In Brazilian soap opera, a shot heard round the city

Fernanda Machado is going to die next week and no one here can do a thing to stop it.

Some have tried to prevent the inevitable: The city's tourism chiefs complained that her death would scare off visitors. Local commercial associations said it would cause sales to drop. The city even attempted to ban the fatal scene.

But it was no use. Fernanda, a character in Brazil's top-rated soap opera, will perish, the latest victim of a rare but very real phenomenon - the stray bullet.

In Rio, a city fixated on crime, frustrated by the government's inability to prevent it, and fascinated by soap operas, Ms. Machado's death has been major news.

"The majority of people who live here don't have to go to dangerous areas; they aren't affected by the violence," says Rubem Cesar Fernandes, head of the Viva Rio NGO and one of the men behind the "Rio, Put Down that Gun" disarmament campaign.

"The stray bullet has become a symbol of insecurity for those people.... It is a symbol of the spreading violence."

In this developing South American country, where televisions are more prevalent than refrigerators, what happens in the soap operas makes the newspapers, and what happens in the newspapers often finds its way into the soaps.

Almost two-thirds of Brazilians regularly tune in to a nightly soap. That's more than in any other country bar England, according to a 2000 study by the US research group Roper ASW.

And by far the most popular slot is currently held by the novela das oito, the prime-time soap opera that follows the nightly news on Brazil's biggest network, TV Globo.

Sometimes riveting, often dreadful, and always glamorous, the novela das oito forms the cornerstone of TV Globo's evening schedule. On a good night it can pull in more than 40 million viewers.

The latest, a tale of dysfunctional women who live and work in the upscale neighborhoods of Leblon and Barra da Tijuca, is called Mulheres Apaixonadas ("Women in Love").

Although the show features a colorful cast - including two lesbian schoolgirls, a woman so consumed by jealousy she stabbed her husband for flirting, and a young male model with a girlfriend old enough to be his mother - none of their dramas have provoked as much interest as Machado and her impending demise.

When the soap's author, Manoel Carlos, let it be known that the beautiful former prostitute would be hit by a stray bullet, an intense debate ensued.

The president of the tourism office expressed concern that the program would be sold overseas and leave foreign viewers with a distorted image of the city.

A top official with the Rio branch of the Organization of Brazilian Lawyers said it "would stigmatize Rio as a violent city."

And the man in charge of issuing permits for location shots refused to grant one to TV Globo, arguing that blocking off the streets would cause traffic jams - even though the city had already allowed the novela to shoot nearby.

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