"No será una secta?":
Imágenes de problemas sociales en programas televisivos de ficción

Ponencia presentada en el
V Congreso Argentino de Antropología Social
COMISION: MUNDO SIMBOLICO Y COMUNICACION
Universidad Nacional de La Plata
La Plata, 29 de julio al 1 de agosto de 1997

RESUMEN:

Argentina has witnessed, in the last fifteen years -since the return of a democratic government - the rapid development of what in this country may be considered new religious movements (especially Pentecostal and Afro-Brazilian groups) (Carozzi 1993). This development has caused a widespread controversy over the social consequences of this expansion, as well as a more general debate about the true religious nature of these groups .

The spread of different "sects" in the country has come to be seen as a social problem, with a particular interpretation of what sects are and how they function gaining increased acceptance. Sects are now, for the most part, considered to be quasicriminal groups that capture troubled individuals -mostly youth- by means of manipulative techniques and brainwash them . As a result these individuals are depersonalized and become alienated from their family and social environment. Although there is not a widely accepted, precise definition of what a sect is, most of the characterizations include a strong deranged leadership, psychological manipulation and the likelihood of psychological -or even physical- damage (Frigerio 1996) 1 . Adolescents are overwhelmingly considered to be the major population at risk and one of the main social consequences of the expansion of "sects" is considered to be the destruction of the family as the main social unit (Frigerio 1993, 1996) .

The process of labeling and medicalization (Robbins and Anthony 1982, Frigerio 1994) of religious deviance takes place mainly in the media, but also in Congressional debates and in the Courts. Popular culture is another -often neglected- arena in which the images of sects - equivalent to the American term "cult" in its negative connotations (Richardson 1993)- are formed, transmitted and maintained.

This paper analyzes the depiction of deviant religious behavior in television series and docudramas in Argentina, in the belief that "empirical investigations exploring fictional television's portrayal of religion and religious behaviors are glaringly absent from the research literature" (Skill, Robinson et. al. 1994: 252). Drawing on a constructionist approach to social problems, and specifically on the "public arenas model" developed by Hilgartner and Bosk (1988), it shows how popular culture reflects claims-making activities started in other, more "relevant" social arenas, and at the same time reinforces them. Because of its taken-for-granted, pretheoretical character, popular culture becomes an important -although often underestimated by social scientists- domain for the reinforcement of claims presented in other arenas 2 .

Deviance, social constructionism and popular culture

In order to study the collective definition of deviance, it is useful to complement the traditional emphasis on the role of moral entrepreneurs (Becker 1963) with insights provided by the constructionist approach to social problems (Best 1990, Hilgartner and Bosk 1988, Schneider 1985, Spector and Kitsuse 1987) . Although these studies similarly underscore the role of the operatives or claims-makers who present certain conditions as problems and frame them in specific ways , they also pin-point the importance of different institutional arenas where the struggle over the definition of a condition as a problem, or of a behavior as deviant, occurs: news media, religious organizations, executive and legislative branches of government, courts, professional societies (Hilgartner and Bosk 1988). There are patterns of interaction among the different arenas through which activities in each spread throughout the others.

Building on this approach, Best (1990) emphasizes that the style and content of claims are an important feature to consider in the analysis of social problems construction. Emphasizing the important role the media play in this process, he distinguishes between primary claims-making -the definitions presented by the operatives who try to impose the problem- and secondary claims-making -the media coverage of these messages, shaped by its own concerns and conventions 3 . Popular culture, according to the same author, also presents secondary claims : "Social issues also become subjects for movies, popular novels, episodes of television series and the other forms of commercial entertainment we call popular culture. Like the news, popular culture presents secondary claims..... each popular cultural form makes its own demands on subject matter. Popular culture genres treat social issues -when those issues can be made to fit the genre's dramatic conventions. " (1990: 112).

Noting that thematic treatment of social issues in popular culture is oftentimes inspired by primary claims-making campaigns, Best concludes that: "... popular culture plays a part in the claims-making process. Like the press, popular culture transforms primary claims into secondary claims that help spread -and shape- awareness of social issues" (1990: 129).

I will show how non-traditional religious groups have been portrayed in one genre of popular culture in Argentina, that of television series, and how this depiction was affected by the public controversy which encompasses them. Fiction programs which featured some involvement of their lead characters with unconventional religious groups had a wide audience, with most of them being shown during prime time. In order to understand the relationship between program depiction of sects and the public controversy they have raised in this country, I will first provide a brief overview of the debate , especially as it took place in the media.

