Usos do passado na contemporaneidade: a telenovela bíblica brasileira Os Dez Mandamentos (2015) e as referências da cultura egípcia faraônica

Abstract

The Tem Commandments soap opera has been a subject of intense debate since it was aired in 2015 due to its media impact as well as appropriation of Pharaonic Egyptian culture. From 42 episodes that correspond to the “tem plagues,” we consider the factors that led to the increase of the audience rating of Record’s telenovela. Because of the Brazilian political atmosphere, which is very much in favor of evangelical leadership, this television production could be very much used as a marketing tool which was used for the promotion of the broadcasting network and the dissemination of teachings in the audiovisual form. Cristiane Cardoso, Edir Macedo’s daughter, as a script reviewer, made changes in the artistic base of the work and made it more like the teachings of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (UCKG). The scene analysis in this dissertation sheds light on the reasons behind investment in Pharaonic settings and further contributes to the studies of Egyptomania and appropriation of the past. The conversations between the characters in the episodes reveal the use of the soap opera as a legitimizing element of religious discourse as well as a distortion of Egyptian religion and the promotion of Judeo-Christian traditions as the model to follow, as in Moses versus Ramses and the Egyptian gods versus the “God of the Hebrews.”