Remaking Brazil

Contested National Identities in Contemporary Brazilian Cinema

Tatiana Heise

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781783165292
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Film & Video

Part I
Constructions of Brazilian National Identity

Chapter 1

Forging the Nation

The debate on the emergence of nations and the ideological movements that accompany it can be broadly divided into two main camps: the modernist paradigm and the ‘anti-modernist’ critiques. The modernist paradigm emerged in the 1960s when a new body of theories for understanding the rise of nations and nationalism established a contrast with a number of assumptions which had prevailed until then, mainly in the field of history. While previous theories tended to assume that nations were ageless and persisted over immemorial time, the new approach claimed that nations were a product of the specific historical conditions associated with modernity. Modernists also attacked the tendency of earlier works to conceive of the nation as a community of common ancestry, rooted in a historic homeland. In their view, the nation was a civic community based in a particular territory, consciously and deliberately built by its members. Yet another idea contested by modernists was that of the nation as a seamless whole with a single national character. Instead, modernists suggested that nations were divided into various social groups (linked to region, class, gender and religion), each of which maintained its own interests and needs. Finally, the modernist paradigm rejected the concepts of ‘ancestral ties’ and ‘authentic cultures’ as the underlying principles of the nation, asserting instead the significance of ties of solidarity, citizenship and social communication.

Anthony D. Smith and John Breuilly claim that the modernist paradigm took shape with the accelerated process of decolonization and the rise of new nation states in Africa and Asia.¹ This is the moment when the study of nationalism, previously dominated by historians, opened up to a variety of disciplines, mainly political science and sociology. Smith recalls the climate of optimism surrounding the new theories, inspired by the struggles for independence in former European colonies and by the rise of social movements in the 1960s. Such optimism was coupled with an interventionist politics which aimed to see the Western notion of the ‘civic participant nation’ replicated in the former colonies through such strategies as social communication, mass education, urbanization, political participation and other recipes for national development. Above all, the modernist approach envisaged the nation as the ideal agent and framework for social development, and this is one of the reasons why the nation-building model, which focuses on the political nature of nations and the active role of citizens in their construction, became canonical.² Indeed, and as we shall see in chapter 2, this model has served as the main referent for understanding constructions of national identity in Latin America, although not without contestation. The main arguments of the nation-building model can be summarized as follows: first, nations are territorial political communities of legally equal citizens, conjoined with the modern state to form a ‘nation state’; secondly, all other ties its members may have (for example family, class, religion, region) are subordinate to the overriding loyalty of the citizen to his or her nation state, and this is desirable since it is functional for democratic civic participation; finally, only nationalism (as a sentiment or ideology) can mobilize masses to attain the commitment, dedication and self-sacrifice required by modernization.³

As observed by Breuilly, in the early 1970s there were few theoretical writings on nationalism other than those operating within this nation-building model.⁴ However, from the early 1980s onwards there was a marked shift. Important changes in the world order inspired a whole new debate on nations and nationalism, much of which involved criticism of the modernist paradigm and its canonical formulation. In African and Asian states, the nation-building project proved to be far more problematic than expected and the democratic dream was not realized. Ethnic conflicts emerged even in developed countries in the West, and in the East the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 encouraged new ethno-national formations which escaped the ‘civic’ model proposed by modernists. Furthermore, tides of immigration and the growth of new communication technologies undermined the concepts of homogeneous civic cultures and unified national identities. As a result, new theories and approaches to nationalism have arisen, calling into question some of the main premises of the modernist approach. Part of the critique revolves around the idea that the nation is an invented, imagined and hybrid category, therefore open to dispute and constant renegotiation. Others suggest that nations are far older than modernists suggest, and that they should be understood as a distinctively modern version of pre-existing social and cultural communities. Finally, some theories highlight the ephemeral and contingent character of nations, suggesting that they are currently being replaced by a new, global form of political and cultural organization. These arguments do not necessarily reject the modernist paradigm altogether. Indeed, some of them – for example the work of Ernest Gellner – refine and extend it beyond the ‘nation-building’ model. But they do, nevertheless, constitute a forceful critique.⁵

