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    The Brazilians

    June 16, 2013

    Brazil's Protests: A Resource Guide

    20centavosIn an effort to bring together useful information about Brazil's protests, I've put together a resource guide which I will continually update as long as the protests take place. Suggestions and input for new items welcome at rachel at riogringa dot com or via Twitter at @riogringa.

    Schedules and Timelines

    Live Coverage

    Crowdsourcing

    Videos

    Who to Follow on Twitter

    • Kety Shapazian: live coverage and images of the protests in English
    • Gabriel Elizondo: Al Jazeera reporter in Brazil covering the protests
    • Simon Romero: New York Times reporter in Brazil covering the protests
    • Salad Uprising: tweets about the protests in English
    • Anonymous Brasil: tweets about the protests in Portuguese
    • Marco Gomes: crowdsourcing of protests and protest incidents in Portuguese
    • protestarj: tweets in Portuguese about the Rio protests
    • protestasp: tweets in Portuguese about the São Paulo protests
    • Vinegarwar: tweets in English and Portuguese about the SP protests
    • ChangeBrazil: tweets in English about Brazil protests

    Hashtags

    Tumblrs

    Image Galleries

    English-Language Blogs Covering the Protests

    About the Protesters

    June 16, 2013 in Current Affairs, The Brazilians | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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    February 13, 2013

    Interview with Kleber Mendonça Filho

    KleberKleber Mendonça Filho is the kind of writer who believes you should write what you know. His latest film "Neighboring Sounds," which he wrote and directed, takes place in his hometown of Recife, and most was shot on his block and even in his own home. But he's also a fan of horror movies and science fiction. He's made short films of both genres, from "A menina do algodão" (2002), based on a local legend, to "Recife Frio" (2009), a fantastic mockumentary about a cold spell that takes over the northern Brazilian city. He's one of the most exciting directors in Brazil at the moment, one who's changing the course of Brazilian cinema.

    I interviewed Mendonça in Recife by phone after meeting him briefly in New York, where he came to promote his new movie and accept the award for best film of the year from Cinema Tropical. "Neighboring Sounds" has won accolades the world over, including being named one of the best movies of 2012 by The New York Times. A movie programmer in Recife and a former movie critic, Mendonça told me he wanted to make a film that he would like to watch. From the perspective of a viewer, Mendonça wanted to focus on what he calls "small-scale incidents," the day-to-day occurrences that make up daily life. "I've never been involved in shootouts, and I don't carry guns," he said. "My life is interesting enough." The movie focuses largely on the daily lives of middle- and upper-class families living in Recife, and their relationships with their working-class employees.

    The Middle Class as a Protagonist

    Mendonça noted that Brazil's middle class is not normally part of Brazilian cinema. At a January screening of the director's short films at New York's Museum of the Moving Image, he explained there's now a "huge discussion going on" since the new movie showed an intimacy with this group. The film also zeroes in on class tensions, which Mendonça said are part of Brazilian society and "make Brazilians tic." "For me, it's obvious because it's part of our lives," he said. In several of his films, Mendonça spotlights the maid's room, which can be found in many Brazilian homes and evolved from slave quarters.

    For Mendonça, it was natural to focus on the middle class, since that's where he comes from. "That's what I understand," he told me. "I'm familiar with the way people think and behave." He said many people told him how much they identified with situations in the film. "That's what the arts are all about, really; they tell you something about what you understand or something that you feel," he noted. But he was taken aback that people thought the film was original for focusing on this group. "There's nothing revolutionary about this," he said. "It baffles me." He cited a film called "O Invasor" (The Trespasser) that influenced his work, and touches on similar themes. When he saw it a decade ago, he wondered: "Why don't we make films like that?"

    Brazil's Frenzy of Consumerism

    "Neighboring Sounds," as well as the 2005 short "Eletrodoméstica," were inspired in part by the boom in consumerism after the Real Plan in 1994. Mendonça was first struck by the phenomenon during a family trip to the United States in the early 1990s when he saw Brazilians bringing piles of VCRs, microwaves, and fax machines back to Brazil. He was also struck by an incident involving the winning Brazilian team during the 1994 World Cup in Los Angeles: the players and entourage brought home 17 tons of baggage filled with purchases after their win.

