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Darién J. Davis, "'Black Orpheus' and the Globalization of Afro-Brazilian Culture" (Rutgers UP, 2026)
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- [00:00]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Ugh.
- [00:01]
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Regan Gillum
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- [00:31]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [00:35]
Regan Gillum
Hello everyone, and welcome to New Books and Anthropology, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I'm your host, Regan Gillum, and today I'm talking to Dr. Dadienne Davis, who is the author of the book Black Orpheus and the Globalization of Afro Brazilian Film, published by Rutgers University Press. Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Davis.
- [00:57]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Thank you so much, Dr. Gillum. I am grateful that you have made this opportunity possible for us to dialogue and to talk about my work.
- [01:09]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, thank you. I'm really excited to talk about your latest book. And as by way of a question for an introduction, I wanted to ask you a little bit about yourself. And one of the main reasons is you've written and edited many books about Brazil and Afro Latin America. And I'm just going to name some of them and they are slavery and the African Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean. Afro Brazilians. Time for Recognition. The book beyond the Multi Layered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. The book Avoiding the Essays on Race and the Forging of National Culture in Brazil and Afro Brazilians Today. And so those are some of the books that you've singly authored as well as edited. And that's not to mention your many articles as well as. And so I wondered how you came to study and do research on Brazil.
- [02:05]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Okay, how much time do I have to answer this? No. So, as you know, as researchers, our research imagination comes from a lot of different places. And I can tell you one story about how Brazil came to me, or I came to Brazil. And the story goes something like this. When I moved from the University of Notre Dame to Tulane university in the 1980s, the late 1980s, I wanted to study comparative history. And I became very interested in pursuing more studies on the African Diaspora. And I landed at Tulane University and I had great teachers. The late Colin McLaughlin was the major person studying or teaching Brazil. Dr. Trudy Jaeger was teaching social history and really focusing on race and gender. And then Juan Helpi he was a Puerto Rican. He was. He is an amazing scholar who taught this class about Puerto Rican literature and more broadly, paternalism in Puerto Rican literature. And I think my task, moving to Tulane already with a master's degree, was to try to bring all of these together. And I started looking at the places where the African diaspora was more prominent or had the biggest impact. And I decided eventually to do my dissertation on looking at Brazil, because, as you know, Brazil has the largest population of people of African descent in the Western Hemisphere. And then Cuba, I decided to study both Cuba and Brazil. And what happened is that when I first visited Brazil in 1989, I just was taken immediately by Brazilian culture and decided that beyond my dissertation that was comparative between Brazil and Cuba, that I would focus entirely or almost entirely on Brazil or some aspect of Brazil and the Caribbean. And basically I haven't. I've stayed on that track in terms of my focus and my interest.
- [04:54]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, thank you so much for that answer. And so that interest does seem to carry all the way through to the present to your current book on Black Orpheus. And so how did you come to write the book Black Orpheus and the Globalization of Afro Brazilian Film?
- [05:09]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
What I left out of that story is that in some ways the. My staying in Brazil, I wanted to stay and live in Brazil. And I was quite moved. Actually. The first. The first experience with looking at music came during a taxicab cab ride in Sao Paulo in 1989, in December 1989. And I had the song, I don't know if you know, the song by Catano Velozo. He was singing in the. In the taxi. It was playing in. Off of the radio in. In the Taxi. And something came over me. It was just a very out of body experience of this music is just incredible. And. And so that's not a scholarly feeling. It's something that just drew me even more to Brazil and the importance of the oral tradition and particularly Brazilian music. And so I remember before I went to Brazil in 1988, I saw the film Black Orpheus at the Sneith Museum, I think the Sneith Museum at the University of Notre dame. It was 1988 or 87. And I remember feeling the same feeling of Brazilian music moving me in this way as I was doing my master's and studying it. And I was at that moment where I was also looking at ways to study the black influence, the African influence, black representation. And I kept coming back to Black Orpheus. It reminded me of the celebration of Junkanoo in the Bahamas, for example, or Carnival in Panama, both of which I experience. And I wanted to look at this more deeply. Of course, in Brazil, Carnival is structured around Catholicism. And over several decades, I just kept hearing from people who were moved by the film, like me and others, and whose interest was spiked. Interest in Brazil was spiked by viewing the film. One of them was my friend and mentor, who I dedicate the book to, John McCarthy, who actually moved to Brazil, not necessarily only because he was moved by the film, but it was his first experience of Brazil. And in the book, I talk about those people who are also moved by Black Orpheus, the film, and how it influenced their life. So it became very early on, what my former colleague Julio Alvarez would say is that it's a pebble in her shoe. Something that just is there and is. It's a pebble in your shoe, where you know it's there and it's rolling around, but you don't have. It's not a huge distraction. Particularly when I had to do my dissertation and, as you know, get tenure and finish various projects. And I eventually was able to return to the Black Orpheus project and really start doing my interviewing and archival research to produce a book. I know that's long winded, but I hope that gives you a sense of, in some ways, how I came to the film and wanting to write about it.