Although the likes of Gellner and Eric Hobsbawm build constructively on the modernist foundations, it is Smith’s ‘ethno-symbolist’ approach and, above all, Benedict Anderson’s concept of ‘imagined communities’ which have been most influential upon those concerned with the cultural construction of nations and national identity.⁶ Thus, Smith argues that the language of nationalism is expressed in diverse forms, from flags, anthems, parades, coinage and folklore, to less obvious ones such as architectural styles, popular heroes, educational practices, the countryside, the media and the arts. Symbols and ceremonies such as these constitute the most potent and durable aspects of nationalism, because they are used to express the distinctive mores, customs, styles and ways of acting and feeling that are shared by members of a national community. Above all, they have the capacity to communicate the basic concepts of nationalism in ‘palpable, concrete terms that evoke instant emotional responses from all strata of the community’.⁷ By articulating and making visible such abstract concepts as identity, autonomy, unity and fraternity, the language of nationalism engages members in the life and emotions of the community, assuring its continuity. For Smith, art has played a particularly important role in nationalism, due to its capacity to bring the national ideal to life and disseminate it amongst the people:

Nationalists, intent on celebrating or commemorating the nation, are drawn to the dramatic and creative possibilities of artistic media and genres in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, opera, ballet and film, as well in [sic] the arts and crafts. Through these genres nationalist artists may, directly or evocatively, ‘reconstruct’ the sights, sounds and images of the nation in all its concrete specificity and with ‘archeological’ verisimilitude.⁸

As we shall see in part II of this book, this argument is exemplified by Brazilian film production since the mid 1990s, with film-makers exploring the possibilities of the medium to celebrate or contest dominant views of the nation.

According to Smith, the sentiments and aspirations which artists articulate can be related to three referents: the first is ‘community’, whereby the nation is seen as a great family of culture. The second is a common past and heritage. Myths of origins and descent, liberation and migration, heroes and martyrs have often been used by artists and intellectuals to endow the nation with a distinct character and mobilize the sentiments of members.⁹ A third referent which characterizes the language of nationalism is the homeland and all the symbolism this involves. For Smith, the homeland is not simply a ‘setting of the national drama’, but a major protagonist in the stories and myths about the nation.¹⁰ Natural features such as lakes, mountains, forests, valleys and rivers take on historical significance and can be turned into symbols of popular virtues and ‘authentic’ national experiences. Smith’s attention to these three referents is particularly useful here because it allows us to understand some of the reasons why individuals develop sentiments of attachment to the nation. As we shall see in relation to Brazil, particular landscapes such as the hills of Rio de Janeiro and the north-eastern sertão have been repeatedly used in films to evoke national identity. The common history or past, the shared myths and other emotionally charged settings where national stories take place are elements that I shall discuss later when analysing contemporary representations of Brazil.

To Smith, the fact that nations have roots in particular geographical spaces presupposes links of continuity between generations of a community. Hence the three referents, territory, historical past and cultural heritage, are used to support the view that, despite being products of modernity, nations are rooted in a pre-modern past. One of the problems in this argument, however, particularly when applied to the Latin American case, is how to separate the ‘modern’ and the ‘pre-modern’. Most scholars agree that processes of nation-building in Latin America are intrinsically linked to the rise of modernity. At the same time, however, they draw attention to the dangers of theorizing modernity as a finished project or phase which replaces ‘pre-modern’ traditional forms of social life. In fact, Smith himself observes that there are many instances where ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ elements coexist and intertwine, and that there is no clear distinction between the two.¹¹

