Post on 06-Apr-2016
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1 MUNDANO mag
SPECIAL ENGLISH ISSUE
MUNDANO A BRAZILIAN MAGAZINE
mag
MONA LISA YOUR
BODY A LESBIAN ROMANCE
COLORCOLOR CHANGED HERCHANGED HER THE GIRL WHOTHE GIRL WHO DenciaDencia
THE MONKEY
SELFIE
2 MUNDANO mag
Number 1
3 MUNDANO mag
By Marcelo Bicalho
Translation: Raí Santos
MUNDANO When you think about the word ‘MUNDANO’ (Mundane in English), what comes to your mind?
Well, in case you do not know how to interpret this word properly, let’s explain it. And let’s start
this explanation using the bible – with another conception and at another time. The anachronistic
sense that MUNDANE reveals on the bible:
1John 2:15-17: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for
the Father[a] is not in them. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires
pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
Thus: MUNDANE for the elder ones and according to the Bible, refers to those who live for the
world, excluding their beliefs, the spirituality and virtue. A mundane person would never be capa-
ble of living solely and exclusively for the church or for the religion. Nowadays, we heard about
some who say “so-and-so is from the world”.
Then does it mean that
is a magazine made by totally materialist and non-religious people? WRONG!
MUNDANO is also a word that can be interpreted according to the following ways:
- Experienced person, with world-related knowledge.
- One who has world-related knowledge .
- One who seeks to know more about everything.
- One who has no fear to risk.
Soon, to our staff, the word MUNDANO has a positive side, after all, we make part of this group of
people who seeks learning; have new experiences; acquire knowledge; and has no fear to risk.
MUNDANO Mag hopes you, our reader, be as Mundane as we are, and we hope that you go
ahead on this adventure of doing something new, in pursuit of new experiences and knowledge:
reading what we have in order to keep you all informed.
4 MUNDANO mag
MUNDANO Welcome to
5 MUNDANO mag
MUNDANO mag Welcome to
6 MUNDANO mag
Cover by Beatriz Figueiredo
Special English Issue
Editor
Anderson Leal
General Supervision
Caroline Nogueira
Collaborated in this issue
Beatriz Figueiredo
Gisele Morgado
Marcelo Bicalho
Mathias Klang
Peter Janiszewski
Raí Santos
Digital Magazine
MUNDANO mag
Write to us: mundanomagazine@gmail.com
7 MUNDANO mag
MUNDANO 03 MY SWEET SUMMER 08 THE MONA LISA 10 TO THINK 12 INDIVIDUALITY IS NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS TO BE MUNDANO 14 SPECIAL BRASIL THE MONKEY SELFIE 20 THE BODY MASS INDEX 24 DENCIA 30 THE GIRL WHO CHANGED HER COLOR
MUNDANO mag
DENCIA The girl who
changed her color.
MUNDANO Mag English Issue - Nº 01
INSI
DE COVER STORY:
8 MUNDANO mag
TALE
My Sweet Summer
I traveled on vacation with a friend to Fernando de Noronha. My dream
was always to meet that nature’s paradise. We stayed at a cottage at Solar
dos Ventos Inn. A breathtaking view and close to the beach. We both had
recently finished frustrating relationships and needed a refuge and some
peace, once love was something complicated.
We lay down on the double bed and we talked so much after dinner dur-
ing our first night on the island. We were tired because of the trip, but so
excited to be in that paradise that we were not able to sleep. We decided
to take a walk and admire the view. The night was warm and the sea
breeze wonderful. The sky was clear and starry. Moreover a full moon was
making the scenery worthy of a Drummond’s (Carlos Drummond de An-
drade – Brazilian poet) poem.
We lay down to sleep, exhausted. The following morning, as usual, I
opened my eyes. I was lay down across from the balcony and a crack on
the curtain allowed me to see the magnificent view outside. This was, in-
deed a gorgeous awakening. I realized that Marina was hugging me and
that she had her body next to mine. I felt something different inside me
which I was not able to comprehend. So many years being friends and we
had never slept together on the same bed. The truth is that I had already
bought the vacation package months before, when I was still with my boy-
friend. When the relationship ended and coincidentally (I wonder if such
thing really exists) Marina broke up with her boyfriend as well, I thought
she would be a good company to the trip.
