A Gender and the destruction of differences in the telenovela Amor à Vida

Gender and the destruction of differences in the telenovela Amor à Vida

Authors

  • Lana de Araújo Gomides University of Aveiro
  • Thiago F. Sant’Anna Federal University of Goiás
  • Welson Barbosa Santos Federal University of Uberlândia

Abstract

This article analyzes the relationships between gender, sexuality, and media through the telenovela Amor à Vida, aired on Rede Globo (2013–2014), approaching it as a cultural and power device that produces subjectivities and regulates dissident sexualities. By analyzing the gay kiss scene between two male characters, we problematize the effects of this representation on cultural public policies and the construction of Human Rights in Brazil. Drawing on Richard Miskolci's closet theory and Monique Wittig's notion of “hetero thought”, this article shows how media reinforces compulsory heterosexual norms, producing a “destruction of diferences” in the field of sexual diversity. Finally, we reflect on the limits and possibilities of homoaffective re-existence experiences in the face of symbolic policies of social regulation.

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Author Biographies

Lana de Araújo Gomides, University of Aveiro

She holds a Bachelor's degree in Social Communication - Advertising and Propaganda - from the Federal University of Goiás (2016). She worked independently in the field of content writing and publishing for Digital Marketing purposes on websites, blogs, and social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, G+, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others), as well as content planning for email marketing campaigns, sponsored ads, and lead generation through Inbound Marketing and Copywriting strategies. She earned a Master's in Arts and Visual Culture from the Graduate Program in Arts and Visual Culture at the Faculty of Visual Arts (PPGACV) - Federal University of Goiás (2020) - with the research "'Let my blood run': How visualities operate on the meanings of menstruation?". She is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Studies at the Department of Languages and Cultures - University of Aveiro, Portugal, and a fellow at the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). Her interests include studies related to gender, sexualities, power structures that impose norms on bodies, decolonial feminisms, and intersectional perspectives. She navigates between Social Communication, Visual Culture, Gender Studies, and Cultural Studies to highlight interdisciplinarity in the discussion about the oppression that institutions operate on female bodies.

Thiago F. Sant’Anna, Federal University of Goiás

Historian with a Ph.D. in History from the University of Brasília and a Post-Doctorate in Arts and Visual Culture from the Graduate Program in Arts and Visual Culture at the Faculty of Visual Arts / Federal University of Goiás, where he works as a collaborative professor. He is also a professor in the undergraduate Social Work course at UFG / Campus Cidade de Goiás. He engages in teaching activities and investigates experiences with photography and other visual practices in Brazil at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, with publications linked to research projects in the field of Visual Culture, interfacing with social issues, gender, and power relations, grounded in a Foucauldian and Deleuzian transdisciplinary perspective.

Welson Barbosa Santos, Federal University of Uberlândia

Post-Doctorate in School Education from UNESP - 2018, Ph.D. in Education from UFSCar - 2015, Master's in Education from UFU - 2010, holds a degree in Exact and Natural Sciences from the University of Uberaba - 1990, and in Pedagogy from the Integrated Faculty of Araguatins - 2017. He is currently an Associate Professor III at the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), in the Institute of Exact and Natural Sciences at Pontal, and a member of the Structuring Teaching Nucleus of the Biology Undergraduate and Bachelor's Degree programs. He coordinates the research group "MASCULINITIES: Culture, Education, and Subjectivities GPEMCES" and the Science and Biology Teaching Laboratory - LAEN. As a researcher, with Michel Foucault as a reference, he discusses vulnerability and suicide risk among men aged 13 to 28 since 2005. He also works in teacher training for basic education, focusing on the production of 3DR models for teaching natural sciences from an inclusive, interdisciplinary perspective, aiming to strengthen the identities and subjectivities of teachers, students, and their practices.

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Published

16-03-2026

How to Cite

DE ARAÚJO GOMIDES, Lana; F. SANT’ANNA, Thiago; BARBOSA SANTOS, Welson. A Gender and the destruction of differences in the telenovela Amor à Vida: Gender and the destruction of differences in the telenovela Amor à Vida. Bagoas - Estudos gays: gêneros e sexualidades, [S. l.], v. 16, n. 26, 2026. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufrn.br/bagoas/article/view/39410. Acesso em: 17 mar. 2026.

Issue

Vol. 16 No. 26 (2025): Revista Bagoas - Estudos Gays: gênero e sexualidades

Section

Artigos

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Copyright (c) 2026 Bagoas - Estudos gays: gêneros e sexualidades

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.