Stereotyping Brazil

The Dutch quality newspaper Trouw reported two messages about Brazil last Saterday. The first one was titled: ”also the garbage man should just drive through the favela”, about the lacking of public services in São Paulo’s favelas, the other one reported that Rio de Janeiro is the happiest city in the world, according to research done by business magazine Forbes.
Interesting is that both reports are about stereotyping in different way: in the case of the favela about segregation between the favela and the rest of the city. These neighborhoods are stigmatized my the media, says sociologist and UN-reporter Raquel Rolnik. ‘In the favela happen a thousand things. But the reports about these neighborhoods are always about the violence. Because of this the impression emerges that it is correct to eliminate everybody.’ Police violence is a big problem in Brazil.
The other report, about Rio de Janeiro as the most happy city in the world, is also based on meaningless stereotypes. The main reason why people consider Rio as the most happy city is because of its carnaval: ‘it’s a classic image people have of Rio, and it’s an image of happiness’, says Simon Anholt, researcher for the fourth biggest market research company: GfK Custom Research North America. In this message no single word about violence, favelas, street people. Maybe you just forget about all these aspects if you sell statics for potential consumers. And if you have to sell newspapers: good news is no news.

Living in Bubbles

Paulo Arantes wrote an interesting article about the riots in May 2006 in São Paulo. It’s a very critical article that states that in the end the poor are the most vulnerable people in a society of fear, simply because the cannot afford the ‘commodities of fear’. Arantes makes the comparison between the poor Paulistanos and poor blacks of New Orleans after Katrina; in both situations the they seem to be forgotten by the government. About the wealthy middle classes he writes:

‘… [they] are the principal consumers of the main product of the industry of fear, namely the phantasmagoric “security bubble.” “Every morning cars leave their gated condominiums (bubble 1) to go to private schools with guards at the entrances (bubble 2); later, they continue on to entertainment zones or private leisure areas (bubble 3).” It is not surprising that the basic concept of the city has disappeared, and that the cordon sanitaire formed by such bubbles externalizes the latent insecurity.’ [1]

Paulo Arantes, Panic Twice in the City, 2007.