Violência simbólica contra a mulher nas estratégias midiáticas: uma análise do programa ‘The Love School’

Resumo (EN)

The purpose of this article is to develop a communication analysis about the television show The Love School, by the Brazilian television network, Rede Record. In this regard, the study proposes to verify the television’s network strategy of representing the female gender in relation to the “happiness imperative” concept, and how the TV network utilizes it in order to maintain an audience. The main questions for this research article are: what mediatic strategies are used by The Love School? What is the women’s role in society and how these are depicted by the TV show? What roles should a woman play in her marriage in order to maintain a healthy and happy relationship? To answer these questionings, two research methods were adopted. The first one regards a bibliographical analysis in order to build a theoretical foundation between studied disciplines and approach the communication, religion and mediatic imaginary regarding violence towards the female gender. For this first method, researches and studies from Siepiersky, Contrera, Eisler, Morin, Miklos, and Romano were used. The second method refers to analyzing the interpretation of findings in four episodes from The Love School aired in April 2014, whose titles were: Anxiety in a Relationship; How to deal with temptations; Virtual versus Real; The Love School’s Cruise. Also, besides these episodes, two other specific sections of the TV show were analyzed: “Supervirtuosa” and “Dicas do Rô”. The research methodology chosen was of content analysis, following Lawrence Bardin’s reference study guidelines. Research findings show how the adopted TV show format interferes directly regarding the patriarchal domination, therefore subduing the contemporary mediatic imaginary to its standards. Several happiness formulas presented by the show hosts are strongly emotionally imbued, leading the audience to interpret the woman’s natural condition in a marriage as only “to be quiet and beautiful”. Thus, in the TV show The Love School, the “voluntary servitude” attitude, which the female host conveys, while standing before the co-host and husband, is a sine qua non condition to ensure prosperity and success not only for society but specially marriage. Therefore, the TV show revealed itself has a modern mediatic agent contributing for maintaining a symbolic violence towards women, while diminishing the role of women in society by creating a “mentally submissive” audience.