- [09:01]
Regan Gillum
No, that was great. Thank you for that explanation. Because I think it's interesting how film can bring us into a country in that kind of way. I feel like I had an experience with the film A City of God, which is obviously a very different film and a very different kind of black representation. But it did actually spark my interest in Brazil at the time it came out, when I was in college. But Black Orpheus is still a film that people still talk about. People bring it up to me and they ask me, like, are you going to teach it? Because I teach classes on Brazilian film, and so it is a classic, and it is still, I think, a beloved film. And so I wanted to also ask you if you could tell us, like, give us a synopsis of Black Orpheus and tell us what it's about, really, just for those people who maybe have not seen Black Orpheus or have not heard of the film.
- [09:58]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Thank you for that question. And I think that I will give you one version of what the film is about. I'll try to be. Not use too much academic language, but so I use three types of ways of talking about what Black Orpheus is about. And it comes from historians who have studied films in terms of the content, the production and the reception of the film. So those three things are. As a historian who look uses film as, as a historical artifact. I did film reviews for the American Historical Review about a decade ago. And so this definition of what is Black Orpheus about? Comes from that sense. So in terms of content, I would say that Black Orpheus is a Brazilian adaptation of a Greek myth. Of the Greek myth on Orpheus, the poet, musician, performer whose music basically charms anyone. He's a charismatic streetcar conductor in this version and a gifted musician. And his beloved Eurydice, which is another character personality from the Greek myth. She's a young woman who flees to Rio from the countryside. They fall in love doing the Dionysian celebrations of Carnival. She dies tragically and Orpheus descends into the city's underworld. In the myth, it's Hades trying to bring her back through the power of music. So in that version of the content, it's a story about love, loss and the role of music in helping to not only resurrect his beloved, but to talk about the lamentations of loss. Again, sorry, this is a long winded way to sort of think about what the film is about in terms of content. If I can just say from a historical perspective and from a research perspective, it is also the celebration of blackness, Latin blackness, and the possibility or impossibility of Brazilians and non Brazilians celebrating Afro Brazilian culture. So that's a little bit more complex in terms of what it's about, but I think that that's important. That level is important. There's also another issue in terms of geographically. It's also a film about the history of Rio de Janeiro and the geographical representation of Rio as a stand in for Brazil. So that's three versions of what the film's about. I can give you two more, but I'll stop there.
- [13:17]
Regan Gillum
No, this is fantastic. I think this is great to think about the film and bring these interpretations to it because. Because it's such a, like a classic film and it's so, you know, it is a pretty old film. You don't. It doesn't always enter into discussions in this kind of critical way. So you really bring this like deeper thought into it, which is like the really great aspect of the book. And my next question kind of expands on what you were saying because you write that Black Orpheus was an early film that features an all black cast and focuses on black joy. And, and so I wondered like, what are your larger arguments in the book and what makes black orpheus like such a landmark film.