The controversy over "sects" in Argentina

Beginning in 1989 and, increasingly during 1990, some important changes began to occur in the way this deviant behavior was interpreted . The appearance of specialized claims-makers, who presented themselves as "experts in sects", played an important role in this change. According to these new figures, whose ideology had clear roots in the American and European Anti-Cult Movement (Bromley and Shupe 1995, Introvigne 1995), sects were totalitarian groups led by charismatic leaders which used coercive persuasion to recruit troubled youths who then lost their identity and were forced to abandon society and depend on the group.

As opposed to the interpretation of the priests, this new interpretive frame had the advantage of being phrased in psychological terms, and adorned with the rhetoric of science. The fact that the claims makers were presented as researchers or experts who lead foundations for the study of sects, provided their claims with an objective, scientific status. The previous experts -Catholic priests- had an obvious interest in constructing a label of religious deviance, consequently their interpretation of the sects could be regarded by lay sectors of society as being far from impartial. These new experts were secular, had published books on the subject, headed foundations and their discourse was more scientific (the fact that one of them was a psychologist added to this general air of scientific rigor) .

In 1989 and 1990, scandals over child corruption and abuse in two groups (the internationally well-known The Family and an obscure and small local group known as The Eight Queens) served to typify the problem of the sects in the way proposed by the new frame. Other claims-makers that endorsed this new frame entered the fray, thus reinforcing the experts' views. For the first time, victims of sects, their identity concealed, were interviewed in newsmagazines, and in television programs. Further support for the new frame also came from the legislative arena, where a well-known Congresswoman sponsored the anti-cult activists' idea of creating a Congressional comission to study the activities of sects in the country.

In 1992 and 1993 three new scandals over sects rocked the Argentine media, and caused the concern over sects to escalate into a moral panic (Goode and Ben Yehuda 1994) . In July and August of 1992 two Argentine groups (a UFO cult and the leader of an Afro-Brazilian religious temple) were accused of ritually murdering children. The accusation -which many months later was demonstrated to be false- installed the topic of the "sects" in the media. Practically every television program treated the issue at least once, and the major print media featured many articles on the presumed murders, as well as editorials, opinion columns and feature stories on the problem of the "sects" . This concern intensified in 1993 with the siege and tragic ending of the Waco affair -which the local media covered in great detail- and with a raid on several local communities of The Family. Anti-cult leaders achieved ownership of the problem and their interpretive frame became hegemonic. They could even expand its domain (Best 1990) by annexing New Age groups as "risk groups", claiming that the New Age was a "borderline sectarian phenomenon" ("un fenómeno que bordea lo sectario ").

Media coverage and journalists' interpretations of these three events (LUS/Umbanda, Waco and The Family) drew on the previous ones (The Eight Queens, especially), and built on them. If, as was shown above, during 1990 and 1991 the idea that sects were a threat to children had grown (with charges of corruption of minors and illegal privation of freedom) the scandal over the LUS/Umbanda ritual murders showed that these groups posed a concrete, real, danger, since they could go as far as killing them. The events at Waco proved that, as anti-cult activists had forewarned in the case of The Eight Queens, sect leaders were in fact psychopaths who could -and did- put their followers in grave danger or lead them into a mass suicide. Finally, the massive exposure of The Family material in the media showed to the sexually conservative Argentine society the extent to which sects could espouse "perverse" belief systems .

In 1994 and 1995 new scandals about sects were widely covered by the media: charges of child abuse, prostitution , "corruption of adults" against the Argentine Yoga School (April 1994); the murders of members of the Solar Temple in Switzerland (October1994); the gas bombings in Tokyo involving Aum Shirikyo (March 1995 ) and the second murder of members of the Solar Temple (December 1995).

The growing concern over "sects" had repercussions in most arenas of debate. Senators and deputies presented three law drafts proposing the investigation of the activities of cults or their stricter control. A special commission was formed by the deputies of the State of Buenos Aires to present a report about the growth of sects in the suburbs of the country's capital. Evangelical and Catholic monthly publications had special articles about the different groups present in the country. Several books appeared warning about the dangers of sects. Locally produced series and docudramas featured adolescents (or adults) who got into trouble when joining non-traditional religious groups.

