Brazil Moves Towards Legalizing Gay Marriage

This is already an old story, but it's important enough that I wanted to include it here. As anyone who follows Latin American news knows by now, Brazil's National Council of Justice issued a ruling last week that paves the way for marriage licenses to be issued for gay civil unions in Brazil.

If this unfolds as expected, Brazil would be the third Latin American country to recognize gay marriages, along with Argentina and Uruguay, and the fourth in the Western Hemisphere (gay marriage is legal in Canada).

According to an article on the Huffington Post, "Fourteen of Brazil's 27 states so far have legalized same-same marriages." The Brazilian Congress has been dragging its feet on legislation which would legalize same-sex marriages, due in part to opposition from conservative evangelical representatives. 

This is an interesting, and in some ways unexpected, development from a country with a large Roman Catholic population and social norms which are sometimes conservative and sometimes permissive. 

While I was unable to find a recent quote from Dilma on the subject of gay marriage, she has opposed it in the past. Of course, if the matter is to be decided by the courts, then her opinion is just that: her opinion.

It's Hard To Get Good Help These Days

According to this article from Forbes, middle class Brazilian families who may have previously enjoyed the services of a maid may not be in a position to continue to do so. Changes in labor laws, increased job opportunities for women who formerly had no options except domestic service, and the resulting changes in supply and demand have led to a fairly hefty increase in the cost of hiring a maid in Brazil.  

As the author points out, until fairly recently, middle class families of relatively modest means could afford to have a maid at least a couple days a week if they wanted one, and those with higher incomes could have live-in help.

For most North Americans, having a regular maid (not just a cleaning woman who comes in for an afternoon once a week), is something for the wealthy and even then, generally from a bygone era. How many families in the United States have someone to do the food shopping, prepare their meals, clean up afterwards, launder and fold clothes, and keep the place neat and tidy all the time? Very few, at least based on my experience, but apparently this has been more common in Brazil. 

A First: Black Judge Appointed to Head Brazil's Supreme Court

Dilma congratulates newly appointed Joaquim Barbosa

MercoPress reports that Brazil's newly appointed head of the country's supreme court is the first black to hold that office. 

Joaquim Barbosa, 58, was born to a poor family in a small village in Minas Gerais, but went on to attend law school, and was first appointed to the court by former president Lula. 

He has gained recent attention for his role in the "mensalão" scandal, in which he has shown no tolerance for corruption among elected officials.  

The article notes that while Afro-Brazilians comprise over half of the country's population, they are among the country's poorest citizens, with only 2.2% acquiring a university education. 

During his acceptance speech, Barbosa said, "I must honestly declare that there is a great deficit of justice in our country. Not all Brazilians are treated with the same consideration before the courts. What we see here is privileged treatment."  

Source: Brazil Portal

Brazil Ranks 13th In Soccer Attendance Worldwide. Yes, Seriously.

This headline took me completely by surprise: "World Cup Host Brazil Struggles To Fill Stadiums." What?? I thought that Brazilians were crazy about "futebol." I just assumed, incorrectly as it turns out, that soccer stadiums would be crammed to capacity, just as you'd find a huge crowd filling the stadium on football Saturday at almost any American college or university. 

But no. According to the article, "fewer people go to see professional soccer matches than in China or the United States." OK, I could believe that fewer Brazilians attend soccer matches than in China, since China's population is so huge, but fewer than in the US? That really got my attention.

More from the article: "Brazilian clubs are using different strategies to try to fill their grounds but they are hampered by antiquated stadiums, a lack of respect for fans, television stations that show every game live and insufficient policing and security. In Brazil, just about everyone has a team and an opinion, but few actually go to support their side."

That last sentence sounds like a description of Americans when it comes to politics: everyone has an opinion, but relatively few (between 50 and 60 percent) bother to show up every two years to cast their vote.  Given that Brazilians have a much higher voter turnout than the US (over 80% in the last Presidential election), I assumed (again, incorrectly) that turnout at soccer matches would be really high.

The article cites various reasons for low attendance: the cost of tickets, stadiums in run-down areas, and occasional violence between rival groups of fans.   

Source:  Brazil Portal

Think You Know Brazil? Test Yourself!

I just found this interactive quiz about Brazil on the Christian Science Monitor's website. There is no date given for it, so I don't know how long it's been there, but it's a fun way to check your knowledge of Brazil.  

Some of the questions are really easy, some are medium, and some are very difficult. 

