BRAZZIL - News from Brazil - SHORT NOTES: the naked, the outrageous, the ludicrous

Rapidinhas - March 96

Rio's Summer Muse

Michelle in skimpy bikini

Woman

Beach beauty

Michelle Patrícia Martins, the 1996 Rio's Summer Muse, had a previous brush with fame. The gorgeous mulata was one of the 20 finalists last year among 2750 candidates looking for a job as "paquita," the TV cheerleader helpers of super-presenter Xuxa. She was refused a place allegedly due to her age ("over the ideal limit") which by then was 16. "Racism," some denounced. Michelle didn't care. She even became Xuxa's friend. She has studied theater, modeling and jazz since and is seriously considering a career modeling. If muses of past summers are any indication Michelle will be a very successful model indeed. The Summer Muse is traditionally from the more affluent south zone of Rio. Michelle, however, lives in the blue-collar neighborhood of Bonsucesso, with her strict parents and an older sister. Samba School Imperatriz Leopoldinense invited her to be in their latest Carnaval parade. "Yes," she said, "but with a condition. You have to change this costume. I am not showing my breasts."

Show biz

Anybody cares?

No one would imagine a few seconds on Michael Jackson's video clip "They Don't Care About Us" would provoke such domestic and international commotion. The entertainer went to Salvador, Bahia and Rio. The ruckus started even before the singer set foot in Brazil, right after Rio's mayor was able to get an injunction preventing Jackson from filming in the Dona Marta favela (shanty town). Another judge dropped the case, but the damage had already been done and the PR nightmare had started. Rio's Police Chief Hélio Luz called the video's director, Spike Lee, a sucker for paying drug traffickers for protection during the filming. "He's probably used to do this in the US," said Luz. "I was very smart," shot back Lee. "The police have no authority in Dona Marta. If I want a Coke I will not ask another customer for it but the waiter." Spike, who drank a lot of guaraná, a popular Brazilian soft drink, was also exasperated with the journalists, calling their questions "very stupid." Seemingly unaware of the imbroglio Jackson even made some last minute changes on the script taking the cameras to well inside the favela and mingling with Dona Marta's residents. They placed a big sign on the top of the hill saying, "Michael Jackson, they don't care about us."

Behavior

Whistle blowers

The campaign for the legalization of marijuana in Brazil has gained an unlikely ally. First lady anthropologist Ruth Cardoso defended the idea of pot smoking during an interview to Programa Livre, a SBT TV show. The declaration made Cardoso the darling of Posto 9, a spot on Ipanema beach (south zone of Rio) where the product has been making headlines the past few weeks. Nilton Cerqueira, Rio's secretary of Public Security commented, "This is the opinion of a citizen and should be respected. But we have a law and that also has to be respected." It was in the same area that musicians Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and Gal Costa used to get high around 1980 at the so-called Dunas do Barato (Pot's Dunes) while the police looked the other way. That little piece of beach hasn't gotten so much attention since 1987 when a Panama ship, afraid of being caught, unloaded its cargo of marijuana-filled cans which ended up at Posto 9's sands. To avoid the police, who have stepped up efforts to prevent the use of marijuana in the beach, Posto 9's habitués started to wear a whistle which is used every time a uniformed officer approaches. The apitaço (whistling festival) has irritated the police and repression has increased with dozens of pot smokers been detained.

On the spot

Brazil has only three months to answer to an OAS (Organization of American States) formal accusation of having massacred 13 peoples who lived at Rio's Nova Brasília favela (shanty town), last May. That's the third time in less than two months that the OAS's Interamerican Commission on Human Rights calls the country to task. The charge was brought by the group Human Rights Watch/Americas which in December had presented two other complaints: the first dealing with the death of Goiás's state Araguaia guerrillas between 72 and 74 and the second concerning 11 farm workers killed in Corumbiara, Rondônia, last August. Rio's governor Marcello Alencar protested the indictment: "How can the OAS condemn Brazil in a world in which there's rampant violence?"

Romancing the Oscar

O Quatrilho's Oscar nomination for best foreign movie was noisily celebrated by its director Fábio Barreto as if he had already won the Oscar. Barreto was also confident that the Academy's nod would improve the movie's lot at the domestic box office and give it a shot at the foreign market. It was only the second time a Brazilian movie was so recognized by Hollywood. The last time it happened the film was the Golden Palm Cannes winner O Pagador de Promessas and the year was 1962.

Monkeys don't

Despite all its success and to a certain point due to it, the Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama) has gone to court to stop the airing of a TV commercial in which monkeys do such human things like drive cars, talk on the cellular phone and take soft drink. Ibama asserts that forcing the animal to do such acts is a violation against their species. To avoid problems the Pepsi and guaraná Antarctic ad producer imported the monkeys. Now they could also be prosecuted for "trying to circumvent the law", according to Ibama's President Raul Jungmann. A couple of years ago the federal agency was successful in stopping an ad for an ant insecticide in which starred an anteater tamandua.

Gimme that zapper

Most Brazilians seem to hate Voz do Brazil (Brazil's Voice), a radio program which is broadcast every weekday from 7 PM to 8 PM by every radio station in the country, and are quick to turn off the radio as soon as they hear the program's musical theme the first chords from Carlos Gomes' O Guarani. Comes July 1 the Voz will also be on TV and will stay in the air 24 hours. The federal channel will bring news from the Executive, the congress and various federal departments. The redeeming feature is that the non-stop official Brazilian show will be on cable, a privilege still only accessible to a handful of Brazilians.

Budget leeway

Money can be tight in Brasília, but not for parties, medals or cachaça (sugar cane liquor). In 1995, the federal government spent more than $5 million just to promote parties. Almost $800,000 of this money were used by the always stern Army Ministry. The same ministry used the money earmarked for "maintenance of the troops" to buy 2,700 tinamou bird eggs a product believed to be an aphrodisiac and 24 cachaça bottles. The Department of Strategic Affairs, certainly intent on preserving the moral of their snoopers, made some interesting purchases, among others: 20 petecas (feather shuttlecocks) and 40 gallons of eucalyptus essence to be used in saunas.

Roll of shame

Brazil or Haiti? Where social instability is more likely to happen? Brazil, says CIA's State Failure Task Force, which listed 16 nations with a "high risk of social instability." According the Central Intelligence Agency's study Brazil is number five among the most unstable countries in the planet losing only to Armenia, Bangladesh, Benin and Bolivia. Haiti comes in 7th place. High index of unemployment and the existence of death squads are some of the factors that gave Brazil the prominent place in this infamous list. Is Brazil that shaky or is this just another proof that the CIA went off its rocker?

Positive, Charles

Not only surfers, criminals and rappers have their exclusive lingo. In Rio, you would also need a dictionary to understand police officers talking to each other. This kind of talk is highly contagious and some journalists on police beat end up using the same vocabulary in their stories. Here's a little help:
Charles Bravo - Military Police corporal
Correto - (correct) yes
Diligência - investigation
Doutor Delpol - Police commissioner
Elemento - person
Genitora - mother
Incursão - police crackdown
Lavrar a ocorrência - to report the case
Negativo - no
Operação pneumático - the change of a tire
Papa Índio - (Indian eater) poor devil
Papa Maique (Foxtrote) - (Woman) Military Police
Positivo - yes
Trinca - three
Viatura - police car
Zulu - the letter Z

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