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FAO: Lira
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| R.j. |
I was watching Bus 174 and then I scrolled through the message board there and saw this:
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I love this movie because it serves to remind all brazilians out there that they DO NOT live in a developed country; that this country is NOT "happy" and "joyful"; that we ARE NOT white, pretty and polite; and that we are NEVER going to change this place as long as we keep fooling ourselves with this.
Our people is ignorant, poor, violent and it's sad, very, very sad.
The saddest part of it all is the "invisibility" mentioned in the film. I couldn't agree more. The elites in Brazil (therefore people who use the Internet, such as myself) are ashamed of the poverty and injustices of their country, and for that reason there will ALWAYS be someone to tell you that "despite all, Brazil is a good and beautiful country".
Trust me, it is not.
Very soon we will be living a Civil War and no one seems to realize it. Day after day things get worse; the rich richer, they buy their "Incredibles" DVD and sit around all day watching "Friends" and they think everything is ok. IS IS NOT.
So I congratulate films like "The Tresspasser", "City of God", "Bus 174", among others, for throwing the feces this country is right on our screens and right in the middle of our homes.
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Is this true? |
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| dj_alfi |
| quote: | | they buy their "Incredibles" DVD and sit around all day watching "Friends" |
:haha: :stongue: :haha: :stongue: |
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| Lira |
Brazil is on the brink of a civil war as much as the US. Some one really really bitter wrote that, but you should take this person as seriously as an unhinged nationalist.
I promised Tubular Bills I was going to post a thread about Brazil, so I'll post it all here. Just give me some time to look for sources and I'm going to answer your post in detail.
And, Alfi, Friends is annoyingly popular here :p |
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| Joss Weatherby |
| I bought a gold plated criterion collection edition of City of God, signed by the producer and director and I am mailing it to you for your birthday Lira... |
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| Lira |
Festa junina girls pretending to be rednecks
Economy
We're neither rich nor poor. We're somewhere in between. Brazil is highly unequal, being the world's 6th largest economy but with a GINI index comparable to that of a country like the Philippines (that's the coefficient that measures economic inequality in a region). The discrepancy is obvious when you compare different regions of the country: the further North you go, the poorer it gets, but the economy improves considerably as you move Southwards. And the North really is poor. I visited Pará last year and it felt like I was in a foreign country. Whereas I live in a prosperous oasis with a very high HDI - the Federal District, or Distrito Federal - Pará is not exactly known as a powerhouse (our GDP per capita is almost six times higher than theirs, so it's nearly the difference between Sweden and Turkmenistan).
A consequence of this disparity is the massive migration from the undeveloped North to the developing South - a region which, no matter how prosperous, just can't cope with this gigantic influx of immigrants. The obvious consequence is the high crime rate present in most regions: the Federal District itself is not exactly bad because our police force is actually quite decent, but being an enclave in a much larger state, it's no surprise that I'm typing this just a few kilometres away from Águas Lindas de Goiás, the most dangerous city of Goiás (the state that surrounds my district). The place has nearly as many murders per capita as Honduras, which happens to be the world's leading country in this rather unfortunate ranking.
But, don't let all this doom and gloom fool you: we've managed to pull a whole of people out of poverty in my lifetime. We're doing impressively well, and you can see it by comparing Brazil to other developing countries when it comes to the percentage of internet usage among its population:
It's funny the guy says "the elites" use the internet... and the elite is pretty much half the country. And it's no surprise the Olympics and the World Cup is finally coming to Brazil: Do you really think the World Olympic Organisation AND FIFA would've let a poor dangerous country host two epic events in such a short period of time?
We may not be developed yet, but we're known as "the country of the future"... and we may well always be, if we don't do our homework properly :p
Race and Culture
Your average Brazilian couple: Guess whose grandfather came from
Germany? Yeah, you guessed it - hers (Daniele Suzuki).
Oh, right, us. We speak a funny kind of Spanish called "Portuguese". It's just like the Spanish our neighbours speak, except they can't understand what we say and we can't make head nor tails of what they're saying unless they slow the hell down.
It's funny that person said Brazil is not white. Although we're far from being a country of pale Vikings, half the country is so-called white. The other half is mixed, and if you ignore the fact I rounded the numbers up and there's a missing 10%, the rest of the country is as rich in melanin as the African slaves brought to the continent during the previous centuries. Or Asian, Brazil being home to the greatest number of Japanese immigrants outside Japan and currently receiving a bizarre amount of Chinese workers. Oh, and the native Brazilians we nearly exterminated! I'm considered white (what a stupidly useless label!), but I've got native Brazilian ancestors, African forefathers, and a whole bunch of people in my family tree that came from a very exotic part of Asia called Europe (hence my Mediterranean appearance).
