'Shameless woman' and 'responsible traitor': problematizing gender representations in official HIV/AIDS television advertisements

This paper discusses the views of public health workers from the Family Health Program of Porto Alegre/RS on the HIV/AIDS television advertisements which played a role in the official HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns in Brazil from 1994 to 2000. The aim of this discussion is to contribute to the critical reading of this sort of educative enterprise, with attention to the gender relations represented in such advertisements. Working from a cultural analysis perspective, the authors analyze the discourses that constitute two representations: the 'shameless woman' and the 'responsible traitor'. The authors argue that these representations are produced, among other manners, through the very knowledge that informs the prevention campaigns, and that these representations end up reinforcing behaviors and gender and sexual practices that they intend to transform or to sever.