Introduction

From the early literature of the contemporary Brazilian authors to the latest movies and TV shows popularly circulating throughout the country’s homes and streets, sex and violence as a method of storytelling is particularly present in the largest state of South America. The Federative Republic of Brazil is mostly known for its Carnival in February or March, beautiful beaches in the southeast and north, the Amazon and its great jungle and, of course, soccer. But even when it comes to tourism, sex and violence sell.


A trend in the growing spec of the national movie industry began emerging in 1998 with Walter Salles’ Central Station, starring that year’s academy award nominee for best actress Fernanda Montenegro. The film pictured the depths of Brazilian poverty through the character of a boy who seeks the help of a letter-writer (Montenegro) to reach his long lost family in the north of the country. What emerges from the story, however, and has been much criticized as well as commended, is a pattern of violence and disregard for human life that added to the drama and seemed to lure international audiences to the foreign-film theaters. Several scenes depict the lowest and darkest side of Rio de Janeiro, as when a detective is hired to “clean” the streets of the petty thieves, abandoned children mostly, who never get to see a judge before being coldly executed by the sidewalk, or the organ selling market that tempts the villain of the plot to kidnap the protagonist and earn the ransom in a sinister manner.

Central Station is not the only movie to explore the theme of violence and it certainly hadn’t been the first shock-and-awe Brazilian film (an adjective that fits Pixote - The Law of the Weakest by Hector Babenco, 1981) but perhaps as a consequence of its modern success, motion pictures such as City of God (Fernando Meirelles, 2002), Carandiru (Hector Babenco, 2003) and the TV series City of Men (Guel Arraes and Regina Casé starting in 2002, until Paulo Morelli directed the long-length feature in 2007) managed to captivate massive national and international audiences.

Brazil’s fascination for sex and violence is not new, and it is well depicted from its books to the movies and television shows, from commercials to its music culture. Renowned authors such as Nelson Rodrigues (Life as Life Is, 1961) and Rubem Fonseca (Happy New Year, 1975) have explored the themes to its minuscule details in hundreds of short stories, and a few long ones.

Image of a protesting seal against the lack of ethics of Brazilian media

Brazilian Carnival is riddled with sexuality in the lyrics of the old samba marches and the new funk fad. From such literature and poetry spring the show of barely naked women and men dancing in the streets of Brazilian populated capitals, the TV successes of the works of Rodrigues and Fonseca, and the movies and documentaries that depict the opposite metaphysical aspects of the universe, eroticism (life) and violence (death) .

Notably, there is also the influence of American television, cinema, music and graphic animation in its heavy hegemony over show-business, and the fact that Brazil is among the few Global South countries with a middle-class wealthy enough to purchase these products has helped the influence sink deep. In the following presentation we will review the trends of sexuality and violence in Brazilian media, from books to newspapers and the recent phenomenon of the popular press, television, movies, and also briefly discuss the influence of the American media on its Brazilian counterpart.

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