"Sects" in television series in Argentina

Figure 1: Television series dealing with "sects" in Argentina (1992-1995)
1993
MARCH
#1. "From inside" (Desde adentro ) : Sect members attempt mass suicide. (1 episode).
AUGUST
#2. "Danger Zone" (Zona de Riesgo ) : Shows a New Age workshop where a young woman establishes a relationship with a mature man. Once she goes to live with him, she becomes his slave. (4 episodes)
1994
JANUARY
#3. "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ) : Dramatizes the police raids that The Family suffered in Argentina; weaves it with the story of a troubled teenager who is attracted to the group. (1 episode).

SEPTEMBER
#4. "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ): Fictionalizes the story of the country's most famous Pentecostal preacher, Héctor Giménez, and his quarrels with his wife over control of their church. (1 episode)
#5. "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ): Dramatizes the true story of a teenage girl who leaves her family to live with the priestess of an Afro-Brazilian religious temple. (1 episode)
OCTOBER
#6. "Play with me " (Jugate conmigo ) : High school student joins a sect composed of adolescents; the leader (an adult) obliges her to steal for the group. (3 episodes)
1995
FEBRUARY
#7. "Nine Moons" (Nueve Lunas ) : Jehovah's Witness endangers his wife's life by not wanting her to receive a blood transfussion. (1 episode)
OCTOBER
#8. "Roller Coaster " (Montaña Rusa ) : High school student girl joins a sect and is kidnapped by its leaders. (8 episodes)

Although these programs featured different groups and situations, there are certain similarities in the way that "sects" are portrayed. Most strikingly, the primary element that most programs share (seven out of the total of eight) is that the lead characters' association with the sect -or adoption of its belief system- has negative consequences in their lives. In five programs they become distanced from their families (#1, #3, #5, #6, #8), in four they are are obliged by the leaders to steal for the group's benefit (#1, #5, #6, #8), in two episodes teenage girls prostitute themselves (#3, #5). In three programs there is a direct danger to the members' lives: in one episode the members of a sect are induced to commit mass suicide by their guru (#1); in another a girl is kidnapped and almost killed by the leaders of the group she attended (#8); in a third, a member of Jehovah's Witnesses almost dies because she could not accept a blood transfusion (#7).

In most portrayals, leaders or authority figures within the groups are pictured as insincere (#4, #5, #6, #8). They dupe their followers making them work, steal, or prostitute themselves for their personal benefit (#4, #5, #6, #8). When they are shown as sincere, the fanatism or irrationality of their beliefs endangers their followers, leading them to mass suicide (#1), to deny a much needed blood transfusion (#7), or coaxing them to enter a tormenting sexual relationship (#2).

Members, in turn, are generally shown as depersonalized individuals, who all speak in the same tone of voice (#1, #2, #3, #6, #8), or are depicted acting collectively like a chorus to the leader's orders or suggestions (#1, #4, #5, #6). Rarely is there a conflict or difference of opinions between them. When there is, it is always a member trying to convince a new arrival or a skeptic friend of the benefits and good intentions of the guru. Members are also shown performing uncommon activities without any explanation of their purpose or logic within the group's worldview . These include firewalking (#2); touching each other blindfolded (#2); sacrificing animals (#5); remembering past lives (#1); performing a kind of tai chi (#1) or participating in healing ceremonies (#4).

Adolescents are the target which seem most prone to fall prey to these groups. The two programs in which the lead character's involvement with sects was shown over several episodes, were miniseries which had a mostly adolescent cast (#6, #8) -and which were geared towards a like audience. In both cases the sects were composed mostly of teenagers, with the only adults being the leaders who deceitfully exploited them : one girl was obliged to steal money for the cult, another one was kidnapped by the group's leaders. In programs in which sects were portrayed as having a mixed age membership, the lead characters who get attracted to them are teenagers (#3, #5) or girls in their early twenties (#1, #2).

These groups' appeal to teenagers is generally shown to be that they present an unconventional way of life and values which are attractive to boys and girls who have problems at home or who want to escape the mediocrity of bourgeois life. The pursuit of nonconformist values, however, is depicted as hazardous since the characters usually end up in danger because of their choice.