- [14:02]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Oh, that's a great question again, because I like the word landmark because in looking at this film as historical artifact, landmark or watersheds are really important to historians and to me. And I would say that if I would have to focus on the argument and its representation of joy and black joy in particular, that's particularly important in this historical moment. The film celebrates blackness. Even the controversy about people would say, well, why name it Black Orpheus? Why not call it Orpheus as Cacajiegas would do in the 1990s when he recreates or produces his own film. But I think that in historical perspective we will be uneasy, some people will be uneasy with some of the images of the film in the contemporary era. Our ex president Barack Obama talks about that. But. But for the 1950s it becomes a landmark film from my perspective because the black images are scarce that we see in a global mainstream films in particular. And that's important to say it's a mainstream film because obviously we have race, what's called race films in the United States and other small production films that you can point to. But in terms of mainstream films, the types of black images are either problematic or non existent. And this film explicitly celebrates blackness in its title and puts black characters on the silver screen as films such as. As films like the. The one film that. That I mention in the book that can be compared to this somewhat is Carmen Jones, the 1954 film by Otto Preminger. But there are very few that circulate globally in this way. And I think that that's what's important. That brings its also problems as well in terms of the black casting. And we can talk about that if you'd like, but I'll stop right there. Again.
- [16:44]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, I was going to ask about the cast, but first I was going to ask about the directors because one of the contradictions of the film Black Orpheus is that it is a black film with a black cast, but it has a white director and script writer. And I wondered like how did Camus, who's the director, and Vinicius Jimoraes, who wrote the script, I think like how did they contribute to the film?
- [17:14]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah, I think it's one of. That question is one of the most important questions that I continue to grapple with. And this might take us in a different direction in terms of my own role as a researcher and somebody interested in Brazilian culture, not being born in Brazil. So I like the word contradiction that you use in terms of understanding Camus role as a director and I think that. But I would say in my questioning way, is it a contradiction when we look at history or is it a tension? I mean, I don't want to play with words so much because I think the question is really valid and gets to some of our contemporary issues in studying representation and who can represent whom and what and to what extent. So as, as a scholar, I. I turned the question of contradiction into a question for me to say who can produce what in what historical moment and how and what becomes legitimate for a particular population and ways of looking. I mean, we both of us know about the white gaze and the erasure of black culture debate that we're talking about right now in the historical perspective. I am interested in looking at this film as a monument of the 1950s and asking that question of who can produce what and to what extent does it become an important work way of examining any artifact where. So in our racialized society, we have to look at this in terms of the role of whiteness, white supremacy, in particularly today. It's really important to investigate these issue as it relates to how the world operates, particularly in terms of power and in its representation of blackness and Latinness. And in this case the black Latinists and other types of cultures, who gets to represent who? Right. So how do minorities, culture without power, gain access to particular modes of communication and negotiations when they do not have the ability to produce behind the scene? Particularly again in the 1950s and early 60s, as these dynamics are changing. So it's important to look at what's happening behind the camera and to ask these questions about the producers. So I don't know if I answered your question, but the fact that we have a white direct and white producers creates some interesting questions. And also male, white, male producers. I don't want to fall into the question of what is authentic or not, but I want us to just question the fact that even these white producers have cultural baggage or cultural background. So it's important that the director is French and that the other white producers on the film are Brazilian. So there's a different way in which, for example, the Brazilian producers who are white, particularly Vinicius, Jim Moraes and Tong Jobing, they question the fact that this French director is coming in and making this film. And they have some issues with the French gaze, but not necessarily with a white gaze, because they considered themselves and they are Brazilians. So they're looking at it from not a racialized perspective. Even though they're presenting blackness, they're looking at it from a national perspective. And they can criticize the French director. And so that again, creates this sort of very complicated ways of looking at and answering the question of who can produce what, to what extent. And I'll just end by saying that the point of view of. Of the French directors, and particularly the fact that the director eventually marries an Afro Brazilian woman, will have two sons who are Afro Brazilian and Afro French and French and Brazilian, all of those ways of thinking about it, the question is, so does that give him, quote, unquote, if you can see my fingers, the right to. Or access to be able to produce work on Afro Brazilian culture? Or is that even the right question? Like who has the right. Who determines this? And maybe right is not the right way of looking at it. But just to ask again, how is this manifested in the positionality and in the intention? Does that make sense?
