Monthly Archives: March 2018

Blacks and Whites in Sao Paulo, Brazil

Blacks and Whites in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was written by Gorge Reid Andrews in 1991. This book provides a history of Brazilian racial inequality from the abolition of slavery in 1888 up to the late 1980s, showing how economic, social and political changes in Brazil during the last 100 years have shaped race relations. Andrews uses secondary source to gather information from various sources such as government policies, newspaper, employment data and much more.

The focus of this blog will be chapter six and seven. In these two particular chapters, Andrews traces the discrimination against Afro-Brazilians and the inequality leading to the black movement. He focuses on the racial competition between the Afro-Brazilians and white Brazilians. For instance, the advancement of Afro-Brazilians was always seen as a threat because the whites “insist that harmony is best preserved by black people remaining in “their place” and not creating “disagreeable situations” of competition and challenge.” This finally lead to the black movement because black mobilization finally reminded Brazilians that their country is not the racial democracy that it claims to be and if there were no problems then it would not lead to that movement.

This contributes to our unit’s theme because these chapters show us that even after slavery was abolished the racial inequality in Brazil was still highly present. It was either in forms of employment, clubs or education for Afro-Brazilian. Their appearance was also taken as a factor for the discrimination they faced. It has to be taken into factor that even though Andrews tells us about the racial inequality upon Afro-Brazilians, he does not however, touch upon the subject of the racial inequality against the immigrants by Afro-Brazilians. Nonetheless, Andrews does an excellent job at showing us the racial inequality present in Sao Paulo, Brazil and the effects of Afro-Brazilians taking a stance for themselves.

Analysis of Marcel Camus’ Orfeu Negro

Marcel Camus’ Orfeu Negro is a French film based on the Brazilian play Orfeu da Conceição. The film’s and play’s plot is inspired by the Greek myth Orpheus and Eurydice taking place in Rio de Janerio, Brazil, during the Brazilian festival Carnival. The story begins with Eurydice fleeing to Rio in search of her cousin, Serafina. Like the myth entails, Eurydice flees to escape Death and believes by running away to Rio she is safe. While looking for Serafina, Eurydice bumps into Orfeu, the film’s protagonist, while riding a trolley. Getting off the trolley Eurydice is given directions to her cousin’s house where Orfeu is a neighbor; How Ironic? As the plot develops Orfeu and Eurydice fall in love similar to the Greek myth. Later on during festival activities, Eurydice is chased by Death who unfortunately finds her among the crowd. Finally, and as a tragic typically ends, Eurydice is killed by Orfeu while trying to rescue her.

Positively critiquing the film I would argue that the choreography and music was spot on, adding a sense of genuine Brazilian culture. I really liked how the same song carried throughout the entire length of the film, which I later learned is a tradition. Songs are sung with accompanying music from floats driving down the streets precedingCarnival and locals follow the music and sing along. Another strength of the film was the use of red lighting during the last scene with Eurydice adding to the drama of death as well as the “red” aspect of the underworld where Eurydice goes.

What I did not like about the film, however, was the way the Afro-Brazilians were portrayed in the film. These prejudices of how Afro-Brazilians are viewed actually relates to our current Unit “Blackness in Brazil”. One of our readings was a chapter of Gilberto Freyre’s The Masters and the Slaves which describes Afro-Brazilians as being obsessed with sexual desire as a side-effect of the institution of slavery and their African origin. This eroticism was heavily depicted throughout the film especially in times of high festivities. Specifically depicted in which the song and dance of the Afro-Brazilians began to sound animalistic. The Afro-Brazilians are also portrayed as impoverished but in an extremely careless manner. For example, Serafina buys a dress over food despite the fact that she’s struggling with money. Surprisingly the entire Rio de Janerio population is singing and dancing without a care in the world not to mention the shanty towns the Afro-Brazilians live in.