We had a lovely breakfast and we headed to the beach. Marina was smil-
ing in a way she hadn’t for such a long time. I felt light and happy. Looking
at her made forget the pain of my ending. We stayed on the beach for so a
long that we lost the sense of time. We came back to have lunch, and after
we talked for hours at the cottage’s balcony. We left the cottage to see the
sunset, sat on the sand, seeing the sky becoming orange. Marina rested
her head on my shoulder and cried a little. My heart stung at that mo-
ment. I held her face between my hands and dried her tears with my
thumbs. It was when she looked into my eyes, with that craving and asking
face and asked me the reason why she could not find a woman like me to
love. She said that if she had a woman like me she would be finally happy.
For some time I thought about what she said and realized that if I had a
woman like her I would also be happy. We knew each other very well, we
comprehended each other, and certainly I would be happy. And an in in-
sane impulse I kissed her lips and I backed in fear of her reaction.
She watched me and when I was going to start to apologize she leaped on
me and kissed me. We kissed for a long time and the fondling became
more intense. Both of gave our body and soul to each other, and we loved
each other there, on the sand and then we cuddled seeing the sunset.
After thinking for some time, I lay down with her in silence; I decided to
make us happy. So many times happiness is at hand and we look the other
way. She had everything I have always looked for. This is how I made us
happy, from that day on, and my vacation in Fernando de Noronha became
unforgettable. I proposed to her three years later. Our honeymoon was in
that very same cottage and now it has been ten years we are happy to-
gether. After all of this I have never believed in coincidence anymore.
Writte by Gisele Morgado Translation: Raí Santos
9 MUNDANO mag
I traveled on vacation with a friend to Fernando de Noronha. My dream
was always to meet that nature’s paradise. We stayed at a cottage at Solar
dos Ventos Inn. A breathtaking view and close to the beach. We both had
recently finished frustrating relationships and needed a refuge and some
peace, once love was something complicated.
We lay down on the double bed and we talked so much after dinner dur-
ing our first night on the island. We were tired because of the trip, but so
excited to be in that paradise that we were not able to sleep. We decided
to take a walk and admire the view. The night was warm and the sea
breeze wonderful. The sky was clear and starry. Moreover a full moon was
making the scenery worthy of a Drummond’s (Carlos Drummond de An-
drade – Brazilian poet) poem.
We lay down to sleep, exhausted. The following morning, as usual, I
opened my eyes. I was lay down across from the balcony and a crack on
the curtain allowed me to see the magnificent view outside. This was, in-
deed a gorgeous awakening. I realized that Marina was hugging me and
that she had her body next to mine. I felt something different inside me
which I was not able to comprehend. So many years being friends and we
had never slept together on the same bed. The truth is that I had already
bought the vacation package months before, when I was still with my boy-
friend. When the relationship ended and coincidentally (I wonder if such
thing really exists) Marina broke up with her boyfriend as well, I thought
she would be a good company to the trip.
We had a lovely breakfast and we headed to the beach. Marina was smil-
ing in a way she hadn’t for such a long time. I felt light and happy. Looking
at her made forget the pain of my ending. We stayed on the beach for so a
long that we lost the sense of time. We came back to have lunch, and after
we talked for hours at the cottage’s balcony. We left the cottage to see the
sunset, sat on the sand, seeing the sky becoming orange. Marina rested
her head on my shoulder and cried a little. My heart stung at that mo-
ment. I held her face between my hands and dried her tears with my
thumbs. It was when she looked into my eyes, with that craving and asking
face and asked me the reason why she could not find a woman like me to
love. She said that if she had a woman like me she would be finally happy.
For some time I thought about what she said and realized that if I had a
woman like her I would also be happy. We knew each other very well, we
comprehended each other, and certainly I would be happy. And an in in-
sane impulse I kissed her lips and I backed in fear of her reaction.
She watched me and when I was going to start to apologize she leaped on
me and kissed me. We kissed for a long time and the fondling became
more intense. Both of gave our body and soul to each other, and we loved
each other there, on the sand and then we cuddled seeing the sunset.
After thinking for some time, I lay down with her in silence; I decided to
make us happy. So many times happiness is at hand and we look the other
way. She had everything I have always looked for. This is how I made us
happy, from that day on, and my vacation in Fernando de Noronha became
unforgettable. I proposed to her three years later. Our honeymoon was in
that very same cottage and now it has been ten years we are happy to-
gether. After all of this I have never believed in coincidence anymore.
Gisele Morgado. Lesbian writer and novelist. With a
Cancerian ascendant in scorpio which is defined as
"Love in Motion". Author of "O Fantástico Mundo
de Gisele Morgado” (The Fantastic World of Gisele
Morgado) Facebook page with thousands of hits and
tanned girls like her, who love girls and will soon
release his stories and chronicles in a book.
