Rapidinhas - August 95

Publicity

Breasting the competition

Created by Brazilian ad agency DM9 for lingerie manufacturer Valisère, the display ad called "Magazine Spread" was chosen as the best advertisement published in a magazine last year. Seductive and simple, the piece shows a pair of breasts covered by a chiffoned black bra with the breast cleavage coinciding with the magazine fold.

The ad was celebrated as a reengineering of lingerie advertisement for magazines by American advertising Bible Advertising Age. It was also Advertising Age that gave Magazine Spread its trophy as the best of the pack.

Theater

Indecent angels

Suor Angelica by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), composer of Madame Butterfly, is showing every night at Rio's Teatro Municipal. The religious-themed show, however, has provoked the indignation of the city's youth authority, which has forced minor changes upon the angels who appear in a scene just before Suor Angelica's death.

Siro Darlan, a judge from the Juvenile Court, required that the 75 children who appear in the dream scene wear briefs and panties. Director Bia Lessa covered the children with skin colored underwear and a black sash in protest.

"This is an absurdity, a retrogression," she complained. "I myself take showers naked with my children," retorted the judge. "But all this nakedness is not natural for these children."

TV

Satellite wars

There aren't more than 500,000 people who have pay TV in Brazil today, but it's expected that this number will increase to 8 million in less than a decade, generating $3 billion a year. With cupid eyes, Hughes Communications and Robert Murdoch's News Corporation, two international giants of telecommunications, are positioning themselves for the good times.

Both are investing in the DTH (Direct to Home) satellite transmission system. Hughes allied itself to the Abril group, which dominates most of the magazines in Brazil. And Murdoch just recently signed a contract with the quasi-monopoly TV Globo network to invest as much as half a million dollars in the next few years.

Abril and Globo have been taking pot shots at each other for years. Veja, Abril's showcase publication, wrote in a smiling-face note under an article talking about a spectacular firing at Globo TV news division, "Globo is following the lead of TVA" (the Abril pay TV company). And added, with a picture for proof: "Explaining the new system, Globo showed [on the screen] the Hughes's system 'pizza' that will be utilized in Brazil by TVA."

Music

Rapper Romario

The most requested music at Rio's hip and hot RPC-FM these days is "Rap dos Bad Boys", a ditty sung by world champion Romário and Edmundo, his colleage at Flamengo soccer team. Even though most of the fans agree that the players should stick to their soccer boots, the new duo is planning to record an entire CD of rap. Here are some of the lyrics:

Esse é o recado dessa dupla bad boys

Eu saí do Jacarezinho

Eu vim lá  de Niterói

Romário e Edmundo pedem a paz para a nação

Futebol com violência

Isso não nos leva a nada

Olha, meu amigo, briga é coisa de otário

This is the message from this bad boys' duo

I am from Jacarezinho

I came from Niterói

Romário and Edmundo

Ask peace for the nation

Soccer with violence

That amounts to nothing

Look, my friend, fight is for dunces

More

Travel to and from Brazil has become easier. After years of dispute and a recent coup de grace when the US decided to give only three-month visas to Brazilians willing to travel north, reciprocating that country's practice, the five-year visa is a reality. Now, any American willing to go to Brazil will be able to get a visa valid for five years. Brazilians coming to the US will have to renew their visas only every ten years. In both countries, however, the permit allows only a three-month stay. But don't expect American consulate personnel to relax on their search for possible illegal immigrants.

Brazilian captain Harley Alves, who was among the last of the UN captive soldiers to be released by their Serb kidnappers, had some privileges for being a fellow citizen of the world's cup champions. When a Serb brought a soccer ball (he knew the names of Brazil's national team players by heart) Alves was consulted and gave some advice. Thanks to that he was the only hostage allowed to phone home. And Harley decided that he had to draw a line, "They also wanted me to play with them. But that I refused to do." Rest assured: no soccer secrets were passed to the enemy.