    Before inflation was conquered and imports opened up, Brazil had a "strange kind of capitalism that was very similar to life in communism," Mendonça said. "I remember a time when you would go to the supermarket in the morning and in the afternoon, the prices would have gone up." There were very few choices when it came to buying electronics or cars, but after 1994, he began noticing people "going crazy with consumerism." Even though things have changed since then, Mendonça noted, Brazil still has a developing consumer culture, with new money coming in and a growing C class.

    Breaking the Mold of a Domestic Film

    With a limited budget, "Neighboring Sounds" has had success because people are discovering the film, which Mendonça admits doesn't usually happen. "It's slowly stepping out of the place where the market says it’s supposed to be and supposed to stay," he said. The film was well-received in Brazil, which isn't always the case. The term filme nacional, or domestic film, could sometimes be spoken as a derogatory term. A recent Carta Capital article declared Brazil a "cultural wasteland," with the exception of "Neighboring Sounds." Mendonça disagreed with this assessment, but noted that this perception of Brazilian films does exist. On Twitter, he's seen people comment on the movie, saying, "Well, it's nacional, but it's actually quite good," or "It's so good that it feels like an Argentine film." The solution, Mendonça believes, is to create more good movies and to expose viewers to different kinds of films. "Cinema is many different voices in the whole world, not only American or Hollywood voices," he said.

    Connecting History to the Present

    One important element of "Neighboring Sounds" is a clear connection between the past to the present, from showing black and white photos at the beginning to showing crumbling buildings in rural Pernambuco. There's also a mirroring of class relationships from colonial times to the present. At the end of the film, one can't help but wonder how much things have changed. Mendonça, the son of a historian, says he intuitively tries to understand where things come from. "I try not to be nostalgic," he said. Though some people would say the film begins with old pictures, "for me, they're just pictures," Mendonça explained. "That's what we're living now, but in black and white." If you drive 40 kilometers outside of Recife and shoot photos without color, Mendonça told me, you'll get the same images.

    The Genre Film Gap

    Brazilian genre films aren't taken seriously by critics, Mendonça lamented. There are no Brazilian horror movies, except for Zé do Caixão, and no science fiction; these types of movies are often dismissed as being unrealistic. Mendonça made a choice with "Neighboring Sounds" not to venture into this realm by say, landing a spaceship in the middle of the street. And while it wasn't a horror film, the element of fear was important, and Mendonça created a film that leaves viewers feeling on edge for the entirety of the movie. In the future, Mendonça considers making true genre movies. "I go back to me as a viewer," he said. "It’s basically the kind of thing I would like to see."

    Image: Universo Produção

    February 13, 2013 in Exclusive Interview, Film, The Brazilians | | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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    January 29, 2013

    Brazil-U.S. Exchange: Empowering Underserved Youth through Social Media

    This month, the U.S. consulate in Rio launched a brand new pilot program that brought two young New York journalists to Rio and will later send two young Carioca journalists to New York. The program, called Empowering Underserved Youth through Social Media: A Community Journalism Exchange, was inspired by a visit from young Brazilian journalist Rene Silva and his colleagues to the U.S. consulate in Rio last year. In an email, Press Attaché Sara Mercado explained how she created the program, appealing to an innovation fund from the State Department and also winning funding from the U.S. embassy's public diplomacy resources. 

    NyriogroupMercado said that the United States is looking to expand people-to-people diplomacy in Brazil, and the program was a perfect opportunity. "Our ambassador, Thomas Shannon, has said that diplomacy in the 21st century is increasingly done people-to-people, and less between national governments," she explained. "The goal for the program is to support those critically important exchanges of people between the U.S. and Brazil that lead to real mutual understanding among our people and institutional linkages between groups." For the partner city, the consulate decided to pick New York. "We looked for big, urban cities which had grappled with some of the same challenges currently being confronted in Rio," Mercado said.

    The consulate chose to partner with Harlem organization Brotherhood-SisterSol, and later picked two young people from New York, Nicholas Peart and Marsha Jean-Charles, to participate in the one-week program in Rio in early January. "In speaking to the Harlem-based team, we discovered that the communities shared many of the same challenges, and had each found different solutions to some of those issues," explained Mercado. The consulate also partnered with Bridge Language School, which offered free Portuguese and English classes to the participants. Two youth from Rio were also chosen--Silva and Daiene Mendes--to travel to New York in the coming months.