All but one of the programs present a negative view of non-traditional religious groups. The one that didn't explicitly do so was the fictionalized story of the raids on The Family, which suggested that the group had, in effect, been unjustly prosecuted for practices (like "flirty-fishing") which were no longer current . Even this episode, however, confirmed several features of the stereotype of life in "sects": teenage girls were prostituted (in the past); troubled, drug-addicted youth are the most likely to be attracted by these groups' messages, and cult participation makes them become further estranged from their families and leave them . Although the boy who is attracted to The Family in the episode is shown as benefitting from this association (he quits using drugs, for example) he also becomes more distant from his parents, which, from a conventional perspective, is obviously not desirable .

Most of these fiction programs not only clearly found inspiration in some of the scandals and discussions which had rocked the media in previous years, but some also established connections to these real life events. As I mentioned above, three programs were dramatized renditions of actual happenings. The first was the police raid of several communities of The Family . The second depicted the war of mutual recrimination that erupted between the country's most famous Pentecostal preacher and his estranged wife. The third true event that was fictionalized was the story of a teenager who left his family presumably to enter a temple of Afro-Brazilian religions. Although this affair had not been covered by the print media, the girl´s mother had succeeded in presenting her plight in television programs which dealt with "sects" or with lost people. At the end of the dramatized episode, the real parents of the missing girl were allowed a couple of minutes to give a message to the audience. The father said:

FATHER: I want to send a message to the parents who are watching this program. When somebody knocks at your door and says he brings the word of god, lock your door quickly. When they say you have to undergo a spiritual cleansing, don't believe them, they are professional quacks. In the newspapers you can find ads of diviners, psychics, shamans, all these people who will never be looked into because the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Worship says they are registered. I do not know who gives them their degrees. There are several very specific cases: pentecostal preacher Gimenez; psychic Luconi, who do could not answer in a tv program who had given him his powers and many more... Don't fall in that trap. And when your children go out, don't let them go with just anybody.

It was not only the parents of the missing girl who associated their individual plight with the more general "problem of the sects" in the country. One of the foremost newspapers announced this episode of "Without Sentence" as "The Case of the Sects", when its real title was "The Case of Mae Cristina" (mãe being the title given to priestesses of Afro-Brazilian religions) 5 .

There are other examples that show that, even when the program itself does not purport to make connections to real life events, the journalists who review them do establish an association with events in the country. For example, some months after the first "sect" scandal had captured the nation's attention , a miniseries called "From the Inside" dedicated an episode to the topic (#1). Two very prestigious newspapers announced the program in the following manner:

"THE POWER OF THE SECTS: All the power of sects lead to the question: do miracles occur? Does magic exist? And what is the meaning of their existence at the end of the century and how much do we know about them". (Journal Clarín 3/4/1993)

"A SECT FROM THE INSIDE: The episode tells the story of a sect that, convinced that the end of the world is near, has decided to commit collective suicide... preparing a collective suicide like the one Jim Jones organized with a thousand people... The problem of the sects is not only a foreign one. Experts estimate that in Argentina about 2 million people -and in Latin America 35 million- belong to sectarian groups of all sorts, classes and shapes. There are more or less dangerous ones. More or less phony ones. More or less mystical ones. Stories at the end of the century". (Journal Pagina 12 , 3/4/1993 )

The depiction of sects in locally-produced television series may be considered as yet another instance of claims-making, not only because they interpret how these groups work and what they do to their members in a negative mode, but also because they make a contribution to the public controversy by making an explicit association between their plot and reality, or by facilitating journalists' (and most likely viewers') reading of them in a like manner.

Conclusions

Since there are no indexes of television programs in Argentina, nor transcription services, it is not possible to obtain episodes of the early 1980s that treated the topic to see if there are any differences with later portrayals of it. I do not believe, however, that there were many programs at the time that featured sects as part of their plots, since before 1990 sects were not considered to be a major social problem by the public at large; and even less quasicriminal groups as they are today. In my research of how the print media have treated "sects" since 1985 I did not come across any publicity or preview comment -in newspapers or magazines- that a given series episode would feature situations involving a sect. I only found them from 1993 onwards, beginning some months after the first moral panic about sects had struck the nation (in July and August of 1992).

