forests and favelas (final)
When moving to the United States from Brazil, I realized how the media had created an image of my home country centered around forests and favelas, often focusing on the struggle, corruption and poverty. Many of my international friends to this day have misconceptions about Brazil because they have mostly been introduced to an international point of view. In 2011, Disney produced their first film about Brazil titled ‘Rio’, which tells the story of how Blu — a domestic American blue macaw bird — found his way back to his owner after being kidnapped by the Brazilian mafia. This American Brazilian production uses Blu’s journey around Rio to tackle many core issues happening such as poverty, illegal smuggling of exotic birds, street children and pickpocketing. The movie generated $484 million dollars worldwide, it was the biggest launch for an animated film in Brazil and is in the top five all-time Brazilian box office hits. However, non the less the movie was received differently by different audiences. Many argue that ‘Rio’ only negatively contributes to the misrepresentation of the country and missed the opportunity to showcase many of the hidden beauties of Brazil; despite agreeing with this point of view I also believe that ‘Rio’ successfully brought awareness at an international level to core political issues which is more important.
There aren’t as many movies, specially targeted towards a younger audience, that share Brazilian culture. When Disney announced their upcoming movie, some Brazilians were worried about how an international company would portray our culture. Despite there being many Brazilians involved in the production process, the film focused exclusively on the favelas and poverty rather than all the different social classes, cultural aspects and beautiful nature. For example there are emotional shots of Fernando — a street child — sleeping on top of the favelas by himself and contributing to the mafia, monkeys pickpocketing tourists, and most buildings are spray painted or destroyed. After watching the movie recently I can see how it contributed to a false and negative image of the country. At the time the country was putting extensive efforts into moving away from this image, by investing a lot on tourism, introducing stronger social welfare programs to ensure education, housing and nutrition to every child. I understand why the movie upset many, and I think it is not a fair representation. However nonetheless everything showcased is part of our reality. Over 12 million people live in favelas, in 2011 there were 24,000 street children and around 500 people were shot to death in Rio. All in all, I think that the movie does not help Brazil move away from the stereotype that has been created and understand why the movie didn’t translate well.
On the other hand, I believe that bringing awareness to what is actually happening is more important than fixing Brazil’s image. ‘Rio’ in my opinion is one of the few movies that is targeted towards children and yet manages to discuss serious topics through the personification of animals and the use of metaphors. Targeting kids allows for the leaders of the future to understand different political issues and what needs to be done in order to achieve positive global change from a young age; additionally Disney knew that ‘Rio’ would have a massive buzz across the country. Therefore, it was an opportunity for them to successfully shine a light on the harsh reality and comment on the country’s government at a global level, which is far more significant than correcting their image; especially considering how many people they reached, which is an estimated 198 million worldwide. Furthermore, the only way for the audience to connect and empathize with the characters was through showing emotional and high impact scenes. I think that this connection is extremely important as it is the only way for change to happen. Scenes of Fernando sleeping on the streets and being forced into the mafia makes us think about unsustainable development, poverty, increasing crime rates and the growing issue of street children. All in all, I believe that since Disney could reach such a wide audience of all different ages and backgrounds, it was crucial for them to bring up all the core issues happening. Yes! It did mainly show the favelas and poverty but that was also the only way to truly tackle the given issues and open the audience’s eyes.
When diving deeper into Brazilian politics in 2011, Dilma was the new president, and her campaign motto was “more change, more futures”. The president claimed that she was increasing social welfare programs, tackling homelessness by providing unemployment insurance, and bettering education. However, all of that couldn’t be further away from the truth. Dilma was stealing from the people/government — she was impeached a few years after the movie came out — unemployment rates and crime rates were rising and so was homelessnes. Therefore, ‘Rio’ was a way to comment on: you are claiming to be doing all of these positive changes, why does the country still look like this? Overall highlighting her unsuccessfulness. I believe that there are no Brazilians that would want Rio de Janeiro to be represented the way it was, as it really is an untruthful stereotype. However, I think that a lot of Brazilians appreciated how an internal company held Brazil and Dilma accountable. From 2013 to 2016 there were major protests happening all across Brazil, as citizens were demanding change. Therefore a reason why the movie did translate well is because Brazilians in 2011 were already seeing the need for change and were glad it was shown at an international level. All in all, commenting on such political issues allowed for the Brazilians to connect with the movie and support it since they were craving change.
Despite many arguing that it damaged Brazil’s reputation, it also did promote some aspects. The film did showcase the culture of football for Brazilians, their beautiful music, a wide range of exotic species and landmarks such as Cristo Redentor, Pao de Acucar and CopaCabana. Showing the lively, fun and exciting atmosphere of Rio can also be seen as a great way to promote tourism. The film got nominated for an Oscars under the category of: Best Achievement in Music for Motion Pictures, Original Song. All of these aspects do contribute to the country’s overall image. Having such an influential movie produced, provides long term international exposure and also motivates more international movies to be made about Brazil, which is great for economic growth. All in all,
In conclusion, I believe that for many Brazilians the film Rio did not translate well because of how it showcases poverty and street children contributing to a false stereotype. Additionally, these same people think that the film gave off a negative impression for tourists and Disney missed the opportunity of showcasing all the beautiful aspects that are often forgotten about Brazil. However, I truly believe that it is more important to change what is happening rather than try and hide it. International exposure is super important and being able to show the reality of things to so many people from all different ages and backgrounds was a very good opportunity. The movie brought awareness to the current issues and called out the government, which are all things that needed to be done.