At a time when Apple has finally decided to manufacture Macs in Brazil, Microsoft has become almost totally Brazilian. Enthused by the fact that Brazil has jumped from 19 to 10th place in the rank of Microsoft's best-selling foreign subsidiaries, billionaire Bill Gates is bullish on Brazil. By September, 80% of everything with the Microsoft label sold in Brazil will be produced on Brazilian soil. That will mean 300,000 packages of software a year.

If prosperity were measured by how much people have to spend in stores and supermarkets, Brazilians would be a cut above the First World. According to Switzerland's Corporate Resource Group, which researched 125 cities around the world, Sao Paulo is in the 37th place (up from 68 last year) and Rio in the 32nd (up from 73) among the most expensive towns. A tennis shoe that can be bought for $50 in New York costs $92 in Sao Paulo. A TV set in Rio or Sao Paulo costs three times more than in New York. With the aggravating circumstance that the average income in the Big Apple is six times larger than in those Brazilian cities. A Carioca (from Rio) has to work almost two hours to get a Big Mac. For a New Yorker 20 minutes are enough.

It's true that Canada, Mexico, Japan, England, Germany, and France, in that order, have sent more tourists to the US in 1994 than Brazil. But none of them, with the exception of the Japanese, had more money and the will to spend it than Brazilians. The 700,000 Brazilians who visited the US last year spent $137 a day, per capita. The Japanese managed to burn $164, while the 15 million Canadians didn't open their wallets for more than $46 a day.

The newest art gallery in Brazil and the most visible has been opened by President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in his own office. Every month, the painting that hangs behind Cardoso's desk will be changed. The idea is to promote young painters. Carioca (from Rio) Beatriz Milhazes, 34, was the first to have her work shown. Her "O Menino e o Tambor" took the place of a Manabu Mabe's work. At 80, Mabe is arguably the most famous Brazilian painter alive. His painting had been placed in the presidential office by impeached former President Fernando Collor de Mello.

Rio's Museu Nacional de Belas Artes (MNBA) has shown in Brazil the best the world has produced. Last year 23,000 people went there to see Sigmund Freud's personal belongings. The 1989 Picasso exhibit drew another 12,000 Cariocas. Close to 60,000 people went to the museum during 1994. But the MNBA wasn't prepared for the crowd that swarmed to watch the 58 bronze sculptures by French sculptor François Rodin (1840-1917). There were endless lines in front of the museum and more than 200.000 people dropped by during the two months that works like "The Thinker" and "The Kiss" were exhibited. Why this fascination with Rodin? "I have no explanation. It's a phenomenon," said MNBA's adjunct director Luís Sérgio Bittencourt.

In the good ol' days the TV show "Escolinha do Professor Raimundo" hit highs of 39 points. When Globo network decided to cancel the program created 44 years ago on the radio by Chico Anísio, the same comedian who stayed as the teacher until the last class, the audience had fallen to 10 points. Anísio, who used to be much funnier, was incensed with the cancellation and called the action "murder." The Escolinha was giving work to 26 mostly old comedians who will probably have a hard time getting another gig. But for years the show had been a repetitive caricature of itself, with the same old excretory, sexual, racial, and gay jokes and innuendoes. Chico will continue with a spot on TV.

Is ex-President general João Batista Figueiredo in financial bad shape? Is he really ready to auction his personal library to get some reais? No, and no, answered the former President to both questions. And he added in a brief conversation with newsweekly magazine Isto É, "I am living very well. I've already asked: forget me!"

The product has been touted by Pepsi-Cola as an aphrodisiac from the Amazon and has double the amount of the caffeine as coffee. The new soft drink being sold in the US tastes like Brazilian guaraná, but is called Josta, a name that means nothing in English or Portuguese. Will guaraná help Pepsi in its lifetime war against Coca-Cola? For now, the Atlanta's Goliath is only watching. If they wanted, they could market in the US their own Taí guaraná , which it produces and sells in Brazil. Brazilian Antarctica, the most famous guaraná bottler, has been probing Yankee waters with Samba, a less sweet version of their soft drink.

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