I do have some indirect evidence that may support this claim. In October of 1987, the movie The Believers was shown in Buenos Aires. Although its title in Spanish was "The Sect" (La Secta ), the newspaper reviews of the movie talked about "witchcraft", "pagan rituals", "occult powers" and did not mention the word "sect" nor established any relationship between its theme and the country's reality. When the same movie was shown in television in March of 1994, the comments explicitly stated that the movie was a portrait of a type of group called a "sect" and established a definite link between the movie's content and the country's reality 6 . The main weekly magazine announced it in the following way:

"Satanic rituals: A movie that has two attractions: it talks about a topic of burning actuality (it is called "The Sect" and this says enough) and it is directed by talented JS" (Gente , 3/10/1994, italics mine).

The predominantly negative presentation of sects in miniseries support Hilgartner and Bosk's (1988) assertion about the interaction among the different arenas where social problems (or, similarly, images of deviant behavior) are constructed. The moral panic over sects, which lasted mostly from July 1992 to October 1993 started in the media but had effects in other arenas: law draft proposals trying to limit their activities were presented in Congress; several books about the dangers they represented were published; public lectures and debates about the social causes and harmful consequences of their spread were featured in cultural events . It is coherent with this context that fiction miniseries provide a negative view of the problem.

However, if popular culture is affected by what happens in other, more "serious" arenas of public discourse (like the newsmedia), it in turn influences them. As Best (1990: 112) suggests, popular culture acts as a secondary claims-maker exercising its own demands on the subject matter to make it fit its dramatic conventions. In the case of the sects, this is clearly noticeable. Because of the disquieting image they have in society, "sects" are the perfect element to provide drama, suspense and excitement to a series. They provide a believable or likely place where the central characters can become involved with devious individuals and from which any kind of dangerous situation (from kidnapping to suicide) may develop . The following newspaper preview shows how, in effect, the topic is considered to be an exciting one :

" Intense, thrilling scenes will return to "Roller Coaster " . This time, it will be a kidnapping. Marianne will be kidnapped by members of the Foundation she attends. In a few more episodes the group will reveal itself to be a sect, and the series' main character will be in trouble, featuring much shouting, crying and struggling . " (Clarín , 10/20/1995, italics mine)

Stein (1979:101) has defined the role habitually played by religion in fictional television as "an irrelevancy thrown in to move plot along with no importance one way or another" (quoted in Skill, Robinson et. al. 1994: 253) . Conversely, then, "sects " provide the opportunity to add "thrilling scenes" and feature "much shouting, crying and struggling" 7 . By using "sects" in their plots in this manner , however, television programs add to the deviant image and stigmatization of these groups. They do this in two ways: by exaggerating the existing stereotyped images and by reinforcing them in a pre-theoretical, subtle way.

For a variety of reasons, characters in series and night soap operas are generally presented in stereotypical ways. Because they are made with the intention of reaching the widest possible audience, their plots are simple and characters do not present many shades or complexities. They have to adjust to the predominant morality and go along with the hegemonic consensus regarding most topics. Not to do so could scare away potential viewers and increase financial risk , especially for prime time programs (Gray 1986). Wrong-doers must generally be portrayed as inevitably evil people, and the central characters must be good; therefore if they enter a deviant, quasi-criminal group like a sect is because they have been duped. This was the case in several of the programs here considered; the Jehovah's Witness who refused the blood transfusion for his wife (#7) was a strict, fanatic person (significantly, he was the same actor who played the New Age leader in program #2); the Afro-Brazilian priestess had a frightening, abusive personality (#5), the gurus in programs # 6 and #8 were obvious frauds.

The context in which non-traditional religious activities are performed is also distorted . Since not many viewers have first hand knowledge of the groups portrayed, the series provide the only opportunity to see what a New Age workshop or an Afro-Brazilian ceremony, for example, are like. However, these rituals are generally shown as a succession of strange activities performed by stern-faced, tense individuals, with eerie music in the background -which heightens the feeling that something weird is going on. This was especially noticeable in the reconstruction of an Umbanda (Afro-Brazilian) ceremony: although it was shot inside a real temple, with true drummers, the merriment and enthusiasm with which the spirits are invoked and received by the mediums was replaced by severe and frightful invocations of the leader, and shocking, painful trances experienced by the devotees 8 .

