Originating in metropoles in the Global North, the creative cities model has increasingly been replicated in locations around the globe. However, betting on the creative industries to reinvigorate stagnant economies might not be a solution compatible with every context. To analyse this issue, this article presents the case of the small Brazilian city of Cabaceiras, which was the target of a project aimed at revitalizing its economy through film and tourism in 2007. Based on 25 interviews with residents and policy makers, we examine whether the initiative was, in their view, successful in stimulating a creative hub. We argue that the creative cities model has not yet proven feasible in Cabaceiras due to financial and infrastructural challenges that the city experiences, its positioning outside of Brazil’s cultural and creative centres and the uncertainties of investing in the audiovisual sector in the country.
Although festivals are often promoted as opportunities for community empowerment, power dynamics during festival organization might hinder such potential. To discuss this issue, this article examines the Alter do Chão Film Festival (FestAlter), an originally collaborative project in the touristic village of Alter do Chão, Brazil. Through 16 interviews with festival stakeholders, the article unveils the changing power dynamics within the organization of the festival, and how these impacted the event's goals of community participation. I argue that the organization of this event moved from union to rupture among festival stakeholders – a trajectory caused by managerial divergences regarding the meaning of community participation and a lack of understanding of the history, culture and socioeconomic circumstances of Alter do Chão, an Amazonian village marked by enduring legacies of colonial exploitation.
The popular American television series How to Get Away with Murder (2014) seems to challenge the long history of stereotypical roles assigned to racial minorities in American media by choosing a multiracial cast to impersonate characters that, while having different racial backgrounds, share a similar socio-economic status and have multidimensional personalities that distance them from the common stereotypes. However, although it has been praised for its portrayal of racial diversity, the series operates within a problematic logic of racial colour-blindness, disconnecting the main characters from any sign of racial specificity and creating a fictional world in which racism is no longer part of American society. This case study aims to demonstrate to which extent the “colour-blind approach” of the TV show reinforces the postracial illusion in the United States, i.e. the idea that the country has overcome its past of racial segregation and now offers the same opportunities for everyone, regardless of colour and race. Through a narrative analysis of the first season of the series, this chapter will argue that the depiction of race in How to Get Away with Murder is highly ambivalent. On the one hand, the show does not completely ignore race by inserting topics such as racism in the plot, giving these issues at least some visibility. On the other hand, its more general panorama reveals an intent to deracialise its main characters in a colour-blind manner. This is problematic since it overshadows racial issues that still have a big impact on the lives of racial minorities.
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