Watchingclone

Brazilian Soap Operas and Muslimness in Kyrgyzstan

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4317697
AutoresJulie Mcbrien (0000-0002-1397-5531, University of Amsterdam, autor de correspondencia)
Año2012
Volumen8
Número3
Páginas374-396
Fecha de publicación2012-09-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaMaterial Religion (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1743-2200 • E-ISSN: 1751-8342
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2752/175183412x13415044208952
OpenAlexW2089902539
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas30

In 2004 Clone, a Brazilian soap opera that featured Moroccans and Brazilians as main characters, broadcast throughout post-Soviet Central Asia. The program rose to tremendous popularity in the Kyrgyzstani town of BazaarKorgon partly due to the romanticism of its imagery. The town's residents said they were so taken by the soap opera because it was the first fictionalized program that featured Muslims as main characters that had aired in the post-Soviet period. While the rather orientalized images featured in the serial can be read as highly stereotypical, Bazaar-Korgonians nonetheless utilized the soap to widen conceptualizations of what “true” Muslimness could be. Some even used it to support their efforts at religious piety. The soap opera was certainly not a religious object. Nevertheless, residents utilized it in explicitly religious projects. This forces us to consider the role that such ambiguously classifiable objects—those that fall outside of the undeniably religious/non-religious dialectic—play in “doing religion.”

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · Art history · Bazaar · Hajj · Islam · Opera · Period (music · Piety · Political science · Popularity · SOAP · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity · History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Philosophy · Religious studies