The #1 source for news about monkeys and apes

[Carrie McLaren <carrie AT stayfreemagazine.org>]

[  Apologies for posting such an old story, but the monkey angle 
didn't get enough play. ]

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The Washington Post
April 16, 2002

Simpsons Go Home!; Rio Takes Spoof Very Seriously

by Anthony Faiola


You'd think that Bart Simpson had just landed in Rio and punched the 
Girl from Ipanema in the face.

The Simpsons, the politically incorrect cartoon family, have become 
personae non gratae in Latin America's largest nation. Brazil's 
presidential spokesman has personally denounced them as 
troublemakers. Rio authorities have threatened lawsuits and boycotts. 
Cariocas, as the residents of this city are called, are so furious 
they seem poised to brush the sand off their thongs and take up arms 
against Bart, Homer and the gang. At issue is a March 31 episode of 
the Fox TV show in which the Simpsons visit this sultry metropolis 
and encounter an orgy of Brazilian stereotypes. Homer gets kidnapped 
by a taxi driver while Lisa goes searching for a poor child she 
sponsored at "the Orphanage of the Filthy Angels." Family members get 
mauled by monkeys on Copacabana Beach. Bart gets hooked on a racy 
children's show called "Teleboobies." The Simpsons also learn a new 
Brazilian dance, a successor to the steamy lambada -- the penetrada.

The episode did not even air in Brazil, but outraged Brazilians 
living abroad saw it, local newspapers and television networks did 
stories about it, and an immediate media frenzy was born. The cartoon 
was immediately treated as a national insult of the highest order, 
sparking a burst of anti-Americanism that suddenly made Brazil feel 
more like Baghdad. Or, at the very least, like France.

"These confusions you make with our culture, our habits and our 
tastes are outrageous," Roberto Pereira, an official at the city's 
Center of Sexual Education, said in an e-mail he fired off to the 
foreign press association in Rio. "Americans think we are inferior, 
ignorant, perverted, dirty animals!"

The anger took Fox by surprise. Spokesmen say none of the other 
overseas satires on "The Simpsons" -- which have featured France and 
Australia -- resulted in anything close to the uproar here. For 
Brazilians, however, the March 31 episode was the latest example of 
what many consider annoying U.S. cluelessness about their country.

They may have a point. Brazil is bigger than the continental United 
States and has an economy larger than Russia's, yet even those 
Americans who can find it on the map occasionally mistake Rio, or 
even Buenos Aires (which happens to be in Argentina), as the capital. 
The show did acknowledge that Portuguese, not Spanish, is the 
language of Brazil's 170 million residents. But most of the 
characters the Simpsons encountered had suspiciously Spanish-sounding 
accents.

"This is not a civilized way to be treated," said Laura Cavalcanti, a 
Rio anthropologist. "We are a major country."

Yet the most self-critical Cariocas admit that the strong reaction 
came, in part, because the show hit awfully close to home. Crime, 
unabashed sexuality and severe poverty are indeed part of the fabric 
of life in Rio, and actually in most of Brazil. This nation has never 
been quite sure of its place in the world, and still smarts from a 
decades-old quip, attributed to Charles de Gaulle, that Brazil is the 
county of the future, and always will be.

The well-to-do here often complain that the foreign media focus 
excessively on Brazil's shockingly large ghettos and disparities of 
wealth while ignoring its First World attributes such as a burgeoning 
fashion industry and cutting-edge aviation technology. Foreign 
criticism or misstatements of fact about Brazil are often 
dramatically exaggerated by the local press.

No place is more sensitive than Rio, which winces at its reputation, 
even domestically, as Brazil's beach bum. Yet this stunningly 
beautiful metropolis of nearly 11 million spent decades cultivating 
an image as a city of skin and sin, especially during Carnaval season 
when clothing becomes optional here.

Now, after the "Simpsons" episode, Rio is suddenly acting like a 
blushing bride. Despite its easygoing image, Rio is a place 
misleadingly uneasy with itself.

The monkeys marauding around Copacabana in the sitcom, for instance, 
struck many Cariocas as a low-blow reference to their status in the 
developing world. Some officials even took it as a racial slur 
against the city's Afro-Brazilian population. Yet Rio is indeed home 
to the globe's largest urban green space, with more than 80,000 acres 
of lush jungle whose creatures cohabit with cosmopolitan life. 
Spotting wild monkeys here is not exactly rare.

"I see monkeys in the trees in front of my office all the time, and 
there are monkeys in Copacabana, too," said Paula Gobbi, an Argentine 
journalist who has lived in Rio for 16 years. "I think it's 
fantastic, something to be proud of. But you listen to some of the 
authorities here who are now trying to pretend the monkeys don't 
exist and you just have to wonder what is going on in their heads."

And while some people found Bart Simpson's fondness for "Teleboobies" 
offensive, this is, after all, a nation where Xuxa, a soft-porn queen 
and former girlfriend of soccer great Pele, leapt to stardom as host 
of her eponymous kiddie show. She appears on the show in impossibly 
short skirts and skintight tops, and various of her male co-hosts 
have posed nude for Brazil's gay magazines. Another program for 
Brazilian youngsters was hosted by Tiazinha, a leather-clad 
dominatrix with a whip.

Average Cariocas themselves are hardly the height of modesty. Here, 
in the city that invented the "dental floss" bikini, there seems to 
be a competition over who can expose the most "bumbum" in public. 
Men, even strolling through business districts on the way to the 
beach, often sport tiny sungas, a sort of super-low-cut Speedo. What 
is risque abroad is simply normal here.

After a week, things have cooled a bit. Jose Eduardo Guinle, Rio's 
secretary of tourism, had threatened to sue Fox for damages. Now he 
is simply calling on the show's producers to donate proceeds from the 
episode to the poor of Rio, "whom the show's producers seem to be so 
concerned about."

He was also demanding an apology. And got one, of sorts.

"We apologize to the lovely city and people of Rio de Janeiro," said 
the show's producers in a statement. "And if that doesn't settle the 
issue, Homer Simpson offers to take on the president of Brazil on 
Fox's 'Celebrity Boxing.' "