Sylvester Stallone Hearts Rio

Last week, Sylvester Stallone made headlines in Brazil after a panel at Comic-Con, discussing his new movie The Expendibles, parts of which were shot in Rio de Janeiro and possibly other parts of Brazil. Making light of the lax attitude Cariocas had toward filming, BOPE, and the security situation, Stallone really, really pissed off quite a few Brazilians.

The bulk of Stallone's foot-in-the-mouth comments was the following:

"You can shoot people and blow things up and they say, ‘Thank you! Take a monkey home with you!’ We couldn’t have pulled off what we did [somewhere else]. We blew up huge plots of land. It was like, Everybody bring their hot dogs. We’re having a BBQ today. We’re gonna blow up this village.”

He also went on to emphasize that they needed a crew of 70 security guards because of the unsafe situation where they filmed in Rio, and made snarky comments about the BOPE skull and crossbones symbol, saying "Imagine if the LAPD used that!"

The reaction was swift and to anyone who knows Brazil, completely expected. Brazilian Twitter users pushed the term "Cala boca, Sylvester Stallone" (Shut up, Sylvester Stallone) to the top of the trending topics, and the event made news in most major news outlets. (I admit I had to laugh when Globo labeled his comments as "politically incorrect," since Globo knows so much about political incorrectness). Someone with half a brain at the movie studio realized how big of a faux pas Stallone's comments had become, and he quickly issued an apology, alleging his love and respect of Brazil and claiming he'd even recommended that other Americans film there.

There are a couple of issues at play here, ones that an intelligent PR person would have looked into in anticipation of questions about filming in Brazil.

1. Sylvester Stallone is an idiot. He clearly needs to be fed some of his lines ahead of time, even for publicity events. This really should not be news to anyone.

2. Brazilians are extremely sensitive to criticism, regardless of whether the comments are true or not. If you want to avoid a small scandal when doing Brazil-related PR, it's best to avoid anything that could remotely be considered negative or offensive. It's especially bad when a foreign celebrity makes publicly negative comments about Brazil, because it reinforces stereotypes and also perpetuates the inferiority complex that many Brazilians still continue to harbor.

3. While his comments were obnoxious to begin with, Stallone made the epic mistake of including the word "monkey" in his misguided response. While he literally meant a pet monkey, the word for monkey in Portuguese, "macaco," is also an extremely offensive racial epithet. While he didn't mean to use the word that way, it definitely made things worse.

While Stallone's comments were certainly made in an offensive way, there was truth to them: famous gringos are treated with nearly total deference in Brazil (in Rio, especially), and are often given free reign to do whatever they want. Rio is a violent city, and wealthy visitors often hire some form of security when traveling there; few outsiders go into favelas without knowing someone who lives or works there. BOPE exists because of the pervasive violence, which has become something of a fact of life. And plenty of Brazilians do love hot dogs and a good churrasco.

Still, while many people were offended, there were others who shrugged and said, "So what?" (Personally, I think this is a healthy attitude to have, especially in reference to the opinions of someone like Sylvester Stallone) Plus, action movies are really big in Brazil, and it's fairly likely Stallone's new movie will do well there despite this incident.

Overall, the main lesson this little episode offers is: when doing any kind of marketing related to Brazil, tread lightly and be prepared, or you may find yourself with your foot firmly wedged in your mouth, figuratively speaking.

Comments

[Mari Biddle]

Oi, Rachel...adoro quando vc escreve que no's somos sensiveis a comentarios vindo do 'estrangeiro'. Somos mesmo. Ainda quero me curar dessa sensibilidade toda mas fica cada dia mais dificil. SS e' realmente um idiota. Tadinho! Tosco ate' a medula.

Comprei o livro indicado ai na sua lista para emprestar a meus amigos estadunidenses. Eu uso a desculpa que e' para eles aprenderem mais sobre meu comportamento sul-americano mas na verdade e' para eles ficar por dentro do que vem a ser essa brasilidade.

bjs

[marcus vinicius]

a verdade é que o pessoal puxa saco mesmo das celebridades gringas. e eles ficam folgados é nisso que dá !
.
enfim rssss espero que ele esteja feliz com o macaco que lhe deram rssssssss ATÉ QUE ENFIM ENCONTROU ALGUEM QUE FALA A MESMA LÍNGUA DELE KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK !!!!

[Priyanka]

LOL @ the title for this piece. Seriously, the lack of real knowledge about Brazil is kind of sad. This was kind of extreme, but stars make a lot of uninformed comments about Brazil considering how often it's used as a film location.

[WOW]

And so what that SS made a comment & brazilians are ultra sensistive.

How come when they make comments about others they fell as if they are entitled to make them?

Brazilians of all races, ethnicities & income level NEED TO GROW UP.

[lele carabina]

Those kinds of comments are offensive to any nation, sensitive or not. The world would be a much better place if we respected all nationalities and treated them equally.

[simone]

Nossa, Raquel, vc forçou com esse " perpetuates the inferiority complex that many Brazilians still continue to harbor." estou passada com esse seu comentário de "muitos brasileiros". Vc realmente acha que muitos de nos brasileiros nos achamos inferiores? Curiosidade, vc baseia esse seu comentário da sua vivência com cariocas ou brazucas em geral?
Acho que o problema não é que a gente se ache inferior mas que "vocês" se achem espertos demais. O problema não é da sensabilidade de alguns aqui, mas quando a crítica vem de pessoas que querem te botar pra baixo (como nos comentários desse ator aí) ou te ignoram, como é o caso da política dos EUA, que sempre tiveram atitude de ignorar a América Latina (que vem mudando, é certo, mas a passos de tartaruga). Nao é a toa que somos "sensiveis" como vc diz.

[marcus vinicius]

a gringa tá certa, o complexo de vira-lata é totalmente vero. o brasileiro se acha inferior aos outros povos e isso é uma grande pena.

[Maciel Grecco]

I don't think I'm inferior and SS sucks. I couldn't wait any thing better of his stupid mind :P

[Lena Moscovis]

Stallone just gives evidence of the great stupid he has always been and I'm sorry he's not getting any smarter.

[Roberto]

Stalone é mais um americano idiota que ainda pensa que a capital do Brasil é Buenos Aires e que o idima aqui é o espanhol

[Gabriel]

Rachel, brazilians do not think they are inferiors. If we were like that, we would not be proud of talking about Brazil and telling everyone else about our nation and so on. What we have is "complex of other people thinking we are inferior", which is really different. We think we are not so respected outside our country, but this doesn't mean we think we are inferior.

About your comment on the monkey thing: it didn't sound racist here, because there were no racial context to "macaco" means something offensive in this matter. It was a bad comment because brazilians don't like the brazilian stereotype of monkeys and jungle related stuff. It was the same as if Sly said "oh, so they said gracias señor", presuming we spoke spanish and making this kind of stereotype mistake.