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Regan Gillum
Absolutely, absolutely. And so moving on to. From that. To the cast, which is what you had talked about earlier. Obviously, one of the important aspects of the film is that it does have this all black cast. And I was fascinated in reading about, in the book about the actors. I didn't realize that. I think it was. Not all the actors were necessarily trained actors, but some of them were. And so you write about how they found the actors. And so how did they find the actors for this all black cast?
- [24:00]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah. So it first comes from, again, the intentionality of Venetius de Moraes in particular. And again, what I'm going to say now, May in today, 2019, 2026. This might strike people as really problematic. Where Vinicius Jamoraes says when he's writing the script, that he is dedicating this to black people in Brazil because they are essentially the roots of Brazilian culture. And here's the part that becomes controversial for us today is that he says that he is the blackest white man in Brazil. Do Brazil, Right. And this is a way of him expressing his love of black culture and celebration of black culture. Again, problematic for us today, and maybe even in the 1950s. But my point is, in terms of answering your question, Venice de Moraes is really the person who says this has to be a majority black cast. And the directors who create the film agree with that because they want to celebrate Afro Brazilian culture. When it comes down to choosing the black cast, the French producers do something, again, that's pretty complicated for the main characters. They create drawings which they pass out in the press. And from my perspective, when you look at the drawings, there is a particular type of blackness that is represented. Handsome black man who will present with Certain features. And you really see the major female character will have certain features that we can debate about the type of blackness that is being sought. And it's typical of casting in general of main characters who is representing blackness on the screen. On the basic level, there are two beautiful black people who will be chosen. And even though the images present a certain black character, a type of blackness, when the producers are doing interviews, you begin to see a wide array of black people who are actually cast. So despite the major focus of the two main characters, they're choosing people that represent the gamut of blackness from light skin to dark skin, to different types of hair to different types of bodies. And they produce a cast that is relatively representative of Afro Brazilians for the time period, I think. And he relies on also one of the pillars of Afro Brazilian political engagement, Abidios Nascimento. And who had the black experimental theater group, Teatro Experimental du Negro. And he is participating by giving. Encouraging his actors to try out for roles as well as in the film.
- [27:46]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, I love this connection to Abigail's Du Nascimento and the black experimental theater because there's so much that that theater was doing. And to see just another way in which they were sort of operating in Brazil at the time, to try to push actors into this. Into this film that would become like this classic film of Brazil was. It was just fascinating.
- [28:15]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah. And I still have some questions. Right. In terms of to what extent are they represented? Where Abidius Dunacimento was he invited behind the scenes I could find to talk about acting in Brazil. I don't see any evidence of that. One of the key people who I was really able to interview was Lea Garcia, who was an actress in the experimental black theater group who has nothing but praise for the French producers who gave her this first opportunity to appear on the silver screen. And then she goes on to become one of the most important women of Afro Brazilian. Women of global and other films in Brazilian cinema.
- [29:17]
Regan Gillum
Yeah. And so I wondered too. So the film came out in 1957 and I wondered how you think about the film in the context of the idea of racial democracy. And I asked this because I could see how the film may not fit with ideas of racial democracy, which claims that Brazil is this mixed race country without racism. And so when it tends to, like, to deny, in a way, blackness and clear racial categories. But then you have a film that there's this explicit idea of like, we want a black cast. But then I also saw how it could support ideas of racial democracy by celebrating blackness and so I just wondered how you thought about the film within the context of that idea.