I found this film overall confusing, not on the fault of the film necessarily but on my fault for being ignorant about the Brazilian Carnival and its cultural value along with the original Greek myth in which the film/play is inspired from. Seeing this film with this knowledge would have clarified some points at the beginning of the film.  I also found the intent of the film confusing. It’s unclear the director’s intent of the stereotyping such as whether he unknowingly stereotypes the Afro-Brazilians, or is trying to expose the stereotypes by exaggerating them.

Film Analysis

Orfeu Negro (Black Orpheus) is a romantic tragedy film made in Brazil by French director Marcel Camus. It is based on the retelling of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth of Ancient Greece. The setting of the movie is the annual Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Orpheus, the hero of this movie, falls in love with Eurydice and together they embark on a tough journey to achieve their love. Eurydice runs away from her house to avoid a man who she claims is trying to kill her. She arrives in Rio to stay with her cousin Serafina and meets Orpheus. Throughout the festivities of the Carnival, they fall in love and face the difficulties of being together. In the end, it is up to Orpheus to make the choice of not looking back to keep Eurydice by his side or to lose her forever.

Camus opens the film by engaging spectators in a scene of tribal drumming and dance. Music plays a big role throughout this movie. It sets the tone for the scenes presented and the emotions of the characters. The movie does a great job of depicting the diversity in Brazil because of the melting pot of different cultures brought by the slaves. This movie also shows the influence of indigenous people in Brazil. This is shown at the end when the Native Americans participating in the ceremony try to contact the spirits by performing rituals that are guiding these spirits. An ethnocentric critique of the movie would be the depiction of the Afro-Brazilian people living in favelas. It shows that they have do not have a care for anything and that they spend most of their time dancing and singing. It does not show the racial discrimination they have to face in everyday life and the hardships of the conditions that they are living in.

Black Orpheus relates to the course material through the depiction of African culture in Brazil. It shows the religion brought to Brazil by African slaves who blended their religious beliefs with Catholicism, which is embedded in Brazilian beliefs. It depicts the warmth and liveliness of the Afro-Brazilian culture that Brazilians have adapted by their taste in music, dance, food, and much more. Overall, the movie was a great take of the old myth with a new twist. I would defiantly recommend this movie to anyone interested to take a peak of the Brazilian culture in 1950’s, and also for the great music in the movie

Film Analysis 2

This film is about a young and beautiful woman, Eurydice, running away from home because Death kept threatening her. She stayed at her cousin Serafina’s house and there she grew to love Orpheus, a guitar playing, Romeo who was engaged to marry Mira. At Carnaval, Death gets to Eurydice, and Orpheus is heartbroken as he carries her corpse back home. Mira, having found out about Orpheus’ affair, throws stones at him and he falls over a cliff and dies, embraced to his love. This is a French-directed film, based on a Brazilian play, based on a Greek myth. This opens up the film to criticism about the Eurocentric view of Afro-Brazilians.

A clearly Eurocentric point of view the Afro-Brazilian people is how they were depicted as jovial, street vendors who were constantly dancing to and playing music. Even in the opening scene on the boat, everyone was dancing as the ship was docking. This coincides exactly with Freyre’s idea of people of African descent, and how this jovial culture adds to the value of Brazilian culture as a whole. Another critique is how the women were portrayed; they were fiery, sensual beings as depicted by the strange foreplay Serafina partook in and by Mira’s constantly displayed cleavage. Again, Freyre wrote at length about the sensuality and eroticism of the slaves brought over from Africa, and how the Portuguese focused on bringing over beautiful slaves so as to populate the empty lands of Brazil with beautiful, mixed babies. Finally, the way poor people in Brazil were depicted was Eurocentric. These people were wasting what little money they had on Carnaval costumes instead of food. Yes, this does occur in real life, but there are reasons for such “madness”. They are buying into the illusion of that day; at Carnaval you can be anyone, even the King, for a day and escape the oppression of poverty. A poverty, as Fernandes claimed, that is imposed on the people through systemic racism. The racial inequality present in Brazil could even be seen in the costumes chosen for Carnaval. The people of Day were dressed in French colonial garb whereas the people of Night were dressed in African clothing. One usually associates Day/Light with Goodness and Night/Dark with Evil, thus perpetuating racial ideologies in a subtle way.

