A Reflection:

Following our discussion today and after watching Rogerio Sgazerla’s The Red Light Bandit I realized what my discomfort, and in some levels disappointment with the last few films we’ve screened in class is, the absence of a conscious female presence. The eroticized female characters within films like "The Red Light Bandit", and "Mancunaima" are only present physically. They lack substance, ambition, and most importantly active voices. It leaves me to consider that if the female characters within these films are being robbed of the opportunity to protest against being objectified, sexualized, and marginalized by the male characters within the films, what was happening to women in modern society of the time? And what is still happening to women in present day Brazil?

Who is responsible for dispelling, deconstructing, and re-defining the myth that plagues the minds of many about Brazilian Women?

After watching these films and in the mist of the Don Imus case, I am reminded that women of color (Specifically: Black and Latina) are at the intersection of oppression. We are women and we are of color, and historically in America that places us within the same framework to be exploited.