Unraveling Normalized Rhetoric of Violence and Human Rights: the Dissensual Intervention of Sergio Bianchi's Quanto Vale Ou É Por Quilo?

Abstract

Brazilian filmmaker Sergio Bianchi1 is known for his biting commentary on contemporary Brazilian society, exposing contradictions in the way that such themes as violence, inequality, and human rights are perceived and discussed, while leaving no group unscathed in his critique of social ills. He does this through a meta-filmic approach that not only presents social problems to spectators, but also interrogates the discursive structures that inform our engagement with these issues, exposing our own complicity in perpetuating social inequality. The 2005 film Quanto vale ou é por quilo? (How Much, or is it by the Kilo?)2 perhaps best exemplifies Bianchi's style, offering a sardonic critique of Brazil's social problems and an idealized international human rights discourse through satirical dialogue, ironical performances by actors trained in theater, and a cinematographic structure that disrupts both Hollywood-style films and the documentary genre. While some academic work has been done on the film, there has been little analysis of what I contend are the most important pieces of Quanto vale ou é por quilo?: the critique of the commodification of humanitarian aid and the disruption of normalized discourses related to violence and social inequality in Brazil. Drawing from theoretical discussions on the visibility of violence and human rights by such authors as Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Rancière, in dialogue with the critical contributions of Ivana Bentes and Fernão Pessoa Ramos related to problematizing representations of violence and the ‘other’ in recent Brazilian cinema, I contend that Quanto vale ou é por quilo? offers a more critical engagement with these issues than national and international box office successes such as Cidade de Deus and the Tropa de Elite series. I argue that Bianchi's work constitutes a dissensus in the normative rhetoric surrounding the issues of violence, human rights, and social inequality, exposing the symbolic/systemic violence constituted and perpetuated by social consensus in Brazil.