Concerning cinematography, the use of color was integral to the film. When Eurydice arrived, she was adorned with a yellow necklace. The camera then zoomed in on a yellow canary, representative of Eurydice, in a cage with black crows, representative of Death. Then the scene skips to Serafina, and her own yellow canary is acting up. Canaries sense dangerous levels of toxins in the air, and were used in coalmines for years, but Serafina’s canary was sensing the impending danger of Death. The red lights represented the Underworld, which was depicted as a favela in Brazil, which many would consider an accurate comparison. Overall, I felt that this was an interesting film that successfully put a modern twist on an old Greek myth.

Florestan Fernandes – The Negro in Brazilian Society

 

 

 

 

 

The sociologist Florestan Fernandes addresses the legacy of a white society in relation to a crippled and impoverished Afro-Brazilian population living within the state of Sao Paulo. Fernandes refutes the accepted belief that equality exists among races and argues that the Afro-Brazilian was never prepared to compete equally in a free-labor society. Fernandes claims that this allowed white Brazilians and white Europeans to continually surpass them in the social and economic stage. The Negro in Brazilian Society is an empirical essay published in 1969. It looks specifically at the state of Sao Paulo, Brazil because, as Fernandes points out Sao Paulo is the ideal setting for racial relation studies. For the purpose of our own studies, The Negro in Brazilian Society is a primary source because describes results of a sociological study. This essay was intended to show that Brazil was not the beacon of racial equality that it claims to be but on the contrary, is a system that discriminates against the Afro-Brazilians in various ways.

 

The second unit of our Race in Latin America studies is Blackness in Brazil. Fernandes essay The Negro in Brazilian Society strongly contributes to the unit because of its thesis and conclusion. Abolition occurred about 80 years before this essay was published which declared constitutional equality for all races yet, there is still strong discrimination and inequality for the Afro-Brazilian. This essay takes an in-depth look at the social and economic factors affecting the Afro-Brazilian which in turn affects how the Afro-Brazilian as a race and as an individual is viewed.

 

It should be addressed that although Fernandes supported his claim of inequality between whites and Afro-Brazilians with data from multiple Sao Paulo censuses, a few of his tables were somewhat ambiguous such as Table 4 – Births, Deaths, and Stillborns. These ambiguities cloud his credibility. Nonetheless, Fernandes is a social justice warrior. He criticizes a vast majority of Brazilians claiming that they hold a “prejudice of having no prejudice” allowing them to be oblivious to the severe inequality among them. He offers rational arguments about how immigrants out-competed Afro-Brazilians in the free-labor market and how the legacy of slavery affected job opportunities for the Afro-Brazilians as well.

 

DQ’s

 

A common phrase today with regard to racism in the United States is “I am colorblind, therefore I don’t see race.” Is that phrase similar to Fernandes’ claim that white Brazilians have a prejudice of having no prejudice?

 

What are the major factors that led to white immigrants out-competing Afro-Brazilians in the labor market?

Fernandes, Florestan. The Negro in Brazilian Society. New York: Columbia University Press, 1969.

The Black Orpheus

Orpheus and Eurydice

Orfeu Negro tells the story of two Latin lovers who parallel the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice in this Brazilian adaptation directed by Marcel Camus. The story is set in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval season in 1959. The two main protagonists, aptly named Orfeu de Babilonia and Euridice, encounter each other by chance on the way to their homes. Euridice has left her home fleeing from a dangerous figure and is visiting her cousin Serafina, while Orfeu is returning to his fiancée Mira and preparing for the Carnaval festivities. Although promised to Mira, Orfeu irresistibly falls for Euridice beauty. Orfeu’s charm and musical talent make him a very admirable character and he risks much in his pursuit of Euridice, which creates tension between other female characters, principally Mira. The tale of two lovers is moving and is an excellent adaptation of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, with many allusions to the myth made throughout the film.

