Televisual Imperial Nostalgia in the Americas: Recasting Empire and Benevolent Whiteness in Brazil’s Nos Tempos do Imperador

• In Event: Minor Genres in Circulation: Cultural Flows and Friction in the Late American Empire

Abstract

This paper examines how the 2021 Brazilian telenovela (serial melodrama), Nos Tempos do Imperador, glorifies an imperial past and nostalgia attached to contemporary idealizations of a white patriarchal Brazil. Set during Don Pedro II’s monarchical regime in Brazil, the telenovela delves into issues of national independence, public health, abolition, and women’s rights. Produced during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency (2019-2022), in which far-right white supremacist, misogynist, and transphobic authoritarian practices and rhetoric dominated Brazil, the telenovela acts as a lens to mediate hemispheric debates concerning nationalism, racial and gender equality. This novela da época (period melodrama), even while attempting to be more diverse than past historical fiction telenovelas, fosters an imperial white nostalgia and romanticization of enslavement that aligns with white supremacy. The recasting of historical memory to reinforce ideas of white benevolence facilitates the erasure of the terrors of enslavement, colonization, and imperialism while simultaneously negating Black abolitionist activism and activating accusations of reverse racism. This paper argues that the telenovela aims to shape the future memory of both the Portuguese empire and the contemporary authoritarian regimes of the Americas. Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to bolster the far right in the Americas and his alliance with the United States under the first Trump presidency illustrate the forcefulness of imperial white patriarchal solidarities and the exploitation of people of African descent. This paper decenters the U.S. as a benevolent empire and places conversations of imperial nostalgia within a conversation in the Americas. The paper will also consider the discriminatory production practices within the telenovela and how Black actresses and telenovela audiences resisted dominant narratives of racial democracy.

Author

• Jasmine Mitchell, Brooklyn College, CUNY