Culture Assignment 2

Culture comparison

The Roots of Brazil dabbles with the ideas of the cordial man as core culture identities that make up Brazil. The same core identities can be observed in Que Horas Ela Volta.

The first example is the idea that the cordial man of Brazil feels exiled, in the sense that they come from the Iberian Peninsula, a more “civilized” part of the world, and that when they made the voyage across the Atlantic to Brazil, they arrived in an unfamiliar land. The Iberians, that is Spaniards as well as the Portuguese, felt exiled because they experienced similar feelings to exile; a harsh unknown land with an unknown journey with unknown people. A similar sentiment can be observed in Que Horas Ela Volta, when the daughter decides to come to São Paulo to not only study, but to live in the house of her mother’s boss. Jessica is in her own way experiencing the symptoms of the native Brazilian’s “exile”, Jessica doesn’t know what to expect and how to behave in this new area that she is now calling home. The culture shock and friction that Jessica experiences in São Paulo parallelizes a similar endeavor that the Iberians faced when coming to the land of Brazil.

The strong contrast in culture experienced by the Iberians can be further extrapolated to the notion of a laissez-faire relaxed life that is emblematic in Brazil. The cordial man upholds the value not to overburden himself with work, so that he does not incur further hardship which would detract from a relaxed mindset. This indeed too, is clearly represented in Que Horas Ela Volta, by the father Carlos and the son Fabinho. They both remain a very calm and relaxed lifestyle, not overburdened by work, free to enjoy life’s pleasures. However, similarly to how a cordial man of Brazil is often faced with a mirror from North America, asking for introspection and reconsideration of one’s lifestyle, the same interpretation holds true for Carlos and Fabinho, as they receive not only pressure from their housemaid Val and Carlos’ wife Barbara, but from the outside world as well as Fabinho prepares to enter university.

Although there is pressure that the cordial Brazilian man receives, where it be of internal or external forces, there is also a power that draws the family together. Val, having worked with this family for many years, is in a way a part of the family. She buys gifts for them, feels a closeness to all of its members, and holds a particularly strong penchant for the son, Fabinho. The cordial man feels this as well, with his interests placed primarily for that of himself and those immediate to him as well. This strong tie, this powerful sentiment that is nearly ubiquitous across all of Brazilian life, also brews a rather interesting conflict. There is a large conflict that exists between the civic duties and the personal duties, with unintended prioritization as well as amorphous boundaries being created. Val exhibits a profound case of this, with her potent fondness of Fabinho which is far from kindship. This conflict between her love of the family and her role as a housemaid brews some unintended feelings, particularly from Barbara, whose ideology emphasizes civic duty over personal duty, a reverse prioritization from that of Val. The cordial man experiences these feelings too, as they consider what is best for their family, and can sometimes digress to their civic duties.

The primary personal nucleus however still strongly prevails, as the cordial man’s personal life centers around that of his immediate friends and family. He might fail to thoroughly seek out those that are around him, not only echoing the sense of exile that he feels but this also CREATES a lack of infrastructure for the cordial man to seek out his possible peers, and this infrastructure is public space. Throughout Brazil, even in such bustling metropolises like São Paulo, there is little to no public space. This part of daily life is demonstrated as well in Que Horas Ela Volta, where effectively the entire film centers around family and close friends. There is no public space demonstrated, there is just a divide, a divide that exists between others outside of one’s circle.