There's a good mix of politics, history, culture, sports, and questions about demographics and crime statistics. I managed to score 26 out of 33, for an average of 79%....which I am arbitrarily rounding up to 80%.

I did better on the questions about politics, history, and culture than I did with the ones about sports and crime statistics.

The test takes about 10 minutes, depending on how fast you go, of course. After each response, you are shown if your answer was correct, and if it wasn't, the correct answer is highlighted.  There is a running total of how you're doing, too.

Some of the answers were very surprising to me, but I don't want to say which ones because I don't want to give away any of the correct responses, so you'll have to go and see for yourself! 

Update: The CSM has a 20-item quiz about Latin American geography, too. This is a lot easier than the Brazil quiz: I got 19 out of 20 right, and some are very easy, even for geographically-challenged North Americans.  

New York Times To Launch Brazilian Digital Edition in 2013

An article in the Wall Street Journal reports that the New York Times plans to launch an online Brazilian edition in 2013.  

The digital edition will contain Portuguese translations of articles that appeared in English in the newspaper, as well as original content aimed specifically at Brazilian readers.  The Brazilian edition will contain about 40 articles each day, and of those, about a third will be local content.

The following quote by NY Times Chair Arthur Sulzburger is from the article, and summarizes the reasons for the Times developing a Brazilian edition:

"Brazil is an international hub for business that boasts a robust economy, which has brought more and more people into the middle class," said New York Times Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. "As the world gets smaller and digital technology enables us to reach around the globe to attract readers with an interest in high quality news, Brazil is a perfect place for The New York Times to take the next step in expanding our global reach."

Note that Sulzburger specifically singles out Brazil's importance as a center for international trade, its strong economy, and the growth of its middle class as primary reasons for launching a Brazilian edition of the Times.  

It's Official: "Brazuca" Is the Name of the 2014 World Cup Ball

An article in "O Globo" reports that "Brazuca" was the choice of 70% of Brazilians who took part in an online election to choose the name for the 2014 World Cup ball.  

More than a million fans took part in the voting, which was the first time that the public was directly involved in the choice.

The other two options were "Bossa Nova" and "Carnavalesca."  

According to an AP article on Sports Illustrated.Com, Brazuca "likely will be the first World Cup ball equipped with goal-line technology."  

Initial comments about the choice of "Brazuca" below the Facebook link to the "O Globo" article were largely negative, with several people saying that at the very least, the word should be spelled "Brasuca," with an "s" instead of a "z."  It's soccer, it's Brazil, so some controversy is normal.

Dilma Signs Quota Law For University Admissions

"O Globo" reports that Dilma signed a new law that requires federal universities in Brazil to reserve 50% of admissions for graduates of the public school system.  

She vetoed only one section of the law, which dealt with the selection criteria. The original law allowed for a "performance coefficient," arrived at by averaging a student's high school grades. Instead, the criterion will be the student's score on the Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (Enem), the National High School Exam.

The law also includes a provision for distributing the openings among racial groups, to be determined by the racial make-up of each of Brazil's states.  The racial quotas will be in place for 10 years. 

In her remarks, Dilma stated that the goal of the new law is to democratize access to federal universities, while maintaining a high level of education.  

A longer analysis of the new law can be found in this article from the New York "Times."

Wilson Center: Free Publications About Brazil

The Wilson Center, which hosts the excellent "Brazil Portal," offers a series of free publications about Brazil. They are available for downloading as PDF files, and can be viewed on a computer or iPad, or printed.

Several of the titles are offered in both English and Portuguese.

So far, I've read one of the articles in the book titled "Brazilian Perspectives on the United States: Advancing U.S. Studies in Brazil." The article I chose is called "Seductive Imperialism: The Americanization of Brazil During World War II."  The author is Antonio Pedro Tota, associate professor of History at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica in São Paulo. 

He begins by explaining how, in the early 1940's, the "thumbs up" hand gesture replaced the traditional Brazilian gesture of clasping the earlobe with two fingers to signal approval. The thumbs up signal was used by American pilots stationed in Northeast Brazil to communicate with their Brazilian ground crews. The signal spread rapidly among Brazilians in the Northeast, and from there, throughout Brazil.

