Brazil Art Today

LITERATURE
The best-known Brazilian writer today is novelist Paulo Coelho, born in 1947 in Rio’s Copacabana district. Raised in middle-class comfort, Coelho began a long tradition of rebelliousness when he took up writing at a young age—considered such a radical act under the era’s military dictatorship that his family had him repeatedly hospitalized. Incidentally, his 1998 book based on his asylum time, Veronika Decide Morrer (trans. Veronica Decides to Die), helped pass a congressional act banning involuntary hospitalization. Coelho continued in this radical vein in the counterculture 60s and 70s, writing incendiary political tracts and subversive song lyrics. Today, Coelho is an occult figure of sorts, known as the New Age author of spiritualist, quasi-mystical novels like the symbolic best-seller O Alquimista (trans. The Alchemist; 1988). A literary “shaman” of sorts, Coelho remains a divisive figure in Brazilian letters, simultaneously dismissed as a pop phenomenon (Madonna chose The Alchemist as her most influential text) and worshipped the world over as the soul’s premier chronicler.

Although revered in his native country as an ardent social activist, Coelho’s work is actually better read outside the country’s borders; the biggest literary sellers in Brazil are translated versions of works by such literary giants as John Grisham and Michael Crichton. Brazil has few, if any, other contemporary authors of note, although the country continues its tradition of turning every major novel into a blockbuster film with the 21st-century flicks Carandiru (based on Varella’s Estação Carandiru) and Cidade de Deus (from Lins’s novel of the same name).

MUSIC
Many of Brazil’s biggest stars are still going strong, including 2003 Oscar nominee Caetano Veloso and current national Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil. As in the rest of the world, popular music in Brazil hasn’t avoided the creeping influence of pre-fab bubble-gum pop, like teeth-rottingly cheerful sibling pop stars Sandy and Júnior or five-girl power band Rouge, winners of the Brazilian Pop Idol. Also unfortunately popular are countless bands cut from the US-born “nü-metal” cloth—try Charlie Brown, Jr., or Skank (SKONK-ee), progenitors of “Brazilian ska.” The truly cutting-edge modern music coming out of Brazil is based on techno-tweaking of traditional beats (particularly bossa nova), as pioneered by late Yugoslav expat Suba. Brazilian-born, UK-based Amon Tobin is a current alt-rock darling thanks to his sampled bossa nova and batucada beats. Both men helped produce 2000’s sunny-smooth Tanto Tempo, the debut of the supposed “new voice” of bossa nova, Bebel Gilberto (daughter of João Gilberto and Miúcha and niece of Chico Buarque). The group Bossacucanova takes a more traditional route by mixing up samba and bossa nova standards with blipping electronic beats.

FILM
Brazilian cinema garnered international critical praise in 2002 with the ultraviolent neorealist epic Cidade de Deus (City of God; dir. Kátia Lund and Fernando Meirelles), an adaptation of Paulo Lins’s novel named after the Rio favela on which the factually based gangster saga centers. Cidade de Deus has been lauded by Brazilians as making the nation confront the problems of urban poverty and drug warfare like nothing before. Also released in 2002 and based on actual events was Ônibus 174 (Bus 174; dir. José Padilha), which follows the failed attempted robbery of a bus in Rio’s Zona Sul by a young homeless man. The revival of Brazilian cinema continued in 2003 with the release of Babenco’s Carandiru. The episodic film is loosely based on Drauzio Varella’s memoir (Estação Carandiru) detailing his work at Carandiru, South America’s largest correctional facility, in the middle of São Paulo. The novel and film culminates in the 1992 massacre of 111 unarmed prisoners by prison guards.

TELEVISION
Wondering why the streets of Brazil are deserted between 6pm and 10pm every day? It’s during that time that virtually everyone in the country heads indoors to watch novelas, the sappy and oversexed TV soap operas that easily outrank futebol and samba as the favorite national pastime. Unlike long-running European or American soap operas, novelas have definite endings and tidy storyline conclusions, lasting only a few months (or as long as ratings and popularity stay high). Globo, one of the world’s five biggest media conglomerates, airs the most popular novelas at 6, 7, and 9pm, with a break at 8pm for equally salacious news broadcasts. Each time slot is devoted to a specific novela type—6pm is “female empowerment;” 7pm is “bodice-ripping historical dramas;” 9pm is “minimal clothing, maximum face-sucking.” Though they’re overacted and hyper-dramatic, novelas frequently tackle topics often considered too controversial for TV, including AIDS, interracial relationships, and gay marriage. And despite their ridiculous image in foreigners’ eyes, novelas are where the top money is in Brazil’s entertainment industry, featuring the country’s highest-paid actors, writers, and directors.

The rest of Brazilian TV is even trashier, consisting mostly of suggestive children’s programs and groan-worthy variety shows populated by a cast of overweight hosts, brainy-animal/stupid-human combos, and bikini-clad go-go girls. Things get racier by the hour: the top-rated nighttime talk show is RedeTV’s post-1am Noite Afora, a graphic sex talk show hosted on a giant fuchsia bed by former porn actress Monique Evans and transsexual superstar Léo Áquilla. Evans follows in the footsteps of Xuxa, a former hardcore adult film star who remade herself as an MPB singer, chil¬dren’s TV show host, and homemaking magazine magnate.