Black Orpheus:

The intoxicating music of the first few scenes in Black Orpheus is captivating in the way that it makes your body want to move to a rhythm that feels familiar even if it is the first time you have ever heard it. Combining this beat with the dancing, the almost overwhelming chaos of a Rio favela, and the vivacity of Carnival, Black Orpheus takes a snapshot of Brazilian culture at the time.

Towards the end of the 11 min, to see how Orpheus treats his partner, the woman in a pink, tight dress, is also perhaps indicative of not only the time, but also gender roles in Brazil, latin America and the world. To call this woman “crazy” and paint her as unreasonably jealous when Orpheus is, to her face, commenting on Eurydice’s magnificence and whistling after her, is gaslighting at its finest. As the movie unfolds and love grows between Eurydice and Orpheus, I want to bring us back to this motif often seen in culture, pop culture, and especially outdated media, of a woman being too clingy and suspicious of her unfaithful partner, but rightfully so. Yet never is it questioned why men are hop-scothing from woman to woman. If pop culture is in fact supposed to reflect the core culture of a society, what does this relationship between Orpheus and his partner say about gender roles, and respect for women in Latin America and around the world?

Culture is Ordinary

I find what the author says about culture being many things and absolutely nothing at once very interesting because I think they are very right. Cultures hold immense amounts of importance and weight, to maintain, to abolish, to forget or to revive, yet at the same time they are just how we are, how we are living. So, for example, when people from the US or Canada say that they have no culture it is in many ways sad to me and also untrue. It is sad because they are wrong yet in the world and its hierarchy of cultures and societies, there are ranks, as there always is.

It also seems that words such as culture and tradition are used in ways of protection sometimes claiming that a practice weather or not it is sexist, homophobic, racist, violent or in other ways no longer acceptable, is “cultural” and therefore cannot be touched. This is a dangerous amount of power for any word to have and if we look on a broader scale and towards the future it is interesting to speculate on how “culture” will standup to the test of progression and time?