He also includes a detailed and interesting account of the circumstances surrounding Carmen Miranda's return visit to Brazil in 1940. She was received coldly by her Brazilian audience. She began by greeting them in English, and not very idiomatically. Se said "Good night, people!" instead of "Good evening," but in any case her use of English got things off to a bad start. According to Tota, the audience sat in stony silence when she finished singing the song "South American Way," which, to be fair, does paint South Americans in a rather stereotypical way.

He then goes on to tell about her returning to the stage a couple of months later to sing "Disseram Que Voltei Americanisada." It wasn't long after this that she returned to Hollywood, and it would be 14 years before she again visited Brazil.

The article includes detailed information about the ways in which the US developed its "good neighbor" policy for Latin America, which it viewed as increasingly important as the US faced war-time challenges in Europe and Asia. 

For some reason, this particular article appears only in the English version of the book, and not in the Portuguese, but the other articles appear in both versions.  

This screenshot shows the complete contents of the book:

"Brasileiro," New CD From Nelson Freire

Brazilian classical pianist Nelson Freire, who is internationally famous and who has recorded a large number of albums, has just issued a new CD entitled "Brasileiro." 

On the album, Freire performs 30 solo piano pieces by Villa-Lobos and other Brazilian composers. 

The CD received an enthusiastic 5-star review from the "Guardian," which closed with this comment: "There's more than enough here for you to hope that Freire might put together a second volume, perhaps including a few more substantial works; in the meantime, if there is a more perfectly played piano disc released this year, we will be very lucky indeed."

You can sample it on Amazon or iTunes. I just finished listening to samples of all 30 tracks on iTunes and the CD has been added to my wish list. (Note: both iTunes and Amazon incorrectly list the first six selections as being part of the "Carnaval das Çriancas," when we know that the cedilla belongs on the *second* "c," not the first one). 

A side note: with all due respect to Mr. Freire, who is a brilliant pianist, and who looks pretty good for a 66-year-old guy, why do classical record companies so often choose to use a photo of the performer or conductor for their cover art? A classical album is not like an album of popular music, where listeners want to see their pop idol. I think it's a lot more appropriate to include a classical artist's photo in the booklet that comes with the CD. For the cover, artwork or a photo featuring a Brazilian landmark or its scenic beauty would have evoked the spirit of this music just as effectively as a photo of Mr. Freire with the ocean behind him. 

This cover art for a multi-disc set of Villa-Lobos' works issued by BIS is a good example of what can be done instead:

Here's one from Naxos that uses a photograph on the cover (I would have made the photo bigger, but at least they've got the right idea):

Finally, here's an example of how to put the artist on the cover, but in a way that makes it feel a little more...Brazilian. OK, maybe the parrot and the sunglasses are a bit over the top, but it's colorful and it makes you smile.

If you're asking yourself what the hell this has to do with Freire's CD, the answer is "nothing at all," so I apologize for getting off-topic.

Carmen Miranda, Reconsidered

Carmen Miranda: 1909-1955

In an earlier post about some of my favorite Brazilian music, I made a somewhat dismissive comment that there's more to it than a woman wearing fruit on her head. I also included a photo of Carmen Miranda, the singer to whom I was referring, whose trademark was indeed headgear resembling a fruit basket and other elaborate creations.  

When I captioned the photo, I wanted to include the years of her birth and death, and was surprised to discover that she died relatively young at the age of 46.  This got me curious, so I started to do some basic web research on Ms. Miranda.  

She was born in Portugal in 1909, but the family emigrated to Rio de Janeiro when she was 10 months old.  She never gave up her Portuguese citizenship and never became a Brazilian citizen, a fact that annoyed some Brazilians when she became perhaps the most famous Brazilian of her era.

She enjoyed dancing and singing from a very young age, but had to go to work in a store selling ties when she was 14.  She later worked in a shop where she learned to make hats, and then went on to open her own hat shop. She continued to pursue this interest during her singing career, designing her own hats and costumes.  

Her first record was produced in 1929, when she was only 20 years old, and her fame in Brazil grew quickly in the 1930s.  She sang on the radio, and appeared in Brazilian films.  Here's a clip from the 1939 film "Banana de Terra":

By 1939, she had already signed a contract with RCA records, as well as a film contract in Hollywood.  She appeared in a series of American films, dressed in elaborate costumes and singing what we might consider to be "novelty songs," such as "Mamãe Eu Quero":

With her voice, the hat, the costume, and the jewelry, she put on quite a show, and the American public loved it. She was a real Hollywood success story. She was presented to President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House, and to quote Wikipedia: "By 1946 she was Hollywood's highest-paid entertainer and top female tax payer in the United States, earning more than $200,000 that year (=$2.2 million in 2010 adjusted for inflation), according to IRS records." 

