acclaimed “Tropa de Elite” (Elite Squad) movie by director José Padilha, which got its upmost peak of fame abroad upon receiving an internationally renowned award, Berlin Festival Golden Bear. In reality, what does not seem clear to international audience lies on the fact that the awarded movie is a piece of propaganda when it comes to conveying the idea
that Rio de Janeiro’s police force is focused on “trying” to be honest and incorruptible.
There cannot be honesty when money talks. And money talks
big time when Rio de Janeiro’s police gets full awareness of the fact that drug money wills and deals big time at the Favelas located in that city, which openly corrupts its police force as the local media attests everyday.
The corruption that happens in Rio de Janeiro as well as other major cities in Brazil is a widely known fact to most upper-middle class in the country, which chooses to ignore its existence.
Drug is an income source in a country where most African descendents are harmed by a silent Apartheid. It is a social problem that most likely should be healed with jobs and education. But the Brazilian elite would rather suppress the problem, rather than solving it through income distribution.
It is not only full-grown man involved in the drug traffic. Small children are allured to criminality. The children accept because of the money they can make, but unfortunately, some are threatened with death, if they do not work for the organized crime. The organized crime has deep roots in the favelas' families. It is not a “police gets bandit” case anymore, people non-committed to the crime (women and children as well) are compulsorily drawn to the traffic because the drug barons reign inside the Favelas.
The BOPE elite squad shown in the film makes use of outright violence and sophisticated torture methods. The message therein is that as the squad is composed of the good guys, this type of violence, in disregard of human rights, is to be appraised and condoned. In fact, human rights are a concept which is regarded as an obstruction to law enforcement by the social elite in Brazil. The usual discourse of such elite, is that a “good bandit, is a dead bandit”, or that “human rights exists only for bandits” and not for the taxpayers.
It is a wide belief among the extreme right in Brazil that if they could they would remove poverty by removing the poor. As the upper-middle class is increasingly cornered by the violence ushered by the drug traffickers, there are more and more people becoming sympathizers of the extermination of the poor so that they can drive their luxurious cars in style along their fancy Boulevards. That would be a quick and effective way to make that dream come true.
Many are conniving to the extermination of the poor, but none dares to say it openly for they fear organized crime might retaliate.
In a media-oligarchy ruled country, the view exposed in “Tropa de Elite” (60% of the film casting was supplied by Globo TV Network), will most likely to become the prevalent view about the issue in the country. On one side, there lies the upper-middle class luxury-minded culture (a culture which was vastly spread by Globo Network), and on the other, the world of the un-possessed and unemployed people in Favelas, that live on a culture of violence, crime, homicide and alike to feed their self-esteem.
By not being able to reach the ideal luxury world portrayed by the Globo Network soap-operas by means of employment and social integration, the lower strata is up to get what they want, by the use of force.
Brief and to the Point:
If Brazil spent years years looking for its National Hero, a truculent Capitão Nascimento has just been elected the Middle Upper Class Hero, the true Saviour of the World in flesh and blood, the one who catters for the well-off "Tired Ones" (Cansados).
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1 comment:
Very nice and accurate view! Congrats.:)
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