Rio de Janeiro (AFP)
Brazilian television icon, right-wing actress Regina Duarte, who announced on Wednesday that she had agreed to become the Culture Secretary of the government of Jair Bolsonaro, has promised to "pacify" an artistic sector shaken by the "cultural war" that delivers the government to him.
At 72, with a 50-year career in telenovelas that have marked generations on the TV channel Globo, she replaces Roberto Alvim, sacked after making a scandal with a speech paraphrasing the head of Nazi propaganda Joseph Goebbels.
- The "girlfriend" of Brazil -
Regina Blois Duarte was born in 1947 in Franca, in the heart of a rural area in the north of the state of Sao Paulo (southeast). She is the oldest of four children of a military father "with rigid ethical values" and of a "very religious" housewife.
Doe eyes, soft voice and long brown hair, she started in the theater at the age of 14, then made a few commercials before setting off to conquer the small screen.
She is still known today under the nickname "girlfriend from Brazil", which was given to her after her role in "Minha doce namorada" (my sweet girlfriend), telenovela from 1971.
In 1979, Regina Duarte, played at 32 a divorced sociologist and single mother, a very significant role in a patriarchal and macho society.
She admits today that many men who met her on the street at the time accused her of being "subversive for the Brazilian family".
In many telenovelas of the 80s, she plays characters who tackle themes taboo at the time, such as abortion, female orgasm, separation or domestic violence.
Despite these roles sometimes inspired by her personal experience, Regina Duarte has always defended herself from being a feminist.
"Even though I may have had avant-garde attitudes, I have always been and I remain a conservative," she said last year during an interview on TV Globo.
- "Fear" of Lula -
Mother of three children, six times grandmother, she married five times.
Regina Duarte is today one of the rare personalities in the cultural world who displays her sympathy for the Bolsonaro government.
After participating in demonstrations in favor of direct elections at the end of the military dictatorship (1964-1985), she actively supported center-right candidates, notably ex-president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2002).
In 2002, she said in a campaign spot for the designated dolphin in Cardoso that she was "afraid" of a possible victory for the left candidate Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula was finally elected for two successive terms.
In 2018, Regina Duarte revealed that she would vote for the far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro, even giving a speech at one of his meetings.
"When I got to know him personally, I saw a sweet man, a typical man from the 50s, like my father, who makes homophobic jokes, but just in jest," she said. to the daily Estado de S. Paulo.
The artistic class was divided when they learned that it was cited to take over the secretariat for culture. Some people considered that someone from the community could be made aware of their problems.
"She is from the right, but is not a Nazi. I believe that in this context of total dismantling of culture, she can help us," declared to the Estado de S. Paulo Paula Lavigne, producer and wife of the famous singer Caetano Veloso.
Recently, the actress published a message on Instagram intended for "all colleagues of all artistic and ideological expressions", saying that she intended to "fight for the pacification and union" of artistic circles.
© 2020 AFP