Even when other episodes of these same programs made an effort to escape the conventions of their genres and present deviant behaviors in a more sympathetic manner (like in the case of homosexual relationships, for example) they did not show the same sensitivity for non-traditional religions. This is because script writers, directors and actors participate of the secularized modern view that sees too much religious commitment as something potentially dangerous and undesirable. Contrary to the adoption of a feminist, gay, or even transexual identity, the adoption of a new religious identity is not viewed as desirable , since it is considered an anti-modern, irrational choice. Consistent with what happened in other public arenas during the cult controversy of the 1990s in Argentina, the defense of religious minorities is only valued by the religious minorities themselves. The only exception to this attitude was the episode of the reality show dedicated to the raid on The Family. Although, as I already mentioned, the episode took for granted certain anti-cult images of how sects worked (that they attracted troubled adolescents, especially) and showed some questionable features of the group´s ideology, it made clear that the group had been the victim of an unfounded persecution, and opened and closed the episode with brief words by Family members . Another episode of the same program that also told the story of an adolescent attracted to a sect (in this case an Afro-Brazilian temple), however, repeated almost every cliché of the image of "dangerous sects", and ended with a diatribe against these groups by the father of the missing girl whose story had been dramatized.

Apart from exaggerating the deviant image of sects, presenting their activities as frightful and bizarre, cult leaders as evil people and members as mere pawns in their game, fictional television also reinforces the claims presented in other arenas. Although the happenings portrayed are supposed to be "fiction" . the programs clearly establish connections to real events. This is true not only for the three episodes of "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ) which were dramatizations of true incidents (#3, #4, #5), but also for other programs: Jehovah's Witnesses refusal of blood transfusions (#7) were frequently featured in the news ; the mass suicide of sect members by drinking from a poisoned container (#1) was clearly inspired in Jonestown. So, even when these series make no explicit claim as to the truth of the events told, they do establish connections with real events that suggest that these images are not far off from reality. Popular culture not only presents (and further elaborates) claims but does so in a very disguised manner. Even if no media arena can be said to present "facts" without an interpretation of them, it is probably the case that readers' perception of these frames is not uniformingly the same. Editorial columns and opinion pieces are ostensibly interpretations; news is less explicitly so. However, it is probably in the case of television series (or like genres) that viewers are less prepared to filter the information received. First because they are supposed to be "only" entertainment, an irrelevant medium, which predisposes the viewer not to decode what he is seeing, and second because they are not delivered arguments, only "events" that they can watch and hear. However, they also provide an interpretation of events or behaviors which is the same as that present in other arenas. They are only "telling a story" but this is the same story that is told in other media arenas. By interpreting participation in non-traditional religious groups with the same frame used in, say, the news or in the print media, fictional television further closes the universe of discourse and helps abate the possibility of a symbolic contest of meaning and of interpretation of topics.

Gamson and Stuart have argued that media arenas that usually are not studied (in their case, editoral cartoons; in mine, fictional programs) are, nevertheless significant for participants in symbolic contests who "read their success or failure by how well their preferred meanings and interpretation are doing in various media arenas" (1992: 56) . That this is true for the topic I am considering can be seen by the fact that after the only episode that did not present a negative view of a "sect" was shown -the one that dramatized The Family affair - the country's main anti-cult activist voiced his opinion thus: "These (TV) idiots have whitewashed those sons of b......".

Annex A:

# 1- "From Inside" (Desde Adentro ) (March 1993)

The series' leads are two brothers who have a radio program. A female friend of one of them meets an old lover who is now the leader of a religious group. She stays with him trying to understand the group's ideology, only to suddenly find herself participating of a ceremony where the group is taking a poisoned drink in the belief that the world is coming to an end and they will be reborn as the saved. Meanwhile, one of the series' leads is told twice by a gypsy that his friend is in danger. Although he is a skeptic he finally follows her advice, and with her help finds the sect's headquarters just in time to take the poisoned cult members to a hospital. The episode ends with two ex-members of a sect discussing their horrible experiences in these groups in the radio program where most of the miniseries takes place. As a final twist, when the skeptic is talking about the futility of spiritual quests, the gypsy enters the studio and says he cannot deny that miracles exist since she warned him about the danger his friend was facing.

