Faces do subúrbio: relações de identidade e consumo da nova classe média a partir da novela Avenida Brasil

Abstract

The present research analyzes how the telenovela appropriates the socioeconomic context of Brazilian society to build the relations of identity and consumption in its fictional narrative. It takes into account the recent rise of a new social stratum, commonly known as “nem middle class”, which happens to be portrayed more often as the protagonists in Brazilian telenovelas. To conduct the analysis, has been chosen Avenida Brasil, written by João Emanuel Carneiro, displayed between March and October 2012 by Globo TV. The telenovela brings Divino as the main environment, a fictional neighborhood which refers to the suburb of Rio de Janeiro. The research propose is relevant since the telenovela is the main cultural product on television and reverberates thematics, consumption habits and identity formations in Brazilian society. The analysis seeks to make a comparison between the “new middle class” diagnosed in specialized institutes researches and the “new middle class” imagined and portrayed by fiction.