    In the Rio exchange, the consulate designed a program to expose participants to underserved communities in Rio, as well as non-profits, government, the arts, public security, and other key issues. The two Brazilians who will travel to New York accompanied the Americans throughout the visit; Mercado says the consular staff was happy to see they formed a "cohesive bond." The program even garnered media attention, including Globo's Bom Dia Brasil. The two New York participants chronicled the visit in blog posts, which were also shared on Facebook and Twitter; highlights from the trip were also featured on the U.S. embassy's social media pages.

    *****

    I met Peart in New York after he returned from the exchange. A mentor at Brotherhood-SisterSol who graduated from Borough of Manhattan Community College in liberal arts last year, Peart is easygoing and well-spoken. He described the exchange as "life-changing" and "magical," and already wants to go back to Brazil.

    NicholasPeart In 2011, Peart wrote a powerful opinion piece for The New York Times on stop-and-frisk and police brutality in New York, and continues to speak out about this civil rights issue to the press. So for Peart, seeing police engagement in favelas to improve the relationship between communities and the government made an impression. In visiting the UPP in Complexo do Alemão, he saw a lot of potential in improving police-resident ties, even though problems persist. Meanwhile, he said, New York has a long way to go. "The relationship between the police and the [Harlem] community is so hostile," he told me. "It would take an entire generation for it to change." He was also unfazed by the violence in Rio. "Violence happens here, too," he said.

    That said, Peart was struck by the poverty and divisions between rich and poor in Rio. "What about the people on the hills?" he wondered out loud. "These are the forgotten people left to govern themselves." But he was also impressed by the resilience of communities. "There's hope," he noted. Though he really liked Ipanema, he noticed the high gates that dominate the neighborhood.

    It was Peart's first visit outside the U.S. other than Jamaica (he is of Jamaican descent). He loved Rio culture, from the music to the beach to the food. He was happy to discover the gastronomical similarities between Brazil and the West Indies, especially rice and beans. Peart's favorite stop during the trip was Afroreggae, where he said they "use art as their weapon for change." He's still learning Portuguese, and hopes more high school students from New York have a chance to participate in exchanges so they're inspired to learn a language. Peart studied Spanish in high school and college, but wasn't too interested. "You have to give things meaning," he said.

    Peart and his American colleague spent a lot of time with their Brazilian counterparts, even spending time with them after the official activities had ended. Meeting Silva and Mendes, Peart was struck by their maturity and self-awareness. But he also found they had a lot in common, even as they communicated through a translator. "We're not so different," he said. "It's just where the boat left us at."

    First photo: Peart, Mendes, Jean-Charles, and Silva, by Rene Silva.
    Second photo: Nicholas Peart in Rio, by Bruna Basilio.

    January 29, 2013 in Exclusive Interview, New York, Rio Realities, The Americans, The Brazilians | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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    December 04, 2012

    Political Correctness and Free Speech in Brazil

    A new documentary offers a glimpse into two issues in conflict with one another that have been simmering recently in Brazil: the growing calls for political correctness along with questions about what constitutes free speech. One area where these two issues have stood out is in the world of Brazilian comedy, which the documentary examines.

    The world of Brazilian humor is largely male-dominated (though that's changing), meaning that a lot of popular, mainstream comedy--such as TV and websites--has a lot of machista, homophobic jokes. With growing feminist and LGBT rights advocacy in Brazil, comedians are sometimes coming under fire for targeting women and gays. To a lesser extent, there's also emerging criticism of racism in comedy.

    Part of the reason the documentary is compelling stems from the fact that you really can appreciate both sides of the political correctness debate. On one hand, you can understand why in some cases, people shouldn't take humor so seriously--it's a joke, after all. You can also see how those in favor of political correctness can sound a bit annoying, which I found surprising, since two of the activists featured in the film (LGBT activist and Congressman Jean Wyllys and feminist writer Lola Aronovich) are seasoned, compelling advocates. On the other hand, you can also understand why it's important to change the ways people think and promote tolerance, since humor not only reveals societal prejudices, but can help promote them. This is pertinent when it comes to homophobia, for example, since Brazil reportedly has the largest number of gay hate crime murders in the world.

    Director Pedro Arantes told TRIP that it's possible to enjoy humor without feeling guilty:

    "[Y]ou're going to laugh at something at some point and later on you're not going to find it funny anymore. Some things you didn't find funny before, you'll later find funny. That's one of the goals of the film. It's not to make anyone feel guilty because he laughed at something. When I was younger, I laughed a lot at gay jokes. Now, having thought about it, I really don't find those jokes funny anymore. You work through it in your head and from then on you don't find it funny anymore. The idea of the movie is to show this: guys, it's ok. We laugh and that's part of life. But we have to think things through. Guilt is a torturous feeling. You don't need to make yourself feel guilty--you just need to reflect."

