In a recent con­ver­sa­tion about Brazil­ian cul­ture, Schwarcz, who spent last semes­ter at PLAS, said:

It is strange how nowa­days Brazil has a new image com­ing from abroad. We used to be seen as “exotics”; a coun­try of Capoeira (a Brazil­ian form of mar­tial art), Can­domblé (a syn­cretic African reli­gion), Car­naval, and the “Mulatas.” Now we con­tinue to be viewed as exotic, but the exoti­cism has a new ingre­di­ent: vio­lence, even a new aes­thet­ics of vio­lence, mainly in the way Brazil is por­trayed in con­tem­po­rary films, like City of God. The fas­ci­na­tion with fave­las among many peo­ple out­side Brazil is ambigu­ous. On the one hand, fave­las are seen as vio­lent com­mu­ni­ties, sub­ject to vio­lent lead­ers out­side the author­ity of the state. On the other, they are just “different”–scenes of a cul­ture out­side the dom­i­nant cul­ture, with its own spe­cial way of par­ty­ing, danc­ing, play­ing soccer.