The “Tríduo momesco” (King Momo’s Triduum) was the dressed-up name, pretentious.  It became inappropriate – the three days of Carnaval in Brazil were extended to four, five, or seven. Besides, no one knows how to pronounce it correctly, or what it means.

Momo (the king of Carnaval) is outdated, and the festival became synonymous to international travels or monumental traffic jams.

Carnaval used to have masks, costumes, confetti, malice. A pair of thighs halfway exposed under curved skirts was motive for frenzy. Today, with so much rear-end and breast on display, sensuality is gone, lost all its grace.

Scale turns everything boring. Lança-perfume (a common “perfume” spray that brings on a quick “harmless high”, very popular during Carnaval) used to have a mysterious side.

A slight mist of the perfume on the back of the chased one would insinuate a whole lot; it was traded in for the direct message from crack, ecstasy, or cocaine.

What is a block, a ranch, a parade of allegoric floats critiquing the powerful? Themes from samba schools are all bought, almost always by powerful political interests, and VIP seats are shared by powerful economic interests.

One of the most wonderful time-off-to-play events in the world – for the people – has been transformed into a show-room of racketeering and corruption. The endorsement from a neo-evangelical sect that would turn it into the portrait of impunity is all that is missing.

In Bahia, Recife, some corners of the Northeast of Brazil, and in Rio, Carnaval still has some authenticity. It kept some of the original fun, kidding around, musicality, the liveliness, effusiveness, inoffensive indecency. 

What takes place on sambódromos (“sambadromes”, streets specially set up for the school parades) – the genial invention by anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro in order to glorify deception – has very little of “for the people”.

The notion of a climatic finale for the samba schools’ parade aggravated the carnage in the dispute for awards and ruined the socialization of fun, spontaneity, and creativity.

The newspaper Globo’s headlines, Sunday, 2/6 (“Report from Samba Schools’ League shows jury contradictions – justification for votes reveal failures in the 2004 schools’ decision”), exposes in raw fashion the metamorphosis from the old handcrafted rascal fun to the industrial mischievousness.

Media is the mirror of Carnaval’s disCarnavalization. It is cause and effect. Electronic means have injected massive showbiz dosages making use of only one of its attributes, but all of its perverse effects – the close-up, the whitening, all the stars, commercialization, and the end to the spirit of satire.

Terrible Attitude Replacement

The transformation from weekly newsmagazines into self-help publications brought to an end a fascinating national match-up between the publications O Cruzeiro and Manchete to show which could cover more balls, discover the most beautiful, and the party revelers behind the masks.

They would sell hundreds of thousands of copies, in regular and special editions. With only one masterfully colored Carnaval, the companies would move from red to black.

The most interesting phenomenon is the disappearance - from editorial rooms - of scholars in samba and popular traditions. Each editorial had its own (throughout the many editorials, but assembled in early January for a special mission).

Not all were bohemians, most suited up, but were able to sing on the side the short marches of 20 years past, cite themes from samba schools, and name the most famous “mestres-salas” and gracious “porta-bandeiras” (man and woman that lead each samba school onto the runway carrying a flag).

These Carnavalesc individuals were shields of tradition, memory, and topics. Newspaper and Carnaval walked the same line, and everyone gained from it, most of all the readers.

It all came down to a question of scales and shifts, who works and who is off, who covers the VIPs and who makes the runs to hospitals and highways.

The marching of time and the unstoppable thrust for progress created a terrible attitude replacement toward the festivity: indifference.

Alberto Dines, the author, is a journalist, founder and researcher at LABJOR—Laboratório de Estudos Avançados em Jornalismo (Laboratory for Advanced Studies in Journalism) at UNICAMP (University of Campinas) and editor of the Observatório da Imprensa. You can reach him by email at obsimp@ig.com.br.

Translated from the Portuguese by Eduardo Assumpção de Queiroz. He is a freelance translator, with a degree in Business and almost 20 years of experience working in the fields of economics, communications, social and political sciences, and sports. He lives in São Paulo, Brazil. His email: eaqus@terra.com.br.

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