# 2 - "Danger Zone" (Zona de Riesgo ) (August 1993)

This miniseries, famous in the country for its treatment of controversial topics which showed many deviant behaviors, had as its lead character a rich architect who was a spouse abuser and had commited incest with his daughter. Taken by a friend to a New Age workshop, the architect meets an insecure young woman who went there in order to improve her personal life, deeply troubled by unsuccessful love affairs and family quarrels. The young woman falls in love with him and goes to live at his house, only to find herself trapped in the hands of a wife batterer. Although the New Age group is not central to the miniseries, it is through its leader's intervention that the two main characters get involved. Four or five episodes give the somewhat strange and unsettling New Age leader an opportunity to explain his personal growth philosophy; they also show several exotic spiritual activities at the workshop -including firewalking as a kind of seminar graduation.

# 3- "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ) : "The Case of the Children of God" (January 1994)

The program, a type of reality show, fictionalized some of the most dramatic police cases that grabbed the media's attention in the last years. Blending fact and fiction, the program wove the story of a boy's attraction to The Family with the raids and persecution the religious group had endured some months before in Argentina. The teenager who was attracted by the religious ideology of The Family had problems with his parents and girlfriend and got drugged with cocaine. At the same time, the religious group was having problems with one of its members, a teenage girl who wanted to have sex with one of the pastors but was rejected, since the new rules of the group didn't allow sex with minors. An ex-flirty fisher, the girl insisted in her desire, was expelled from the group, and dennounced it to the police. The episode tried to convey the idea that many of the group's practices which were condemned by their critics had stopped taking place after 1987, and that the group was being unfairly persecuted. At the same time, however, it showed many features of their history and of their communal life which could result shocking to Argentine values.

# 4- "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ) : "The case of Pastor Giménez" (September 1994)

This was the second episode of the reality show that focused on a non-traditional religious group. It told the story of Pastor Gimenez, the most famous -and controversial- Pentecostal preacher in the country . An ex-convict who now preaches the Prosperity Gospel dressed in flamboyant clothes, the controversy over his person reached an all time high after he divorced his wife and she accused him of being a womanizer and of using his flock's tithing for his personal benefit. The episode showed his conversion from criminal to preacher and then emphasized the power struggle with his wife for the control of their Church. Although the episode did not expose him misusing money , it did show him cheating on his wife.

# 5- "Without Sentence" (Sin Condena ) : "The case of Mãe Cristina" (September 1994)

The third episode of the reality show told the story of a teenager who disappeared after going to live with the female leader of an Afro-Brazilian religion temple. The account starts with the parents asking the priestess to help them in getting a job. After they succeed in this endeavor, their children spend more and more time with the leader, who apparently seduces their teenage daughter into a homosexual relationship. The priestess also obliges a young devotee to prostitute herself in order to raise money for the temple. The relationship between the children and their parents deteriorates until the teenage daughter escapes with the priestess.

# 6 - "Play with me" (Jugate Conmigo ) (October 1994)

This was a daily entertainment program for young teen agers which included a short soap opera that cast adolescents as leads . Three episodes revolved around Maria, a high school teenager that joined a sect (composed mostly of boy and girls her age ). Peter, one of the soap's leads who is in love with her, infiltrates the group to tape what the guru says in order to expose him. He is discovered and must run away. The leader gets angry at Maria, and demands compensation, threatening that she will burn in hell. She steals her school's salaries in order to make up for her mistake. Peter is blamed for the theft, but convinces the police of his innocence and takes them to the sect where the guru is arrested when receiving the money from Maria.

# 7- "Nine Moons" (Nueve Lunas ) (February 1995)

The series' leads are a pair of doctors . One of their patients, a Jehovah's Witness, is in grave danger after delivering a baby and her husband does not want her to receive blood. The doctors cannot obtain the woman's consent because she faints, but they go ahead and transfuse her anyway. The episode includes dialogues about the propriety of this action which involve a judge (who authorized the procedure), the doctors, and the husband and wife. The husband is shown as a rigid individual with a strong personality who influences his wife into passively following his religious beliefs. The doctors' decision of making the transfusion is shown as the only "logical" solution.

8- "Roller Coaster" (Montaña Rusa ) (October 1995)

This series is targeted towards a teenager audience, and casts a group of high school students as central characters. Marianne, one of the program's leads, fights with her boyfriend, and soon after meets a spiritual development group called the Foundation, led by Thomas, a young guru, and his mother. Attracted by them, she spends more and more time with the group, straining her relationship with her parents and friends. The young spiritual leader and his mother are portrayed as a couple of charlatans who go from town to town obtaining donations from their followers and then disappear. When the time has come to flee, Thomas, who has fallen in love with Marianne, asks her to come and help them in their "mission". His mother disagrees with this and together with a thug kidnaps the girl to ask for ransom. Finally, the young guru tells Marianne the truth about their enterprise and, risking his life, sets her free. This story provides the main argument for about ten daily episodes of the series.

