Brazzil - Nation - June 2004
 

Gláuber Rocha
In this country, which complains about incentives to production outside Brazil, not a single day passes without, in some sector of the so-called cultural world, somebody asking the government for “incentives to culture”.

There is no lack of laws in this area: the Rouanet law, the Mendonça law, the Audiovisual law, the Fazcultura law, and so forth. As culture, in general, they include those asking for handouts from shows, films, or publications linked to show business, all for-profit enterprises.

It is as if the artist—or cultural agent, which seems to sound better—were sending a message to the taxpayer: “in the name of culture, turn over your taxes to me, because I want to live comfortably”.

Earlier this month, the film producer Luiz Carlos Barreto, known as Barretão, called those who were demonstrating against the Audiovisual law culture gigolos. Not that these gentlemen want to kill the goose who laid the golden egg. They just want their eggs to go a different way. And for public money not to pass through company coffers, and for private money to be invested in culture.

The disagreements are only about the way to steal from the taxpayer. Barretão, feeling his position as a gigolo threatened, has gone on the offensive, in defense of 500 million reais (US$ 160 million) released to his guild each year:

“Cinema is an industry under strong international pressure, competition that makes it difficult for it to sustain itself. And the survival of the cinema is a question affecting the survival of Brazilian society. The battle for the audiovisual is now the principal battle of the modern world, the defense of audiovisual content. The country that does not enter this battle will not survive as a nation.”

Translated: Brazil can sink as a nation, if the taxes you pay do not go to finance productions such as Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands and Que É Isso, Companheiro? What is more, Barretão is defending family interests. His son, Bruno Barreto, also needs to make a living.

I, who have not seen a Brazilian film for more than thirty years, must do penance. I am an enemy of the nation and of Brazilian society. I did not imagine that the survival of Brazil depended upon the Brazilian cinema.

Fernando Collor de Mello, the Brief, may not have pleased the national structures of power. But when he was inaugurated, in 1990, he made not only me, but all Brazilian taxpayers happy: he eliminated Embrafilme.

With one stroke of the pen, he ended the party for a private sector which loved guaranteed comfort at State expense. That is, with our money, since the State produces nothing and earns nothing. This was one of the reasons for its fall.

The cinematic gigolos went hungry for four years, but didn’t lose their appetite. In 1994, through the Audiovisual law, they reached their hand once more into the pocket of those who earn their salary honestly.

Patronage is so attractive that even the TV networks have already been thinking about how they get hold of this inexhaustible wallet, that of the people, in order to produce their trash.

Under the Lula administration, the gigolos have become even more daring. Through the decree no. 4.945, issued stealthily during the New Year’s celebration, each one of the 1800 movie houses in Brazil will have to dedicate 63 days of its programming to Brazilian cinema. In 2003, only 35 days were required.

The gigolos managed to revoke this reactionary law of supply and demand and shove their products down the throats of the movie-going public. (What is left in the market is the domain of the Americans. Only by some miracle will you be able to see a German, Italian or Finnish film nowadays.)

It is not just blacks who want quotas. Film directors are people too. But abroad, the president belches to the defense of free trade, and brandishes his rude verbiage against state incentives for production.

Of course, cinema is not the only sector of the leisure industry protected by the State, for the use of the friends of the king. In this supposedly capitalist country, we have state theatre, state book publishing, and state music.

Recently, the government resuscitated the Pixinguinha project, buried during the Fernando Henrique Cardoso administration. Musicians will go out through all of Brazil, pushing their songs to audiences that were never consulted about what they would like to hear, but who will be compelled to pay to hear what they did not ask for. Who benefits from the crime? Musicians, of course.

As if this obscene sacking of public funds, made possible by corporativist laws, were not enough, a few days ago something unusual in the way of state corruption took place in the center of São Paulo. The center of the city was taken over by a gay parade, which has been going on for seven years now.

It is even understandable for gays to parade, although I find all sexual exhibitionism in the streets particularly disagreeable. What is hard to understand is that the promotion of the event received support from the Lei do Mecenato (Law for Patronage) of the Ministry of Culture, being awarded 503,000 reais (US$ 162,000), from individuals and corporations, under the rubric of fiscal incentives.

Already last year, the Gay Pride Association, the entity promoting the event, managed to mug 441,000 reais (US$ 142,000) from the taxpayer. The government also directed 43,000 (US$ 14,000) reais from the National Fund for Culture to support the Bahian version of the Gay Parade, which took place last week in Salvador.

"We are not directing resources to a social movement, but to a cultural movement”, the actor and secretary for Identity and Cultural Diversity, Sérgio Mamberti, said by way of justification. "The ministry’s concept is broad and modern.”

In this incredible country, homosexuality is culture. And to go further, it has become a State matter. Soon we will have Homobras. Homosexuality belongs to us. (An allusion to Petrobras and its old slogan: "The oil belongs to us.")

Brazil shines forth among nations. We nationalized gay.

Janer Cristaldo—he holds a PhD from University of Paris, Sorbonne—is an author, translator, lawyer, philosopher and journalist and lives in São Paulo. His e-mail address is cristal@baguete.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Tom Moore. Moore has been fascinated by the language and culture of Brazil since 1994. He translates from Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian and German, and is also active as a musician. Comments welcome at querflote@hotmail.com.