How much impact do the soaps have on real life? As recounted in papers from the Inter-American Development Bank, researchers tracked Globo's expansion across the country and compared this to data on fertility and divorce. Their plots often tilt in a progressive direction: AIDS is discussed, condoms are promoted and social mobility exemplified.
Their scriptwriters and directors, many of whom were on the left, saw them as a tool with which to reach the masses. National news was meant to do the job, but the soaps got the audience.
The generals subsidised sales of television sets to build a sense of nationhood in a large and then largely illiterate country. The soaps blossomed under Brazil's military regime of 1964-85.
