A couple of weeks before the Rio carnival takes place, Brazilian newspapers start disclosing the carnival trends. Chief among this year’s trends was the arrival of a previously unknown female species referred to as fruit-women or mulher-fruita in Portuguese. Carnival over, these women disappear as mysteriously as they had appeared.
Brazil is a tropical country endowed with both curvaceous women and big and juicy fruits. Melancia, morango, maçã, abóbora, mamão are the respective Portuguese names for watermelon, strawberry, apple, squash, and papaya. These names sound better in Portuguese! Fruit women experts certainly are able to tell the difference between a morango and a melancia woman. I can’t; for me they all are large butt women. Actually, I should add large butt and big thighs. Brazilian women always have taken pride in their generous “derriere” but the big thigh thing is a relatively new fad.
“Fruit of the loom”
A sample of Fruit Woman. Photo courtesy of Globo, Feb 23, 2009.
To qualify, a potential fruit-woman has to spend hours working out and weightlifting. Leg curls and leg presses are the tools of the trade to tone those quadriceps and butt muscles. The result is quite striking. One celebrated fruit woman of the 2009 crop displayed thighs so big that in comparison American football players look like pencil-leg boys!
These muscular body shapes cannot be achieved with hard work only. It has been reported that anabolic steroid cocktails are part of the diet.
“Nip and tuck” comes in handy too. Brazil is a leader in cosmetic plastic surgery and to make surgery affordable it can be paid in easy installments. Body enhancement requires kilos of silicone implants in strategic locations like boobs and bum. I am pretty sure that Brazil is the largest consumer of silicone per capita. The above pictured lady had 400 grams injected in each boob and another 500 in each buttock. In newspapers, fruit-women are commonly described by their hip and breast measurements, as well as the number of cosmetic surgeries they went through and the loads of silicone in their body. Trade-show cows don’t suffer so much indignity. Obviously the fruit-women relish the short-lived publicity.
Although the fruit-women are very young, mostly in their early 20s, many may not last very long. Like fruit, they have short shelf-lives. It is quite ironic that in spite of the effort and expense, the 2009 crop has not managed to outshine the beloved queens of the carnival parade. This year again, Luiza Brunet and Luma de Oliveira were all the talk of the Sambodrome. Once more these 40 something former models have taken the carnival avenue by storm. They have paraded for years and keep breaking the youth beauty paradigm, not to mention Suzana Viera, who at 63 is the samba queen grandma.
Suzana and Beethoven, the samba parade dog. Photo Globo.
However, the true sweetheart of the 2009 samba parade was a stray dog hastily named Beethoven. By parading uninvited every night during the whole carnival week, Beethoven proved to be a true Carioca dog. His status consequently was upgraded from unwelcome stray to top dog: He got proper credentials for the last night of carnival and also found a good home for the rest of its life!
“Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas” isn’t it so Beethoven?
Beatrice Labonne, March 21, 2009.
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