Brazzil

The term popozuda (big-buttock woman) has become not only a fashionable word but also one that's bringing money to those who know how to use it. And on TV, every station has today its own stable of big-butted women.
By Rodolfo Espinoza

For some time it seemed as if the female buttocks, that longtime Brazilian male preference, were losing their prestige in Brazil. Globalization and Yankee cultural neo-colonialism made a dent in that tradition and some people believed that, influenced by lascivious Americans, boobies had become the new national sexual fetish.

It was just a fad and quite an ephemeral one. As weekly newsmagazine Veja—the most read and most respected Brazilian mainstream publication, which often poses as the nation's conscience—has shown in (mind you) two consecutive issues in August: buns are still kings. On its August 23 issue, the national magazine of record in an article entitled "Sábado Popozudo" (Big-buttock Saturday) illustrated with five pictures of women in different phases of undress, revealed not without a hint of disgust that "we've never seen so many derrières and braless boobs."

According to Veja, TV stations have been trying to get some extra ratings on Saturday nights—traditionally a slow period for TV networks—saturating the airwaves with overcharged fannies. Every commercial network presents its own concoction of bare big buns and/or naked breasts.

At 10 PM, Globo, the almost monopolistic TV network, which prides itself on what it calls "the Globo standard of quality", starts the lurid festival in Zorra Total (Total Chaos). This is a reincarnation of Escolinha do Professor Raimundo (Professor Raimundo's Little School), a not-so-funny decades old show. The buttock highlight happens when one of the students, Dona Rosinha, a bikini-clad young blonde beauty steps up to the blackboard to clean it. She drives her fellow students and the home audience into a delirium gyrating her powerful buttocks while cleaning the board.

At 10:15 PM it is time for A Praça É Nossa at SBT (Sistema Brasileiro de Televisão—Brazilian System of Television). The show, which consists of a man sitting on a park bench while several comical characters pass by and stop for a little chat with him, has been on the air for about 40 years. While the basic formula hasn't changed and some characters are interpreted by the same people who created them decades ago, there are today some appealing additions: female models with big butts.

In Escolinha do Barulho (Little School of Disorder), a shameless downgraded carbon copy of Globo's Zorra Total, at 10:45 PM, it's time for Fifi de Assis to show how generous nature was with her derrière. Fifi comes to school in a skimpy bikini. The show is presented by Record, a TV network owned by Igreja Universal, an evangelical church.

Low-rated and low-class Gazeta TV uses one of its star hosts, Sérgio Mallandro, to show the well-endowed girls. Mallandro has introduced a mechanical bull in his program. To tame the beast, girls with the most generous fannies mount them, while the cameras zoom in on their heinies and their genitalia.

Veja cites Alexandre Gama, president of ad agency Neogama, saying that these shows in which butts are the main dish are not just for the guys anymore. "Nowadays, women are also interested in these attractions, even if it is just to badmouth the girls who show their attributes on TV."

The same Veja had revealed the week before that popozuda (big-buttock woman) has become not only a fashionable word but also one that's bringing money to those who know how to use it. The term popozuda is not new. Valmir Roque dos Santos, the Rio's rapper who is credited with bringing back the word, says that he used to hear comedian Renato Aragão refer to women with ample derrières as popozudas in his long-gone show Os Trapalhões (The Stooges).

The term has gained even broader acceptance when TV hostess and singer Xuxa started to use it in her children's shows. She has also adopted Popozuda do Planeta (Planet's Big Butt Woman), a song made especially for her, as one of her themes in the program Planeta da Xuxa (Xuxa's Planet).

There are today at least a dozen bands in Brazil singing tunes that mention popozuda or popozão (big butt) in their title. The rock group De Falla, for example, boasts of having sold more copies of their Popuzuda Rock'n'Roll than all of their previous records put together. Their song was made to serve as theme for Feiticeira, a TV beauty better known for her voluminous and tempting popozão.

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