    The movie looks at how humor can reveal problems with limiting free speech. Comedian Rafinha Bastos has had this happen numerous times. After making a horribly tasteless joke about rape last year, he was asked to testify before prosecutors for "inciting rape." (As the movie shows, the incident also spurred a productive conversation about rape in Brazil.) He was sued by a famous singer after making a similarly tasteless joke about her baby, and the singer won in January. Pending appeals, Bastos will have to pay the singer R$100,000 (around $47,000). Just this week, he was involved in a new scandal, after Bastos called TV personality Luciano Huck an "inconsequential playboy" in an open letter. Huck was recently fined and lost his license after refusing a breathalyzer at a traffic stop. Huck said he would sue Bastos for making the comments, though Bastos has since apologized.

    The film also explores how Brazilian comedy often reveals racism, homophobia, and sexism. In Brazil, hate speech is actually a crime: making disparaging remarks about religion, ethnicity, or race can actually lead to fines and even jail time. (Some LGBT activists are pushing for hate speech related to sexual orientation to be included in such laws.) But these laws restricting freedom of expression don't necessarily change attitudes, as Taylor Barnes describes in a recent Christian Science Monitor piece about hate speech crimes in Brazil:

    Despite a constitutional principle of freedom of expression, Brazilian lawmakers and law enforcement have drawn the line when it comes to agitating racial, religious, or ethnic tensions. And though the legislation is widely accepted as legitimate, even advocates of criminalizing intolerance say the best the law can do is make an offender hold his or her tongue, rather than change the racial and religious tensions that still run deep in Brazilian society.

    In a country where social movements are increasingly gaining traction, where dictatorship-era censorship legislation still lingers, and where rising levels of access to education and technology are helping to forge change, the debate to balance free speech and political correctness will be an interesting one to watch.

    Hat tip to Alex Castro for the documentary.

    December 04, 2012 in LGBT, Race/Racism, The Brazilians | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

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    September 30, 2012

    Novelas and Brazil's New Middle Class

    Bangu
    Shoppers in Rio's Bangú neighborhood
    Two of Brazil's recent primetime TV shows feature the country's rising star of the moment: the new middle class. Cheias de Charme, or Full of Charm, just concluded a five-month run in at 7 p.m., receiving an average viewership of 34 points, higher than recent novelas in the same time slot. Avenida Brasil, Globo's 9 p.m. novela, ends in several weeks and enjoys a large viewership, reaching up to 65 percent of Brazilian TVs. The fact that two of the most watched television programs on Brazil's most watched television network showcased this group is telling, with a number of interesting implications. 

    Traditionally, novelas were aspirational, often starring wealthy characters. Now, with the two novelas this year, they're intended to be relatable, a reflection of the tens of millions from the C class, or the new middle class. "When we portrayed poor people, they were always dreaming of leaving their suburbs and striking it rich. But now we want to show a place that, in spite of being poor, is cheerful and warm, a place where there can be prosperity,” Ricardo Waddington, coordinator of Avenida Brasil told Folha de São Paulo. Showing members of the new middle class flourishing represents a new type of aspiration. "Here in Brazil, there's a real problem in understanding how the lower middle class thinks. This lower class doesn't hold up the elite as a model. The reference for these people is not the rich, but rather the neighbor who succeeded," Renato Meirelles, CEO of Data Popular--a marketing firm specializing in the middle and lower classes--told the AP.

     

    In some ways, the novelas are glorifying parts of Brazilian culture long considered inferior by the upper class. The two novelas offer insight into what the new middle class is like: how they dress, speak, and consume--or at least, Globo's vision of these elements. The novelas prominently feature working class neighborhoods, as well as using types of music popular with the new middle class like pagode and forró. Avenida Brasil's costume designer went out to Rio suburbs Bangú and Madureira for inspiration, as well as incorporating what singers and soccer players from working-class neighborhoods wear.

     The shows have used aggressive marketing both during commercials and offscreen for the new middle class. Commercials during the show target the C class, with everything from electronics stores to what one could call shoe porn:

     

    As with many novelas, the products used on the show become must-have items, particularly for women, and despite featuring new middle class styles, Avenida Brasil is no exception. Pants and jewelry worn by the Suelen character have been a hit across the country. Globo licensed six lines of products made up for 50 items from Avenida Brasil alone. Riding on the metro in Rio, you can spot an ad labeled "Da TV para você" (from the TV to you), advertising hair products featured on the novela. You can even see ads on some of Rio's highways advertising the Guadalupe Mall as featured on Avenida Brasil.

