Black Friday in Brazil: A testament to an enduring love
for the United States?
Black Friday
Shows Brazil's Enduring Love for the United States (Folha, Brazil)
"In
Brazil, unless I'm completely out of touch, which is always possible at my age,
such a day is not celebrated. … I thought it an invention still confined to the
United States, but I opened my mailbox and there it was, one of the major department
stores inviting me to Cyber Monday, 'the biggest sale on the Internet,' with
discounts of up to 92 percent. … This imitation of the 'American way of life'
doesn't surprise me: a survey by the reputable Pew Research Center shows that
65 percent of Brazilians have a positive view of the U.S. About Brazil itself, even as patriotic as we are, the percentage of
Brazilians who like the country is only slightly higher (77 percent)."
It already seems too much to me for us to import from the
United States such a thing as "Black Friday," the Friday of unbridled
consumption stimulated by discounts that are often more propaganda than
reality.
In the U.S., you can still find some logic in the date. It
is Thanksgiving (which fell on Nov. 28) which creates a big four-day holiday weekend
right before Christmas.
In Brazil, unless I'm completely out of touch, which is
always possible at my age, such a day is not celebrated.
Nevertheless, Brazilians rushed to go shopping as if they
were North Americans. I heard on the radio that a woman purchased three clotheing irons, not because she needed them, but because
they were so cheap (R$10 each or $3.85).
And this, too, was extended by an extra day - Americanized
like so many other things in our tropical country: we had something called "Cyber
Monday," a Monday of discounted (supposed or real) Internet shopping.
Unaware of the existence of this new date on the sacred
calendar of consumption, I discovered upon reading The New York Times that North Americans "only" spent $50.9
billion (R$130.4 billion) over the course of the holiday weekend, which was 11
percent less than the previous year.
The newspaper speculated that perhaps people reserved their cash
to spend on "Cyber Monday."
I thought this an invention still confined to the U.S., but
I opened my mailbox and there it was, one of the major department stores
inviting me to Cyber Monday, "the biggest sale on the Internet," with
discounts of up to 92 percent.
The advertisement even threatened me: "It ends today - don't
regret it later."
I don't know the numbers for Brazil, but it must have been
proportional to those in the U.S., relative to the size of the respective
populations and the purchasing power: in the U.S. there are 133.7 million
consumers, real or potential, on "Black Friday." That's about 42
percent of the total U.S. population, a formidable demonstration of the power
of appealing to consumerism. In Brazil, 42 percent of 200 million inhabitants
would therefore be 84 million consumers.
This imitation of the "American way of life" doesn't
surprise me: a survey by the reputable Pew Research Center shows that a
favorable opinion of the United States is very strong in Brazil.
Sixty-five percent of Brazilians evaluate it so. About
Brazil itself, even as patriotic as we are, the
percentage of Brazilians who like the country is only slightly higher (77
percent).
Despite the wave surrounding the rise of China, most
Brazilians (54 percent) continue to believe that the United States has the
leading economy in the world. Furthermore, only 34 percent say that Chinese
influence is good for Brazil.
All of this suggests that a majority of the public thinks
that Brazilian foreign policy should be more oriented toward the U.S. After
all, the favorable opinion of the two anti-U.S. poles (Russia and Iran) is
mostly negative (only 9 percent of Brazilians are favorably disposed to Iran,
and a little more, 24 percent, to Russia).
Posted by Worldmeets.US
Clovis Rossi is a special correspondent and
member of the Folha editorial board, is a winner of the Maria Moors
Cabot award (USA) and is a member of the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism. His column appears on
Thursdays and Sundays on page 2 and on Saturdays in the World Notebook
section. He is the author, among other works, of Special Envoy: 25 Years
Around the World and What is Journalism?
