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The government is debating a new law that would force arms manufacturers
to engrave their ammunition with the name of the public body to whom it is
sold, enabling police to detect the source of dodgy dealings. But such is
the Brazilian fondness for costumes and corruption, one can't quite help
wondering if even the investigators are who they say they are. Two weeks
ago, a captured trafficker took police to his mountainside arsenal. Stashed
alongside the Demex were more than 100 police uniforms.
What do Brazilians do for relief from this daily diet of violence? Watch
more of it on TV, but dressed up in a skirt.
This was the case recently in Brazil's most popular nightly soap,
Celebridade, or Celebrity. Set in the back-stabbing world of the music
industry (our own Mick Hucknall has made a guest appearance), its plot
hinges on the revenge wreaked by the villain Laura on the saintly
Maria-Clara.
Fed up with Laura's drug-planting and kidnapping stunts, Maria- Clara
wrestled Laura to the floor, straddled her chest and delivered a torrent of
sexually charged slaps. Ratings soared; the streets were palpably empty. The
actress who plays Maria-Clara said she could hear fans outside urging her to
punch Laura harder. Unhappily, said fans must have been something of a
distraction for the folks in the edit suite, as the slaps' sound- effects
weren't quite in synch with hand and cheek.
The show's creator later commented that the fight had provided a
cathartic release for a society that rarely sees its bad guys punished. A
psychologist questioned if Brazilians were not tired of seeing only men
fight, and that watching women wrestle was far more interesting.
He should be careful what he wishes for: the number of young female
convicts recently doubled in Sao Paulo - most noticeably in connection with
drug- trafficking. |
