Page 81 - Aesthetic Formations Media, religion, and the Sense

66 Martijn Oosterbaan

to the presence of the devil and the Holy Spirit. People come to understand
certain sensations while watching—for example, arousal, desire, or even
anguish—as direct interference of the devil or the Holy Spirit. One infor-
mant felt the Holy Spirit “poking” her when she was watching a telenovela
she should not. Others explained the erratic behavior of family or friends
as clear signs of demonic possession caused by suspicious programs or films
(Oosterbaan 2003; Bakker 2007).
In analogy to the fear of contamination of space through sound(waves),
there is also a concern for the possible contamination of space through
television images. In his work on the significance of television for evan-
gelicals on Ilha Grande, Brazil, André Bakker notes a fascinating account
of a woman who explicitly asks her daughters not to watch a specific tele-
novela in her house because she is certain that it is wrong to have those
images in her house (2007, 68). Also, as I have stated above, the images and
narratives of violence mediated via the news serve as a powerful link
between the occupation of the space of the favela and the occupation of the
telescape where there is only “death, death and death,” as Roberto exclaimed
in the quote above. What becomes obvious is the fact that television func-
tions as the device that offers a view on the spiritual struggle as a confirma-
tion of what is seen around the people in the favela and the city at large and
vice versa, producing what Schwartz calls a “reality-effect” (1995, 316). As
people search for confirmations of biblical truths in television and in their
daily surrounding, the multiple scapes become exemplary screens on which
to project and confirm biblical truths. 16
The understanding of television as a scape in need of purification is
most straightforwardly noted in reactions of people who would rather
watch a different set of programs substituting the place of suspicious tele-
vision programs. Yet, the technological and stylistic features of television
allow for a multitude of time-space experiences and for a differentiation
of practices of purification. As telenovelas so clearly show, television and
film offer their audiences multiple spectator positions, varying per genre,
and format. While the television news is generally considered objective
and harmless, telenovelas are considered suspicious, especially those pro-
duced by TV Globo. However, even telenovelas and programs such as

Big Brother Brasil offer the evangelical spectator the possibility to treat
the narrative or the situation as mirrors of real-life experiences and to
imagine the right evangelical posture in relation to the situation. Certain
programs can thus be perceived as sites that can be purified by adopting
the right spectator position. Such a spectator position is generally attain-
able for those who are firme (firm) (Oosterbaan 2006), as the informants
in my research called it or which the evangelicals in the research of
Bakker described as “structured in the Word” (2007).