 HOW THE MEDIA MISREPRESENTS BRAZIL

Student: Leticia Bastos Lobo

Number: 17
Class: 11º 4

Introduction:
Beautiful, tanned women, daily carnival, and the idea that every Brazilian can dance the
samba and play soccer - this is how Brazil is (mis)portrayed in the foreign media.
However, in a country with more than 200 million inhabitants is difficult to paint with
only one brush. Since it's a large country with many regions and cultures, people who're
not well acquainted with the country tend to believe everything they see and hear. In
this article, I'll show you what the Brazilian lifestyle is like and how the media portrays
it.

 Most households in Rio de Janeiro are favelas

In Rio de Janeiro, as in other cities, there are favelas. The actual percentage of the
population living in favelas is 6%. That's still about 11 million people, but it's a far cry
from the misconception that most of the city is made up of favelas.
Brazil is a country of great social inequalities, a country where some people don't even
have the minimum subsistence level, while others have more than they need. Sadly,
poverty is a target for the media to make money. Most press coverage of favelas focuses
on sensational aspects such as violence, crime, and drug trafficking. However, the truth
is that the majority of people in favelas are people who struggle every day to find their
breadwinners to feed their families and survive.
"People create a narrative in which favelas are an area of barbarism and have no contact
with the outside world. It's an idealization of a place where only terror thrives," writes
researcher Felipe Botelho Corrêa about the Oscar-nominated film City of God, set in a
Rio de Janeiro favela.

 Brazilians have a typical racial stereotype

Some people often assume that Brazilians have dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, a well-
toned body, and - for girls - a big butt. Brazil is influenced by immigration from Europe,
Japan, Africa, and the Middle East, among many other countries. The result is that a
Brazilian can have blue, green, or brown eyes, blond, red or black hair, and all kinds of
body types. In truth, there's no such thing as a typical Brazilian, and the racial diversity
is evident when traveling through the country. 
  Sensuality and the Brazilian woman
Brazilian women are always seen in skimpy bikinis and dancing the samba and funk,
which leads people to constantly have the idea of sensuality associated with Brazilians.
Brazilians have seen it this way since the colonization of Brazil when the only citizens
were the indigenous people. In the letter written by Pero Vaz de Caminha, the most
important fact about Brazilians was the free body culture: "They go naked". 

 The Amazon rainforest is a part of everyday life.

This may sound crazy, but many tourists believe that they will arrive in Brazil and see
jaguars, large snakes, and other wild animals in the streets of the cities. The Brazilian
territory is full of forests and lush nature, but this context does not match the reality of
the big urban centers. If you are looking for wildlife, I recommend you leave the big
cities and find a place that is very close to nature. The Amazon, Ilha do Marajó and the
Pantanal are very good options for an adventure.

Conclusion:
whether we like it or not, we all have stereotypes in our heads, stereotypes are a way to
generalize things about which we don't have accurate knowledge. We just have to be
careful not to jump to conclusions about people, cultures, and things we don't know,
always be open to coming up with new ideas, and not judge people based on what we've
heard and seen in the media, because we've already seen that it's a way of
communicating that misrepresents things.