understand the world the writers and directors of the novela have put together. I am "managing resources, tracking subtle narrative intertwinings, recognizing long-term patterns"(Johnson, 293); aquiring television intelligence.