Her huge income really got my attention, because it meant she made more money than her contemporaries, such as Ingrid Bergman, Betty Grable, and Judy Garland.  

She even appeared in a film with Groucho Marx, who seemed to appreciate her talents:

She also recorded several singles with the Andrews Sisters, one of which, "Cuanto La Gusta," was a big hit.  

In 1940, on a return trip to Brazil, Ms. Miranda came under harsh criticism for selling out to Hollywood, becoming overly commercial, and being "too American."  In retaliation, she recorded a song titled "Disseram que Voltei Americanizada", or "They Say I've Come Back Americanized." She did not return to Brazil for 14 years.

She married a failed film producer in 1947, but her husband turned out to be abusive, and her family claimed that he only married her for her money. Carmen, a Roman Catholic, refused to seek a divorce.  

She was a heavy smoker and drinker, and also started using amphetamines and barbiturates, which had a negative effect on her health.  

In 1955, she had a heart attack while performing on Jimmy Durante's live TV show.  She fell, but got up, finished the show, and went home, where she had a second, fatal heart attack later that evening.  

So, after learning all of this, I have to admit that I felt rather guilty for being so  dismissive of her in my earlier post.  Not only that, I became interested in her music and have been enjoying listening to it.  Yes, the recordings are scratchy, and the songs sound old-fashioned, but she really does have a great voice and she sings with both humor and emotion.  

For a sample of some of her songs in addition to the ones above, try "Alô, Alô," "Camisa Listada," "O Cachorro Vira Lata," "Diz Que Tem," "Adeus Batucada," and "Deixa Falar."  They are all available in a variety of compilations on iTunes and/or Amazon.  Most have not been remastered, but they all have catchy tunes, so be warned that in spite of your best intentions, they may get stuck in your head after just a few listenings.  

One of the things you'll notice right away is that Carmen Miranda's Portuguese does not sound like the Brazilian Portuguese that we're accustomed to hearing. The most noticeable difference is her very strongly trilled "r," both at the beginning of words and for "rr", where we would expect to hear some sort of an "h" sound.  With Carmen, these are clearly articulated Spanish-sounding "r's".  However, she does pronounce "s" at the end of a word or syllable as "sh".  She does not seem to palatalize either "d" or "t" where we might expect to hear it.  Since she grew up in Rio de Janeiro, and was only 10 months old when her family left Portugal, it's hard to know exactly what influenced her pronunciation, but it doesn't seem to fit neatly into any one regional dialect. 

Today, Carmen Miranda has become something of a cult figure, and she has also been a favorite for generations of drag queens.  

I wrote this post as a tribute to the memory of Carmen Miranda, to whom I should have given more respect in my original post about Brazilian music, and as a suggestion that you sample her music if you haven't already.  

Whatever you may think of her as a singer, she represented the face of Brazil to millions of Americans in the 1940s and early 1950s.  Rest in peace, Carmen.

Free Udemy Video Course: Brazil for Beginners

Check out this free video course titled "Brazil for Beginners," presented on Udemy by Marshall C. Eakin of Vanderbilt University. It consists of 17 sessions, 15 of which are lectures of about 20 minutes each.  The first session is a brief introduction to the course, and the final one is a short written note. 

Professor Eakin has devoted his career  of more than 30 years to the study of Latin America, with a major emphasis on Brazil. He has lived and studied in Brazil.

So far, I've watched the first two lectures. He manages to cover a lot of content in each lecture.  

I'd describe his lecture style as deliberate more than dynamic, but he obviously knows what he's talking about and the lectures contain so much information that they are interesting. 

While viewing the video, you can type notes in a sidebar notepad, and you can then download the notes in the form of a data file that can be opened with a spreadsheet app such as Excel or Numbers.  I found that it was easiest to get the notes to appear the way I wanted them in Numbers, then copy and paste them into Pages before printing. 

The video format that Udemy uses doesn't work well at all on my iPad or Apple TV. It starts out fine, but by the last 5 or 10 minutes, the image turns into digital blocks.  So far, I haven't had any problems viewing the lectures on my Mac.

But I'm not complaining. The course is, after all, free, and Dr. Eakin is offering a valuable resource.

Highly recommended for those who want a good overview of Brazilian history.