    Targeting the new middle class is an important marketing strategy, given the group's buying power and what the new middle class is purchasing. A recent IBGE study found that the C class spends more money on durable goods like cars, home appliances, and medicine than on food, education, and culture. The C class also helped drive Brazil's credit boom, and in Rio, one can buy a coconut or a meat skewer from a street vendor with a credit or debit card in some cases. As a result, the new middle class is quickly racking up debt; a September Kantar Worldpanel survey found that of Brazil's five social classes (ranging from A, the wealthiest to E, the poorest), the C class is the only one in which people spend more than they earn.

    But being the center of one of the country's most watched shows doesn't mean that the traditional middle class or the upper class are celebrating the ascension of millions of Brazilians into the C class.

    In fact, there's evidence that some are uncomfortable with this social group--long considered relegated to the outskirts of large cities and outside of spaces frequented by the the well-off--suddenly having money and access. This conflict has been obvious, particularly in places like airports where members of the new middle class rarely set foot before. But now it's statistically proven: a Data Popular survey found that a large portion of the wealthier sectors of Brazil are unhappy with the new middle class. The study showed that 55 percent of upper class consumers believe products should have separate versions "for the rich and the poor"; 48 percent believe the quality of services declined with the rise of the new middle class; 50 percent prefer going to places occupied by members of the "same social class"; 16 percent believe "poorly dressed" people should be barred from certain places; and 26 percent believe subways would bring "undesirables" to their neighborhoods. You also need look no further than Classe Média Sofre, a blog that details some of these tensions the traditional middle class and upper classes have with the new middle class.

    "You're seeing people going to the theater or taking a flight for the first time ever, and the first time is very important," Marcelo Neri, head of research institute Ipea and Brazil's new middle class guru told O Público. "But it's a class that isn't accustomed to reading. This creates prejudice from the upper class. There's class conflict at the airports, since the elite always had empty airports to themselves. The new middle class makes them uncomfortable. Culturally, there are a lot of things happening but it's not traditional culture. It's in the periphery of cities."

    The novelas may also include less obvious subtext about new middle class culture. Avenida Brasil writer João Emanuel Carneiro described the so-called "poor-rich" characters on the show as those who are "simple people who became rich but maintained their suburban ways." In describing how these characters figure into the show, columnist Mauricio Stycer points out the protagonist's "more subtle objective is to...'civilize' the poor-rich." Será?

    Photo: Luiz Fernando Reis

    September 30, 2012 in Brazil's New Middle Class, Culture, Television, The Brazilians | | Comments (11) | TrackBack (0)

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    September 11, 2012

    Neighboring Sounds

    Last month, the Brazilian movie O Som ao Redor, or Neighboring Sounds in English, premiered in the U.S. to rave reviews. Due for release in Brazil in November, the movie is being pegged as a turning point in Brazilian cinema.

     

    The New York Times reviewed the movie, making it a critics' pick, and wrote: "The scope of his movie is narrow, but its ambitions are enormous, and it accomplishes nothing less than the illumination of the peculiar state of Brazilian (and not only Brazilian) society."

    The Times separately profiled the film's director, Kleber Mendonça FIlho, who said:

    “Brazilian film has to break the mold...99 percent of Brazilian filmmakers are middle class or upper middle class or bourgeois, as I am, yet most of the time they’re making films about people they don’t know that much about and subjects they haven’t mastered. We need more films that don’t take place in a favela or the backlands and aren’t about some guy who is really poor and living beneath a bridge. Maybe then we can talk about a new Brazilian aesthetic.”

    First, let me say that while I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, it's not perfect. It's slow, and there are occasionally strange moments that defy explanation. That said, it really is a fantastic cross-section of modern Brazilian culture, and a fascinating reflection on how despite being a modern country, in some respects, some things haven't changed at all.

    Right off the bat, this movie breaks the mold by taking place outside of the usual suspects for successful Brazilian movies: Rio, São Paulo, and the sertão. It takes place in one of Recife's wealthiest neighborhoods, with the large majority of the movie focusing on scenes on a single street. It's not about gangs, or drug trafficking (aside from two brief scenes involving a resourceful weed dealer), nor a quixotic adventure in the dry backlands. It really focuses on the lives of a number of families living on a block in Recife. As much as I love Rio, it's really refreshing to see a well-done Brazilian movie go somewhere else, especially a city as interesting as Recife.