The case of Latin America does illustrate Smith’s suggestion that pre-modern elements have been used to create and reproduce modern national identities. In Brazil, for example, the legacies of indigenous and African culture were appropriated precisely for this purpose. At the same time, however, the Latin American case challenges the notion that these ‘traditions’ belong to a pre-modern past when, as observed by many scholars, they have become closely bound up with modern, or even postmodern cultures, styles and languages.¹² If we accept that ethnic cultures, like all cultures, are in a continuous process of renewal and transformation, then it is hard to distinguish what is ‘pre-modern’ and what is ‘modern’ about them. The meanings of traditions can be changed and contested. So, if it is true that national identities are created out of ethnic cultures, it is worth asking if we can call these ethnic cultures ‘pre-modern’ at all, or if they are simply seen as such by nationalist projects.

The raison d’être of any nation is the cultivation of unique, or allegedly unique, cultural values. Ethnic distinctiveness remains an intrinsic element of the nation, and this implies shared myths of ancestry, common historical memories, unique cultural markers and a sense of difference. These were the elements that marked off ethnic communities in pre-modern eras and, in the modern case, they must be preserved and cultivated in order to maintain the visibility of the nation.¹³ Smith therefore rejects the idea that national cultures and identities may be replaced by an overriding global order. In his view, the fact that nations have deep historical and cultural roots in the past makes it unlikely that they will disappear in the face of a globalized system of politics and culture. He argues that the social and cultural power of the nation has not been undermined by the development of transnational forces in the late twentieth century. On the contrary, he suggests that it has actually been strengthened.¹⁴

Among the significant arguments that he marshals in support of this position is one concerning the role of mass media in forming and sustaining national identity, an emphasis that also emerges centrally from the work of Benedict Anderson. Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (1983) has become a key text in the literature on nationalism and national identities because of the emphasis he places on the cultural and imaginative dimension of the nation. Anderson describes nations and nationalism as cultural artefacts, produced by specific historical conditions that enabled people to imagine themselves as members of wider political communities. He proposes a definition of the nation as ‘an imagined political community – and imagined as both inherently limited and sovereign’.¹⁵ Anderson acknowledges that in any community larger than villages face-to-face contact is imagined. In his view, what distinguishes the nation from these other types of communities is how it is imagined. It is imagined as limited because its boundaries are finite; it is imagined as sovereign because the concept of the nation was born in a context where dynastic lineages were being destroyed by the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Finally, it is imagined as a community because despite its internal divisions and inequalities, ‘the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship’.¹⁶ For Anderson, the crucial factor which enabled people to imagine themselves as part of such horizontal communities was the development of print technology. In his view, the mass production of books and newspapers encouraged the notion of simultaneity across wide geographical distances. ‘Print capitalism’ assembled languages from an immense variety of related dialects and fixed them in a standard form, and it also elevated certain vernaculars used in judicial, political and administrative centres to the status of ‘languages-of-power’.¹⁷ Thus, the homogenizing impact of capitalism and print technology on the diversity of human languages created the possibility of a new form of imagined community.

Imagined Communities has had huge impact upon the study of nationalism. The importance Anderson assigns to the role of the imagination and his view of the nation as a discourse to be interrogated and deconstructed have been particularly influential among theorists in the ‘postmodernist tradition’, and it is to this work that we now turn. A central theme in this body of thought is that of globalization and the suggestion that ‘local’ cultures and, by implication, ‘national’ cultures are gradually being replaced by a global, cosmopolitan culture. Stuart Hall argues that one of the effects of globalization is a loosening of the ties with national culture and a strengthening of other cultural associations and loyalties, ‘above’ and ‘below’ the level of the nation state. In his view, global forms of identification dislocate, or even erase, national identities:

The more social life becomes mediated by the global marketing of styles, places and images, by international travel, and by globally networked media images and communications systems, the more identities become detached – disembedded – from specific times, places, histories, and traditions, and appear ‘free floating’. We are confronted by a range of different identities, each appealing to us, or rather to different parts of ourselves, from which...