La ciudad de los contrastes: Río de Janeiro, la construcción de su imagen

Abstract

The images that are provided by the languages of publicity, literature, cinema, music and journalism build a specific imaginary around a place, in this case around the Rio de Janeiro city, as gathering point for clichés of sensuality, lack of control, exoticism… and also delinquency and marginality. This article analyses the joint balance of those languages into the configuration of Rio de Janeiro as an euphoric image (exaltation before exoticism in the texts of first explorers, beauty and warm presence through Bossa Nova, joy of Carnival and Hollywood made movies, paradisiacal beaches as publicity postcards, etc.) and as a dysphoric image (violence and criminality, mainly in journalistic chronicles, movies, Brazilian movies and mass media).