Orfeu Negro depicts a lively Brazilian culture that is rich with music, dance and diversity. It does a decent job of including people of all colors and the norms of the very affectionate and intimate Brazilian way of life, but the question is; How accurate is this French Interpretation? There are many medium to light skinned individuals in this film which demonstrates the racial and ethnic mixture that exists in Brazil that seems to embrace this feeling of equality and joy, but is this the reality of those living in and around Rio de Janeiro? This film also includes ethnocentric depictions of candomblé, religion and omens of Brazilian culture that directly relate to the symbols and emphasis of gods and fate within the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. This was one of the strengths of the film because this is a nuanced adaptation of a classic story and captures the essence of the myth well. One can see this in the names that Camus gives to the characters. Names such as Orfeu and Euridice directly relate to the story and even early on in the film when Orfeu and Mira seek out a marriage documents. The clerk jokes about Orfeu being with a Euridice, but the characters are unaware of how connected their stories truly will be. This is also true of the maintenance man at the end of Orfeu Negro because his role is very similar to that of Charon, the ferryman of the Underworld and Sisyphus as he ceaselessly attempts to clean up the loose pages in the building, or rather the lost souls…

Orfeu Negro relates to the course material because, as we have read in our course, Brazil was a place that depicts itself as truly accepting of people of all colors and backgrounds. The focus in this film is that Afro-Brazilians are a very warm and lively people who value the arts and romance rather than focusing on how one specifically identifies is strongly related to the idea of the false racial democracy. Orfeu doesn’t address the issue of race and ethnicity as it was during the mid-20th century. It avoids that aspect of life entirely in Brazil. This would be the main weakness of the film; it only seems to highlight positive aspects of life in Brazil. It shows how even in media and the entertainment industry, issues of color are not accurately depicted and further blurs or even eliminates the fact that there are any issues at all during the mid-20th century Brazil. Can we trust this French interpretation of Brazilian culture and society, or must we be wary to not stereotype an entire city, let alone an entire country such as Brazil?

Freyre – Masters and Slaves

The Masters and the Slaves, was written by Gilberto de Mello Freyre, which was first published in 1933. It is a secondary source because it incorporates and explains in detail the different types of resources. He wrote this reading to explain that the strength of Brazil lies in its racial diversity.

Freyre elaborates on the living conditions of Portuguese settlers, the indigenous peoples of Brazil, and African slaves. In this particular chapter, he focused mostly on African cultural anthropology and its social history rather than the physical anthropology. Freyre believes that the anthropology-culture and historical social aspects of African life indicate that Brazil benefited from a better type of colonists from the “dark continent”, than did the countries of the Americas.

He traces numerous separate lines from African civilization to Brazil, noting in considerable detail the importance of the vastly varying African populations, religions, languages, and cultures that were brought. He emphasizes that the negative qualities considered characteristic of African slaves in Brazil were in fact produced by slavery, not by African heritage. There was a deeper analysis of food, clothing, religious rituals and dance, which was linked from the African slaves to the Brazil’s culture that is seen today.

Sexuality was a prevalent theme in this reading, he talks about the odor of certain kinds of bodies, the “lushness” of women’s diets, sexual diseases, the heat and the importance of Big House in Brazilian culture. There is a focus on the prayers, child marriage, taunting rhymes and lullabies. He also mentions the Mohammedan Negroes that were brought to Brazil from the African area which had been most deeply penetrated by Islamism. They were culturally superior not only to the natives, but to the great majority of the white colonists.

Freyre does an excellent job in explaining the impact the African culture had in Brazil. He uses variety of resources to give an insight of the living conditions of “Negro” slaves. Although some of the resources might not be credible because they were travelers’ accounts or family stories, it gives the reader the unpleasant truth about slavery and its mark in Brazil.

 

Do you agree with certain points in this reading? If so, what are they?

Do you believe this reading is similar to Jose Vasconcelos and his idea of a “cosmic race”?