    One of the best things about the movie is the attention to detail and nuances of every day Brazilian life, from the row of shampoo and soap bottles on the window shelf in the shower to the old-fashioned cafeteira for an afternoon coffee to the unsweetened fresh fruit juice at a family meal. This is not Hollywood-ized; what you see in the movie is really a view of how things look. There's also a strange little detail I noticed in which one of the maids is wearing a donated American skiing tee-shirt, which reads "America Downhill" on the back. Subliminal message, perhaps?

    The film has a number of really interesting themes. The overarching theme is a deep-seated anxiety about security that pervades the whole movie. Recife is one of the most violent cities in Brazil with high crime rates, and the residents of the block are all, in different ways, terrified by violence. But in the movie, it's the threat of violence that you see, rather than violence itself. It's important because this obsession with security is pervasive in many big cities in Brazil, where armored cars, armed guards, and paranoia are a way of life for some.

    The next theme to note is the universal use of technology and consumer culture. Flat screen TVs adorn the characters' apartments while the guards watch videos on their phones; in one scene, a kid uses a laptop to show a video compilation he made of the doorman falling asleep. Characters reveal the need to consume; there's even an odd fight about who bought a bigger new TV. One character blows up when an imported electronic product is ruined.

    There's also an interesting dynamic between a rua e a casa (the street and the home), something Brazilian anthropologist Roberto DaMatta has written about. So much of the movie takes place in people's homes or in their yards, so you really get a snapshot of what home life means. Plus, some of the characters you see in their homes are often quite different in the scenes in the street.

    Finally, one of the most interesting concepts in the movie is that of class relations and their evolution (or lack thereof) since slavery ended. The relationship the characters have with servants and service workers seem to echo the relationship between slaves and masters, albeit in a modern world. Construction is ubiquitous and massive apartment complexes are taking over the quiet block in the city. Meanwhile, the plantation house in the nearby countyside that belongs to the local coronel is crumbling, and the small country town the house is in appears to be a relic of another century. But even though the forces of modernity are blazing ahead, can the characters--or Recife, or Brazil, for that matter--escape the past?

    September 11, 2012 in Brazil's New Middle Class, Culture, Film, The Brazilians | | Comments (8) | TrackBack (0)

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    September 06, 2012

    Seats for the Obese in Brazil

    Obesity is on the rise in Brazil, with over half of the population now overweight and around 15 percent considered obese. With a growing public health crisis, what was the legislative response? Well, for one, to make bigger seats.

    One of the places this trend began was in Rio Grande do Sul in 2005, when the state passed a law requiring adequate space on public transportation for the obese. São Paulo state followed suit with Law 12.225/06, passed back in 2006. The law reserves plus-sized seats for the obese on public transportation, as well as cinemas, movie theaters, and concert venues. The São Paulo city metro started installing these seats in 2009, with twice the length of regular seats.

    Now, you can spot these types of seats in public transportation in São Paulo, as a friend of a friend found:

    Obeseseat1

    Obeseseat3

    Obeseseat2

    Similar laws were passed in the state of Rio de Janeiro. State law 5038 passed in 2007 requires hospitals, clinics, and medical labs to have adequate equipment for the obese. Passed in 2010, state law 5829 requires schools and classrooms for any type of course to have adequate seating for the obese.

    Other states and cities also followed suit. A bill introduced in Cuiabá in 2009 called for a preferential line for the obese at banks, and a state law passed in 2011 in Mato Grosso do Sul set aside space for the obese on intercity buses (though the law also allows bus companies to charge more for those who take up two seats). State law 14.720 passed in Pernambuco last month allows the obese to enter public buses without going through the turnstyle, which can be a tight squeeze. Bus companies that refuse to comply face fines of up to R$100,000.

    Federal law has similar protections. Decree 5296 requires theaters, stadiums, concert venues, and conference halls to have special seats for the obese. Now, a bill already approved by the Senate is under consideration in the House of Representatives, which would reserve seats for the obese on public transportation nationwide. Another bill under consideration in the Senate would combine all locations by setting aside special seating for the obese in centers of entertainment, sports, conferences, classrooms, and public transportation throughout Brazil.

    September 06, 2012 in Politics, The Brazilians | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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