- [30:03]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah, that's a fascinating question, that maybe you and I can teach a class on that together over Internet or over YouTube. But I think that you're right, though, that on the one hand, it really feeds in to this notion that is being circulated both in France and the United States, and particularly because it's post war, where the Western hemisphere is still reeling 20 years after the Holocaust and World War II, and searching for images that will promote something that is related to tolerance and racial coexistence. So Brazil becomes. Becomes this metaphor for what is possible, even though we know that there are problems with the racial democracy myth, and that's why we call it a myth. So it does here. I think it promotes the racial democracy myth, even though the myth is about racial intermixing and no prejudice, because it does present sort of happy people, happy Afro Brazilians who are dancing and celebrating at this time. And so it is giving audiences an idea of that's Brazil, that you can go and you can see this. And there are no racial tensions like in the United States or in France, who was sort of suffering from this post colonial angst. There's the war in Algeria, There are tensions there and of course, racial segregation in the United States. So this becomes, you see, and this is what, again, President Barack Obama talks about, that his mother, seeing the film, is enamored with this possibility of experiencing black happiness and without racial tensions. And sometimes it's divorced from the fact that, remember, this is during Carnival, it's a Catholic country, this celebration happens on a yearly basis. But nonetheless, I think you're right that it can, depending on what you're looking at, feed into or support the idea of racial democracy. And then by its very nature, it also doesn't support it. Right. In terms of the behind the scenes, The white producers who are putting black performers in front of the camera, but not necessarily behind the camera. And again, this is. This is something that is not unique just to this particular film. This is common practice of filmmakers well after this particular moment. So you know the book by Greg Tate, everything but the what white people are taking from black culture. That. That is something that also is interesting to me, that how whiteness is a part of the celebration. But to what extent can one celebrate when the targets are still black bodies? Right. And that represents an interesting tension dialogue that I think we can talk about in this film and subsequent films.
- [33:59]
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- [34:21]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, definitely. No, that was. That was really interesting too, to bring in the war into this context as well. I think that's a really important thing to point out. And I wanted to ask a question about kind of the. I guess, kind of like the flip side of the black joy. Because of course you talk about how the film depicts like black joy and black culture, but you also talk about, like, there's also some like, exotic depictions of black people. And so. And you do talk about this in the book, like, what are some of the more problematic aspects of the film and its depictions of blackness?
- [35:00]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah, and I'll try to be brief on this one. It said, and again, it's always, we're talking about this film as if there is one way of viewing. Actually, we're not talking about one way of viewing, but we have to also realize that people are the positionality of the viewer and the fact that it is a depiction of carnival. But that being said, it is really. People are moving all the time. And the Afro Brazilians are dancing all through the carnival. And if you've ever gone to carnival in Rio, people are dancing if you go. But not all the time, not at every moment, not necessarily by themselves. And so the depiction can lead into this Dionysian view of Afro Brazilian culture. That is that sort of constantly moving, incessant music playing. And those moments of exoticism sort of feeds into moments of black exoticism. But again, with the lack of images, if that's the only image you see, then that becomes problematic. And for many people, that is the only image that they see that you can't put it in context. Nobody's going to the film, the movie theater, and saying, okay, let's look at the film historiography of the moment and see how this dialogues with other films. So again, that's what I would argue, that it's a dialogue, but that there definitely are moments of moments that you can call exotic. When you read the book, you see that I also cite scholars who talk about the role of the exotic in creating dialogue and how the beyond the film, it creates many different opportunities for discussion. I think your work has touched on a little bit of Josito Araujo's work, and he's an interesting filmmaker. To bring into the dialogue. Because as an Afro Brazilian filmmaker who's created films with majority black casts or about black stories, he also says that historically, this was an important film. Right. So I. I would listen to Afro Brazilians and what they say about the film as well. The interview with Lea Garcia, with Aroldo Costa. They all talk about their participation and the connection to the Afro Brazilian project.
- [38:02]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, I thought it was interesting how you just mentioned your interview with Leah Garcia. And I wanted to ask you more about the research for the project. I wanted to ask if you could talk about the research. How long did it take? And it seems like you did archival research and interviews. And some of the people who. Who you interviewed have since passed away, like Leia Garcia and like Zosimo Bolbol. And so were there any, like, surprises or challenges along the way in pursuing the research for the film?
