6 8 Films
However, whether made as altruistic attempts to help
the poor or purely for entertainment’s sake, these films
run the risk of being met with surprisingly counterproductive reactions. It is known that post-release,
many real life residents of the City Of God found it
harder to get jobs and escape stigmatisation; seemingly,
A culture previously ignored by
outsiders was hastily looted for
its cosmetic qualities.
many middle class Brazilians had their stereotypes
reinforced by the film. Here lies the dilemma: too
many times the media/tourist industry plys us with
glamorous scenes of Copacabana beaches and
‘healthy’ brown bodies, with no reference to the
history of The Red Command or to the reasons behind
the ghetto graffiti which glorifies Osama Bin Laden as
a fellow anti–American hero. Yet, in documenting the
less appealing side of the country, you run the risk of
ushering in new stereotypes; the exception becomes
the rule, cultural anomalies turn into trends before
descending into clichés. For example, Boyz in the Hood
quickly became the template for a deluge of ‘hood’
movies, many lacked the innovation and integrity of
John Singleton’s masterpiece, ‘to represent’ soon
meant ‘to retread old ground’. Although 174/Carandiru
are unlike City Of God in style and message, there is
much doubt the films will have any major, long-lasting
effect in changing attitudes; the Brazilian class-divide is
another ‘them’ and ‘us’ schism apparently too deeply
entrenched to be resolved.
Over here, this cinematic expression has become the
catalyst for a new bandwagon to jump on. Remember
the ‘indian summer’? The spiritual significance of
henna tattoos, lost in the rush to paint pretty swirls
onto naive arms just to match the handbag with a
Bollywood billboard print. A culture previously ignored
by outsiders was hastily looted for its cosmetic qualities,
quicker than you could say ‘Bombay mix’. Likewise, the
credits had hardly finished rolling on Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon by the time a supermarket was using
back-flipping, kung fu antics and badly dubbed speech
to advertise its ‘stir fry’ range.
I am, of course, being hypocritical; it is only due to the
burgeoning popularity of such films that I am aware of
their existence, therefore thinking about the issues they
examine. There is a contradiction in my concern on
how they face becoming ‘over popular’ and undermined
by the fickleness of popular culture, but with the
overexposure to the sunny side of Brazil and the
potential glossing over of the ghetto stories by the
mainstream’s love of ‘hood chic’ aesthetics, it is easy
for minds to wander from the issues at hand. The
culture risks becoming equivalent to hearing an
album ‘no one else’ has; the satisfaction leading to
disappointment when your favorite song appears on
a car advert. Meanwhile, the real life muses of our
‘exoticised’ culture of the season keep struggling and
dyng away from cinema screens, without a sexy,
Afro-Brazilian jazz track or subtitles to pull us in.
As for the over-exposure; (place tongue in cheek here)
I guess I’ll have to keep looking for that special,
undiscovered, disenfranchised culture that I can call
my own.