ABSTRACT
Brazilian telenovelas, serial melodramatic narratives, have functioned as a central foundation of Brazilian identity in both national and global imaginations. Brazilians telenovelas are sprawling narratives that take on major social issues. The majority of scholarly work written in English on telenovelas analyzes the Mexican equivalent, which are less realistic in terms of settings, dialect, characters, and costumes than Brazilian telenovelas. Telenovelas and TV Globo are often interchangeable with each other. Globo situates itself as a co-creator in Brazilian identity and articulates its mission to inform, educate, entertain, and improve lives. Telenovelas reveal the racial contradictions in the Brazilian social order. The disavowal of racism and romanticization of Brazil as a mixed country lie beside the whitening of the face of the nation and the marginalization of black people. Identifying the visual and semantic meanings embedded in Brazilian cultural and social specificities creates numerous challenges of communication and translation.