References

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Bromley, David and Anson Shupe 1995 "Anti-Cultism in the United States: Origins, Ideology and Organizational Development ". Social Compass 42(2): 221-236.

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Bromley, David, Anson Shupe and J. Ventimiglia 1983 "The Role of Anecdotal Atrocities in the Social Construction of Evil ". In The Brainwashing/Deprogramming Controversy: Sociological, Psychological, Legal and Historical Perspectives . David Bromley and James Richardson eds. pgs. 139-160. New York: Edwin Mellen.

Carozzi, María Julia 1993 "Contribuciones del Estudio de los Nuevos Movimientos Religiosos a la Sociología de la Religión: Una Evaluación Crítica ". In Nuevos Movimientos Religiosos y Ciencias Sociales, Vol I . Alejandro Frigerio, ed. Pps. 14-45. Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina.

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1989 With the Banner of Oxalá: Social Construction and Maintenance of Reality in Afro-Brazilian Religions in Argentina . Ph. D. dissertation, Anthropology Dept. University of California, Los Angeles.

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1993 ""La Invasión de las Sectas": El Debate sobre los Nuevos Movimientos Religiosos en los Medios de Comunicación en Argentina ". (The invasion of the sects: The controversy over new religious movements in the mass media in Argentina) Sociedad y Religión 10/11: 24-51. Buenos Aires.

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NOTAS

2 The research for this paper was supported by a grant from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (USA) and by several grants from the Fundación Antorchas (Argentina). I want to thank María Julia Carozzi and Matt Marostica for their criticisms and suggestions.

3 The images of issues which are transmitted by the media are especially important (Best 1989, 1990). In the case of NRMs, since few people have had direct contact with the groups involved, the media are the key factor affecting their social image (Van Driel & Richardson 1988; Bromley, Shupe & Busching 1981; Bromley, Shupe & Ventimiglia 1983; Frigerio 1991a, 1991b, 1993a).

4 There was another miniseries, scheduled for 1993, that was going to deal with "the every-day fears of Argentine society" that would include sects among its topics (journal Página 12, 1/2/1993). It was never shown, however.

5 This episode caused another mini-controversy that further blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction. The director wanted to kill a real pigeon for an animal sacrifice scene; the actors who had to do so refused, and were expelled from the program. They complained about this in newspapers and magazines, once more calling attention to the main stigmatizing feature of Afro-Brazilian religions: ritual sacrifices (Frigerio 1991a, 1991b).

6 The preview shown in television supported the magazine's assertion about the topic's attraction and the frightful connotations that the word sect has acquired. Over images of violence, of a child about to be sacrificed and of animal sacrifices, the announcer said in a somber voice: "Satanic rituals. THE SECT. Human sacrifices. THE SECT. Horror and suicide. THE SECT. This Saturday, M. S. in THE SECT. Hair-raising terror in Channel 2." 7 Skill, Robinson et. al. (1994) argue that, in the fictional programs they examined, where religion was emphasized, "it was treated for the most part from the following perspective: 1) religion is most often presented as an emotional expletive during times of crisis; 2) religion is framed as a predominantly personal and private activity; and 3) religion is rarely central to the storyline or theme of a program" (1994:264). As I have tried to show here, when featured in an episode, "sects", on the contrary, are generally central and provide a very dramatic and dynamic element to the storyline. The different roles they fulfill in fictional programs seems to parallel the opposition established in the public controversy, where "sects" are considered the antithesis of "true religions".

8 Other dramatic conventions also distort the portrayal in the direction of the prevalent stereotypic image. In the episode involving the Afro-Brazilian temple, for example, the family members who were the central characters went to their first ceremony already dressed in white ritual clothes and had an active participation in it. In real life, people only don white clothes and participate actively in ceremonies after they have decided to become members of the temple, a decision that may take many months (Frigerio 1989). By so misconstruing the recruitment process, the series endorses the image that people are immediately recruited to sects.

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