Forests & Favelas
When moving to the United States from Brazil, specially at a young age I often heard misconceptions of my home country and culture. I feel like the media created an image of Brazil centered around forests and favelas. Many of my international friends when thinking about Brazil imagine the amazon forest, soccer, violence, carnaval, and favelas but the truth is: there is so much more that is often forgotten. A few years ago in 2011, Disney released ‘Rio’ a movie about Blu, a domestic macaw bird that visits Brazil, gets kidnapped and has to find his way back. This American Brazilian production tackles many core issues happening in Rio de Janeiro such as poverty, illegal smuggling of exotic birds, street children and pickpocketing. This triggered many Brazilians, as it once again once showed one side. Therefore, many argue that ‘Rio’ only negatively contributes to this misrepresentation 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 such as street children that needs to be solved.
There aren’t as many movies, specially targeted towards a younger target audience, that share Brazilian culture. When Disney announced their upcoming movie, some Brazilians were worried about how an international company would portray our culture, whereas others were simply excited to showcase the beauty of Rio de Janeiro to a large audience. Throughout the production, many Brazilians were involved just to guarantee a fair representation. However, after the film came out there were a lot of mixed feelings, as they exclusively showed the favelas rather than all different social classes, street children over other cultural aspects, smuggling of animals over the beautiful nature, and focused on the sexualization of carnival. In my personal opinion most of the scenes contribute to a false and negative image of the country. For example, there are emotional shots of the favela, scenes 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 just to new a few. Personally, the movie does not convince me of visiting, it is actually the contrary. It gives off the impression that you will be staying at the favelas if you go, where you will encounter the mafia and have your stuff stolen. The country is putting extensive efforts into moving away from this image, by investing a lot on tourism, introducing stronger social welfare programs, increasing yearly the number of orphanages and overall trying to make Rio a safer city. Lastly, when the film came out Brazil was putting enormous efforts to decrease inequality and poverty rates, the movie was written right after the 2008 economic crisis, which was when Brazil in comparison to many countries was doing a lot better. By highlighting all of their struggles, while they were doing well, might be one additional reason for the movie to not be received positively All in all, because of these reasons, I believe that for some people the movie didn’t translate well.
On the other hand, despite agreeing with everything mentioned, unfortunately everything discussed in the movie is also reality. Disney was brave to shine light on the harsh reality and call the Brazilian government out. This movie in my opinion is a lot deeper, it brings awareness to what is happening and pressures Brazil to do better at a global level. Furthermore, targeting a young target audience 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. By showcasing how Fernando slept in the streets, on top of the roofs of the favelas, the audience can open their eyes to the core issue surrounding unsustainable development, poverty and the sadness behind street children. Additionally, when showing how Fernando is forced to contribute to the illegal trading of exotic animals, highlights how in Brazil there are many innocent people that want to do good, however they can’t because of their finances. I believe that a lot of the crime happening in Brazil is because citizens don’t see a different way out to feed their kids or buy medication. In 2011, Brazil had a new president Dilma, who had replaced Lula. Both of these presidents have stolen a lot of money from the government and also claim that they have helped implement different social welfare programs to solve exactly the issues that were being broadcasted by the Disney movie. In a way Rio, highlighted all the factors that Dilma claimed to be working on and showed to a wide audience her unsuccessfulness. I think that many Brazilians recognize this issue and were rather pleased with the movie as it was a way to pressure the government to do better. All in all, Rio was well received by a set of audience that want to bring awareness to what is happening instead of deaning it.
Similarly, many Brazilians including myself are very proud of all aspects of their culture. They want to show the beautiful nature, the history behind Carnival and everything that Brazil has to offer. I vividly remember the excitement surrounding the movie because there aren’t that many films showcasing Rio de Janeiro. When focusing on the positives, the film did showcase the culture of football for Brazilians, their beautiful music, 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. Importantly, despite what Brazilians want Brazil to ‘look’ like the reality is that favelas do exist, there is a mafia that controls them, and a growing issue with homelessness so we cannot completely avoid it. In 2011, when the movie was made, there were a total of 24,000 street children which is unacceptable and should have been tackled by the president who claims: ‘we are for the working class’. Lastly, Rio opened doors to more international movies being made about Brazil, which is a great way for exposure and economic growth. All in all, by vividly showcasing our culture and criticizing the government Rio was able to attract many loyal Brazilian viewers and open the door for long term international exposure.
In conclusion, I believe that for many Brazilians the film Rio did not translate well because of how it showcases poverty and street children giving off a negative impression for tourists when Brazil was trying to clean their image. However, at the same time it allowed for international exposure and pressure while showcasing Brazilian culture. The movie had great success once it first launched, as many Brazilians were excited to watch their home country on Disney, however the debate of whether or not people liked it depends on their values.
