Mestiçagem and Purity of Blood in Alain Fresnot’s Desmundo

Abstract

This article analyses how the themes of mestiçagem and purity of blood are developed in Alain Fresnot’s filmic adaptation of Desmundo, based on the novel by Ana Miranda. It begins by contextualizing the critical dialogue that the film establishes with the discourses on national identity circulating in the early 2000s in response to state-sponsored efforts to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of Brazil’s “discovery,” and specifically with the resurgence of theories on mestiçagem associated with Gilberto Freyre. It further offers a filmic analysis highlighting two key points. First, it considers how the question of racial mixture is framed and developed by calling attention to the historical case of as órfãs d’el Rei, which was an imperial marriage scheme designed to help reproduce a white Christian population in Portugal’s overseas colonial possessions. Secondly, it provides an analysis of the film’s representation of Ximeno’s character as an ambiguous New Christian of Jewish descent. It argues that the emphasis on the question of purity of blood informs the film’s critical drive to reorient national discussions on mestiçagem and racialization in Brazil.

RESUMEN

O presente artigo analisa a forma em que as temáticas da mestiçagem e pureza de sangue são desenvolvidas na adaptação fílmica de Desmundo por Alain Fresnot, baseada no romance de Ana Miranda. O artigo contextualiza o diálogo crítico que o filme estabelece com os discursos sobre identidade nacional que circulavam nos primeiros anos do 2000 em torno ao quinto centenário do ‘descobrimento’ do Brasil e, em particular, em relação à reabilitação das teorias sobre mestiçagem associadas com Gilberto Freyre. Oferece ademais uma análise fílmica enfocada em dois pontos principais. Primeiro, se considera a forma em que a questão da mistura racial é abordada através da referência histórica ao caso das órfãs d’el Rei, que foi um projeto imperial desenhado para ajudar a reproduzir a população branca e cristã nas colônias portuguesas. Segundo, o artigo analisa a representação da personagem do Ximeno, apresentada no filme de forma ambígua no seu papel de cristão novo de descendência judaica. Argumenta que a ênfase na questão de pureza de sangue informa a forma crítica em que o filme tenta reorientar as discussões nacionais sobre mestiçagem e racialização no Brasil.

Keywords:

• Brazil
• Desmundo
• Freyre
• miscegenation
• órfãs d’el Rei
• racialization

PALAVRAS CHAVE:

• Brasil
• Desmundo
• Freyre
• mestiçagem
• órfãs d’el Rei
• racialização

Disclosure Statement

The author has not declared any potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1 This article does not intend to provide a detailed historiography on as órfãs d’el Rei; rather it analyses how this historical case is imaginatively represented in Desmundo. See Coates (1995) and García (2016) on historiography.

2 The racialized character of notions of purity of blood is subject to ongoing debate. In this article, I affirm this position based on studies by Fredrickson (2002), Hering Torres (2012), Martínez (2008), and Yovel (2009).

3 See Young (1995, 2006) for a deeper contextualization of the association between theories of miscegenation and scientific racism, as well as for Freyre’s interventions.

4 As Minister of Culture, Gil made later official statements where he qualified his positions on mestiçagem. In “Discurso do ministro” (2003b), he clarifies that miscegenation implies neither equality nor harmony, and he recognizes that racism in an ongoing problem in Brazil.

5 It can be contrasted to the comedy Caramuru: A Invenção do Brasil (Guel Arraes 2001), which is loosely based on historical accounts of the amorous relation between the Portuguese Diogo Alvares and the Tupinambá princess Paraguaçu.

6 Actually, Nóbrega wrote three letters petitioning orphans: in 1550, 1551, and 1552. For a discursive analysis of these letters see Rosenthal (2016).

7 Unless otherwise noted, all direct quotes from the film come from the published script, which is written in modern Portuguese, not the archaic language used in the film.

8 This is particularly significant considering his personal friendship with Rodolfo García, whose study (1946) on the orphans continues to be one of the main historiographical sources.

9 Here I am quoting directly from the film, since the dialogue is slightly different to what appears in the script. See minute 36.41 to 37.

10 See Maio (1999) and Vieira (2006) for more on Freyre’s position on Jews.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olimpia E. Rosenthal

Olimpia E. Rosenthal is Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University. Her research areas include comparative colonial cultural studies, postcolonial theory, Andean literature and visual culture, and critical race studies. She has published a number of articles on these fields, including in the Journal of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Studies, the Journal of Lusophone Studies, and Letras: Revista de Investigación de la Facultad de Letras y Ciencias Humanas. She is also completing a book-length monograph tentatively titled Sex and Segregation in Colonial Latin America, which examines the emergence and early development of segregationist policies in Spanish and Portuguese America, and considers how spatial reorganization shaped colonial processes of racialization and contributed to the politicization of reproductive sex.