This means you should take the previous paragraph with a grain of salt, as we're a country of mixed-blooded mutts who happen to be every geneticist's wet dream. I do believe that, once I marry my (Japanese-blooded) fiancée, there's nothing left for me to do but hook our children up with some Australian aborigines so I can make sure one of my grandchildren will be Captain Planet. Even if I'm wrong, at least I'm sure I can have one of the Planeteers. What matters is that what you call "interracial relationship" in the US is pretty much what we call "relationship".
Still, there is a bizarre level of racism we don't know how to tackle, and there's the widespread belief that poorer people have darker skin colours (which may well be true, but I don't have the numbers confirming/denying that right now, and I can't seem to find them). But, even if it were true, being racist here is downright stupid: What the hell are you supposed to tell a neonazi with pure German and Gabonese blood!? Not to mention these people often think North-Easterners are are a "race" (they're our "Mexicans", in an American context). Some things make less sense than they make us ashamed.
Society
I'm glad I'm writing this in June, because I can tell you about Brazil's greatest party: the Festa Junina. I mean, there's Carnival and all that jazz, but whereas carnival is the most hyped festivity in Brazil, Festa Junina lasts a whole month (hence the name) and it covers most of the territory - reaching the lands of yours truly. I can't imagine a single Brazilian kid who has not danced quadrilha in June at school and pretended to be a redneck (or caipira, as we say). All right, maybe there is one or two basement-dwellers who have never left home, but tears of nostalgia well up in my eyes whenever I talk about it.
It's hard to find a cultural movement that covers the whole country, however. Carnival is more of a coastal thing, Amazon's got its very own local epic party (Bumba-Meu-Boi), and there's our Oktoberfest in Santa Catarina (EAT YOUR HEART OUT, BAH-VARIANS!).
Electronic Music
Whereas Rio produces some of the raunchiest tracks in existence (Google "Rio Funk" and have fun), São Paulo is home to our most famous producers, such as Gui Boratto, DJ Marky, and Renato Cohen. There's a very bizarre form of electronic music in Northern Brazil called "techno-brega" (techno-tacky, also known as technomelody), which is downright hilarious (and not really techno). This genre is so underground not even System J knows it exists.
Climate (this bit is just for you, Will!)
I know this may come as a shock but... I don't live in a rainforest. Braília is a very dry place, actually, with a rainy season that lasts from September to March), and a dry season that covers the rest of the year. Most of the time I don't remember what clouds look like, and I'm not exaggerating: this is what the sky is like in June...
... see? No clouds! The vegetation is quite used to the dry weather, though, and it's no wonder it looks green.
Here's a bit of everything you might want to know, I hope. Is there anything else you want to ask? |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by Joss Weatherby
I bought a gold plated criterion collection edition of City of God, signed by the producer and director and I am mailing it to you for your birthday Lira... |
:stongue:
Our postal service is not THAT slow :p |
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| tubularbills |
| so is it spelled Brazil or Brasil or Brasilia?:wtf: |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by tubularbills
so is it spelled Brazil or Brasil or Brasilia?:wtf: |
Brazil = The name of the country in English
Brasil = The name of the country in Portuguese
Brasília = The name of the capital in both languages
Confusing, I know :p |
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| R.j. |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lira
Here's a bit of everything you might want to know, I hope. Is there anything else you want to ask? |
Why is there an overwhelming amount of Brazilians in the nearly-extinct Duke Nukem 3D community? |
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| tubularbills |
| I'd like to do go to Brazil some day. Is it like required that I have a speedo? |
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| Lira |
| quote: | Originally posted by tubularbills
I'd like to do go to Brazil some day. Is it like required that I have a speedo? |
Only if you're over 40, for some god-forsaken reason :p
I haven't owned a single speedo for 20 years or more.
| quote: | Originally posted by R.j.
Why is there an overwhelming amount of Brazilians in the nearly-extinct Duke Nukem 3D community? |
We tend to gather in the most bizarre corners of the internet. I mean it! |
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| tubularbills |
| I remember as a kid hearing about the rainforests. and how they were clearing hundreds of acres of forests every day. here I am, some 20 years later wondering, how are the rainforests doing? |
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