Rio Carnival 2014 – Smiles, Social Comment and drones!

It’s been a strange time in Rio since the protests of July 2013. After so much unrest, a lot of the outrage seemed to evaporate (at least from the front pages). However, none of the issues that provoked the protests have been resolved, and so I think many of us have been feeling that the anger that drove the protests is simmering under the surface, waiting for a time to strike again.

Would Rio carnival 2014 be the time for people to voice their dissatisfaction? Would the street parties turn into street protests? Would carnival be marred by stun grenades and tear gas? Or would everyone forget about their grievances, distracted by all this bread and circus?

Well, I don’t think anyone really expected full-scale protests like the ones we saw last July. But for the first time in a long time, many people did use carnival as an opportunity to make political/social comments. Before carnival even got going, a group calling itself Ocupa Carnaval released this rather wonderful set of modified carnival songs – the lyrics make reference to the violence of the Military Police, the incompetence and dishonesty of various politicians and the overblown public spending on the World Cup.

I was looking forward to carnival and although I think many of the complaints that drove the protests are important (and valid), I was dreading a tedious set of ‘right-on’ blocos where everyone just sang protest songs. In the event,  people were generally more subtle and entertaining than that.

Left: How sweet! Did someone dress up as the World Cup mascot Fuleco? Right: Kind of! Fuleco is a kind of armadillo called a Tatu. This is a play on words: Tatu Derrado <-> Ta Tudo Errado [It’s all wrong].

Then there was a chant/song/slogan that seems to be the default anti World Cup statement, Não Vai Ter Copa!

People also made more general social comments, such as this one directed at the carnivals of other cities. Sorry for the poor quality – it was late and I was, er, tired…

The sign reads: “As we don’t have turnstiles in our lives, so we don’t have cordons in our blocos”. This is a reference to cities such as Salvador where you have to pay to get a special shirt and then you can go inside the cordon. As the following image shows, this creates a separation which reflects a financial-racial divide:

If this makes it sound like carnival was full of negativity and complaints, let me put the record straight – there may have been political comment and extra rubbish on the streets this year, but the vast majority of people I saw were having an amazing time! If you don’t believe me, check out the happy guy in the devil horns. Also, notice the festive camera drone hovering overhead – I guess we’ll be seeing these at every major event in future…