- [38:38]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
So, from a personal perspective, getting grants and understanding the French historiography and getting into the French archives was a challenge that I knew would take me a longer time than looking in the archives in Brazil or in the United States. So I would say it was a pleasant surprise because it opened a whole new door for me in terms of the circulation and globalization of culture in general and different ways of organizing and seeing part Blackness from. From different national perspectives. So, yeah, it did take me, I would say, about the whole project took about eight years in total, because I. I wanted to. I think it would be easier now in some ways, because we have all of these digital tools that, like, we are on this platform now that we're talking, and a lot of these were not available to me. So I had to go to Rio to obviously interview. And it was helpful to be in the same room with these individuals. So I was incredibly lucky to get to know Lea Garcia and to have several interviews with her. And I give her credit, she's now an ancestor and getting to know her family, just so. The generosity of Brazilians in general has been incredible. And because I became interested when I left Brazil after the Fernando Caller de Melo's government and only was able to be in Brazil during summers and Christmas breaks, I became interested in the Brazilian diaspora and Brazilians outside of Brazil and how Brazilian culture travels. There was a group that studied that in terms of the United States, and I really joined them in sort of looking at the ways in which that traveled. But I digress. So the way that I was able to interview people as well is finding Brazilians who live in. In Los Angeles, in New York, and who were connected to the. The Afro Brazilian project in general. And then that people who traveled black bodies, Black Brazilian bodies, who traveled with culture. And in that process, actually this is where I became interested in whiteness in Brazilian culture. Because if Brazilians are identifying and celebrating Afro Brazilians, how do white Brazilians celebrate that? And that was an interesting factor for me. I hope I've answered your question. I might have gone on a different tangent, but.
- [41:45]
Regan Gillum
Oh yeah, no, you've definitely answered it. I love Leah Garcia too. I show a film in one of my classes called. Called Ujia Girusa.
- [41:57]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Oh yeah, that's a great one, isn't it?
- [41:59]
Regan Gillum
Yeah. And I think that was the last film that she acted in before she passed away. And so, yeah, I. I very much admire her as an actress and I, I still, I still show. Show that film. And I. And I always tell students as well, like she was in Black Orus and even if they've not heard of the film to. To show like just how long her trajectory has been as an actress and to show like she was in this like major blockbuster film in the beginning.
- [42:34]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
It's also interesting that she really navigated being an activist as well. She really stood up for black actors and actresses even as she's navigating her own career, right?
- [42:46]
Regan Gillum
Oh, definitely. I wonder too if you show this film in any of your classes or how you approach using film in your classes. Because it's interesting to hear you talk about like film as a. As a historical document. And then of course, like this book takes this deep dive into the film. And so I wondered if you do use it in any of your classes and how you maybe use it in pedagogical ways.
- [43:17]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah, I do. Every time I teach the Modern Brazil class. It's now gauge as Modern Brazil in global context. I think that that allows me to show Black Orpheus in some ways a student's really modern. Students sometimes who write. I ask them to write film reviews or to sort of dialogue with it. And it's interesting when they do that, the dialogue that it brings up. So I do use it in the Modern Brazil class and I talk about many of the issues that we are discussing today. What was the second part of the question? Is that enough or.
- [44:06]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, just how you. Yeah, how you use either Black Orpheus or film in the classroom.
- [44:10]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Oh, film in general. Right. So I used to teach a class called Film and History. And I go back to this, what we began the talk with, that I use John o' Connor's sort of triad of the way that you look at films are through content production and reception. Reception is easy because you can find film reviews and how a certain film is seen. And that's been really interesting for film for students who can decide, well, how did the French press see this compared to looking at how the black press in the United States reviews this film? How is it received by ordinary Brazilians? How is it received? So doing that research, you need to do research in order to sort of talk about reception. The same with production. Like, how do we. What's. Who is making the film? What's problematic about it? Where does it take place? And so those three things. And of course, the content of, like, what is the story really about? And having students answer one of those questions in a short paper has really been fruitful. And when it's important for them to dialogue to see, like, some people really are bothered by the film, some students are bothered by the film and others are elated again. And so to hear other people read their papers out loud or to give their point of view in a discussion has been really eye opening to students in general to see different ways of viewing one particular text. Even today.
