“What God is that?”

The senses of divinity in spiritist telenovelas

Abstract

This article presents a discussion about the meanings of divinity in three spiritualist
telenovelas produced by TV Globo: A Viagem, Alma Gêmea and Além do Tempo. Starting from
the idea that the Latin American sociocultural constitution brings melodrama and religiosity
together, I adopt a theoretical-methodological perspective that takes televisuality as a support for
the investigation of television materiality. The combination of visuality and television style allows
for the highlighting of stylistic and cultural aspects and, in the plots in question, highlights how
the place of the divine evokes duplicities and tension between believers and non-believers, besides
promoting the notion of a divine suffering as redemption.