Last week was marked by the repercussion of shows by two of the biggest rock bands that were passing through Brasil, the Rolling Stones and U2. The Stones played in Rio on Saturday, Feb. 18, and U2 played in So Paulo on Monday and Tuesday.
Folha gave prominent play to the rockers. Their pictures appeared on the front page on Friday, Feb. 17 through Tuesday, Feb. 21. The newspaper published a special section with information about the shows and described the bands as: “Stones, the Carnival of rock” and “U2, the politics of rock.” On Saturday it finished the final Sunday edition late to include a report about the show in Rio: “Stones play before 1.3 million in Copacabana.”
It was a huge effort that would have been better with fewer adjectives and a little less concern about the size of the crowd. It was impossible to count them, but the newspaper focused on the number (“Historic Stones show before 1.3 million”) and not the quality of the show. It had an obligation to give readers some indication of the space taken up by the audience or reveal the criteria utilized by the fire department to arrive at the number that became official. It is well known how these calculations are made, without effort. They are only useful to support headlines and create captions. There was a time when the newspaper worried about precision in this type of information, which requires planning and technical assistance.
On the same Sunday, the newspaper published an interview with Bono, the vocalist for U2. On Monday, it reported the meeting he had with President Luiz Incio Lula da Silva at the presidential residence in Braslia. And, on Tuesday, it published an op/ed piece by the editor of the arts and entertainment section, Marcos Augusto Gonalves, which stirred up the largest number of letters from readers during the week.
The op/ed piece said “Bono believes in progressive goblins in the Third World,” called the U2 star “a bore” for personifying the “boredom of political correctness” and “mistaken” for having lent “his prestige to Lula.” It was a provocation, and the journalistic line of the coverage followed this tone. The headline in the arts and entertainment section was “Mega-Show.”
The newspaper published the op/ed piece without a lot of fanfare. On Wednesday, it gave the same distinction on the front page to a rebuttal by the editor of “Folhateen,” Sylvia Colombo: “Demagoguery does not take value away from U2.” And it published, in Letters to the Editor, four letters that summarized the anger of fans. The criticism by Marcos Augusto was considered “idiotic and infantile,” “absurd” and an attack against Lula’s left-leaning Workers Party (PT). Actor Srgio Mamberti, one of the secretaries in the Culture Ministry, compared the editor to Jean-Marie Le Pen, leader of France’s right-wing party.
Letters to the Editor received about 80 letters through Friday about the shows. Only two of them agreed with Marcos Augusto’s commentary. I received 41 messages: 25 critical of the arts and entertainment editor, eight with criticism and two praising the piece by the editor of “Folhateen,” and six with other general comments about the coverage. In other words, it was nearly unanimous.
Marcos Augusto was arts and entertainment editor in the 1980s and headed several other departments before returning to that section in January. I received his comments about repercussions of the opinion piece and recommendations for cultural reporting by Folha’s editorial project:
“The arts and entertainment section at certain times plays a questioning and controversial role that I intend to revive. I believe that the section should not deal only with an agenda and reflect predictable expectations. Reiterating common sense in the cultural world is a temptation. Everyone is happy with an ‘agreeable’ tactic that suppresses uncomfortable topics.
“I thought it was healthy to get enthusiastic praise from people on the left for a story about the ‘new right’ and soon after, be compared to Le Pen by Srgio Mamberti, a nice enough guy, but one who doesn’t know anything. The piece was a good-humored provocation, criticizing the singer’s loud political marketing and politically correct clichs that have turned into a kind of contemporaneous hypocritical etiquette. By the way, that is not a new criticism. The reactions were strong because I meddled with idolatry, the juvenile fundamentalism of fans. And because I mentioned the fact that Bono, in an uncritical and opportunistic way, went to the presidential resident to pose at the side of the president whose party, unfortunately, is involved in cases of corruption. It is a tradition for Folha to be pluralistic and critical. And, in all of this it is good to remember that the arts and entertainment section published the next day, with a lot of attention, a rebuttal to my piece, written by the editor of ‘Folhateen.’ It was clear, furthermore, that the new editor of the arts and entertainment section is trying to find a place for cultural discussions, a distinction in the section that was lost to time and the newspaper’s aging. Folha’s stylebook stimulated the controversy. ‘It should be present in opinion pieces and criticism and reflect on stories and interviews.’”
It is one way. Will it work? That will depend on the newspaper’s sensitivity to capture the confusion that is in the air and to give less superficial journalistic treatment, escaping from the trap of controversy for controversy’s sake.
DRAWINGS
Revolution by cartoon
Jos Alberto Lovetro is the cartoonist known as JAL who is also president of the Brazilian Cartoonists Association. Here is his commentary about the coverage in the Brazilian press about the drawings that show Muhammad and the violent reaction provoked in Muslim countries:
“The well-known artist Otvio provoked the anger of Catholics when he satirized the Santos soccer team going to the Aparecida Basilica to ask for protection before a decisive game against rival team Corinthians. He drew Brazil’s patron saint with the face of soccer legend Pel. A crowd of religious people surrounded the door at ‘ltima Hora’ in So Paulo, which had to close the office for a fair amount of time. Otvio was fired and had to seek police protection. Meanwhile, Henfil, another big cartoonist, drew two goblins, the height of eschatology and lewdness with a religious background, and did not receive the same treatment.”
“The difference is that Otvio sought to honor Pel, a national institution, almost a god, but offended the religious culture of a country that is essentially Catholic. Henfil was visceral against the dictatorship and was right in showing that all of the means of resistance were valid to that end. He was accepted as an inquisitor of the methods of military power with religious support.
“The two cases show the ‘calculated risk’ of cartoonists and their work. What happened with the drawings published in Denmark is that they condemned violence by suicide bombers, but they became religious provocation to a people whose religion and politics are mixed. It was unnecessary to use the Prophet Muhammad to convey this message.
“In our documentary ‘Defamation, the Revolution by Khartoum’ (TV Sesc/Senac-1999), Millr tells us ‘when a topic falls into the hands of cartoonists, there is no escape.’ The power of the drawing creates and destroys icons with its exacerbated symbolism. The role of humor is to question power at all times. For this reason it is highly revolutionary.”
What is missing on many pages and the time spent by the press on this topic is a necessary discussion about the role of drawings. There were times at newspapers and TV in which entire days were dominated by the drawings of caricatures and, in the other, cartoons. It is a shame for those who have studied in journalism school but don’t even know what a drawing is. The word (in Portuguese) coming from French also means “accusation.” An accusation about a factual and journalistic topic. The press has not informed about the language in the drawings or interviewed artists for a discussion about “freedom of the press versus corrosive language in a humorous drawing.” I did not see anything about this in depth.
Translated by John Wright