- [45:59]
Regan Gillum
Yeah, no, that is fascinating. And your book is a great example of that as well. So people could use that in the classroom. Use your book in the classroom as an example of ways of producing this dialogue and taking these perspectives that you talk about.
- [46:15]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Why, thank you.
- [46:18]
Regan Gillum
And so I guess my last question is. So it seems significant that of course you're talking about Afro Brazilian culture. And so I'm thinking about. The book is on the globalization of Afro Brazilian culture. And often people talk about global Brazil, but they kind of miss the specificity that at least half the population is of African descent. And so I wondered what you wanted readers to take away from the book.
- [46:46]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Yeah, here again, there are different layers of understanding. I like using the film also to understand Brazil in general. And it could be this film or any other film. I'm sure you do this in your class as well, with how one film can provide you with certain insights into a particular culture, for whatever reason. Could be my cultural background. I really want to focus on the African diaspora and to highlight the importance of black people in general to the creation of Western cultures. And partly Brazil provides this really interesting platform to do so. Platform as a country. Platform to do so. But there are messages and layers for across the Atlantic world and across the diaspora. I don't know if you've seen the latest population statistics of Brazil, the 214 million more or less people in Brazil and in the census the way that Brazil counts people or categorizes people is brown, black or white, the major. And then indigenous or Indian as well. And it's interesting that the majority, when you count them, the majority of people really say that they're brown. Right? And less than 11% say that they're black, whereas 43 or some 43.5, I think 44% claim whiteness. And so it's about the ways in which people of African descent. How do I say this without. So on the one hand, we're in the United States teaching about Brazil in English with a Portuguese. But in Brazil, for example, it is completely logical, given their historical background, the long history of slavery and blackness and anti blackness in Brazil, that people in general tend to gravitate towards brown. They can't gravitate towards white. And. And so when we say Afro Brazilian, and this came up when I was trying to come up with the title, an alternative title was Black Orpheus. And the globalization of black Brazilian culture and Afro Brazilian in English gives us an ability to talk about black and brown people in a way that is not necessarily the way that Brazilians talk about. Talk about themselves. And yet there are many ways that Brazilians talk about themselves. Even white Brazilians would say, you know, I have a black grandmother or I have a black father. And so your percentage is really correct that when you said you use the term of African descent. Right. The majority of people in Brazil are of African descent. There's no, there's no question about that. It's just the way that we, the words that we use to talk about that. So again I'm going off topic to say what do I want people to take away the film want? The film is one, is that to use it to talk about the complexity of Afro Brazilian culture, the importance of Afro Brazilian culture in the world. But also this distinction between Afro Brazilian culture and black identity can be something that we talk about when we talk about the film in general. Specifically about my book. The first part is sort of. The first three, four chapters are about sort of the making of the film and giving you insights about how a film can be used to talk about a cultural artifact at a particular moment in time. And then the second part of the film to finish up this answer is about the legacy of Afro Brazilian culture in the world. And I continue to be completely. What's the word? Amazed at the impact of Brazilian culture and how Afro Brazilian culture is at the core of that around the. Around the globe. And if I can play a small role in highlighting, highlighting that in a world in which Portuguese speakers and non English speaking people are. Have an ability to gain more traction in globalization, I hope I can do that with this film to sort of impress upon the ways in which Afro Brazilian culture shines through in small ways, even with films that are problematic. That I show that in the second part of the book.
- [52:07]
Regan Gillum
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you so much for that answer. That's so important. So thank you so much for sharing your book with us. I'm Regan Gillum. I've been speaking with Dr. Dadian Davis, who is the author of the book Black Orpheus and the Globalization of Afro Brazilian Film, published by Rutgers University Press. Thank you so much for writing this book and for sharing it with us on the podcast.
- [52:30]
Dr. Dadienne Davis
Thank you. I really appreciated your dialogue, and I look forward to continued discussion in the future.