Interesting that I first saw this a few days before moving across the country for school and I really wanted to know more about this program. A lil’ random research later and violá. Here’s the 24-minute Brazil episode!
“Foreign chefs settle and blend their own cultural traditions with indigenous recipes in Brazil.”
Unfortunately, Hulu hasn’t learned how to play nice with other countries so the show is only available to US audiences.
I was approached by PBS/Frontline to see one of their documentaries and if I liked it, to write about my thoughts on it here. The piece is called Brazil: The Obama Samba and runs at a little over 12 minutes and covers an aspiring Brazilian politician who runs under the name Barack Obama. The story that accompanies it, is a summary of the video documentary itself (minus the first paragraph).
Personally, I believe the only real change that will occur in this country (the USA) will come as a result of the people rising up and defeating the system, but I’ll run with the story for its Brazilian connection and for the fact that the idea of change and hope (or perhaps more specifically, the Presidential speech writer’s idea of it) is ultimately a good one.
Here’s the beginning of the story (that accompanies the documentary), for which I would like to offer a few corrections and comments. I can’t help it. I’m a writer.
“Brazilians love to mix things up — never afraid to grab hold of an idea and incorporate it seamlessly into their constantly evolving culture. Take their national drink, the caipirinha, add fruit juice, and you have a caipifruta (try guava, passionfruit, or kiwi). And samba, the most Brazilian of dances, is itself a mix of African rhythms and European melodies. In Rio, they put a hip-hop beat to it, and call it “funky.””
I understand the initial paragraph is an opener to the rest of the story, but I have a few suggestions as I have a hard time seeing Brazil misrepresented. Caipifruta isn’t what the majority of Brazilians (if not the entire population) call a caipirinha with fruit. They call it a ‘caipirinha de (insert fruit here)’ such as the caipirinha de maracujá. The next correction is that in Rio, samba isn’t mixed with hip-hop and then called “funky.” Funk Carioca, as I have written about here, is something all together different, and so is the Brazilian hip-hop movement. Those two things being said, lets get on to the documentary!
Eyes On Brazil 