10 MUNDANO mag
THE MONA LISA A
RT
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This portrait was doubtless painted in Florence between 1503 and 1506. It is thought to be of Lisa Gherardini, wife of a Florentine cloth merchant named Francesco del Giocondo - hence the alternative title, La Gioconda. However, Leonardo seems to have taken the com-pleted portrait to France rather than giving it to the person who commissioned it. It was eventually returned to Italy by Leonardo's student and heir Salai. It is not known how the painting came to be in François I's collection.
Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco Giocondo The history of the Mona Lisa is shrouded in mystery. Among the aspects which remain unclear are the exact identity of the sitter, who commissioned the portrait, how long Leonardo worked on the painting, how long he kept it, and how it came to be in the French royal collection. The portrait may have been painted to mark one of two events - either when Francesco del Gio-condo and his wife bought their own house in 1503, or when their second son, Andrea, was born in December 1502 after the death of a daughter in 1499. The delicate dark veil that covers Mona Lisa's hair is sometimes considered a mourning veil. In fact, such veils were commonly worn as a mark of virtue. Her clothing is unremarkable. Neither the yellow sleeves of her gown, nor her ple-ated gown, nor the scarf delicately draped round her shoulders are signs of aristocratic status.
A new artistic formula The Mona Lisa is the earliest Italian portrait to focus so closely on the sitter in a half-length por-trait. The painting is generous enough in its dimensions to include the arms and hands without them touching the frame. The portrait is painted to a realistic scale in the highly structured space where it has the fullness of volume of a sculpture in the round. The figure is shown in half-length, from the head to the waist, sitting in a chair whose arm is resting on balusters. She is resting her left arm on the arm of the chair, which is placed in front of a loggia, suggested by the parapet be-hind her and the two fragmentary columns framing the figure and forming a "window" looking out over the landscape. The perfection of this new artistic formula explains its immediate influence on Florentine and Lombard art of the early 16th century. Such aspects of the work as the three-quarter view of a figure against a landscape, the architectural setting, and the hands joined in the foreground were already extant in Flemish portraiture of the second half of the 15th century, par-ticularly in the works of Hans Memling. However, the spacial coherence, the atmospheric illusio-nism, the monumentality, and the sheer equilibrium of the work were all new. In fact, these as-pects were also new to Leonardo's work, as none of his earlier portraits display such controlled majesty.
An emblematic smile The Mona Lisa's famous smile represents the sitter in the same way that the juniper branches
represent Ginevra Benci and the ermine represents Cecilia Gallerani in their portraits, in Wa-
shington and Krakow respectively. It is a visual representation of the idea of happiness sugges-
ted by the word "gioconda" in Italian. Leonardo made this notion of happiness the central motif of
the portrait: it is this notion which makes the work such an ideal. The nature of the landscape al-
so plays a role. The middle distance, on the same level as the sitter's chest, is in warm colors.
Men live in this space: there is a winding road and a bridge. This space represents the transition
between the space of the sitter and the far distance, where the landscape becomes a wild and
uninhabited space of rocks and water which stretches to the horizon, which Leonardo has clever-
ly drawn at the level of the sitter's eyes.
The Louvre is open every day (except Tuesday) from 9 a.m Night opening until 9:45 p.m. on Wednesdays and Fridays
Closed on the following holidays: January 1 Musée du Louvre, 75058 Paris - France
Métro: Palais-Royal Musée du Louvre (lines 1 and 7) Tel.: +33 (0)1 40 20 53 17
Tickets and informatons: www.louvre.fr/en
12 MUNDANO mag
INDIVIDUALITY IS NOT AS BAD AS IT SEEMS Text: Caroline nogueira
Translation: Raí Santos
Have you ever heard that story that tells that being an individualistic is something bad and that we need
to think about others? Well, what if this is not completely right?
The exercise of looking inside ourselves is easier than it looks like, maybe because of this, some say that
being an individualistic is something so bad. Actually it hurts and we stay exposed to ourselves, without
labels, completely naked.
Being an individualistic means exhaling what we feel without the need of crying out to the world. If we are
not able to love, chiefly ourselves, we might not be able to love anyone else. Moreover if we are not able
to respect ourselves, we might not be able to respect anyone else. If there is no kindness within our
hearts, we will never do an act of kindness.
Being an individualistic means being true to yourself, admit your mistakes, flaws, prejudices; and trying to
live with it all the best way possible. We all make mistakes and we will always do so . It is having other-
ness, i.e. walk in others’ shoes, trying to see with others’ eyes without having the need of adding a partic-
ular feeling or belief to your own life. Have your own opinions, listen to the others’ and be always ready to
change whenever it is necessary or whenever your life takes a different way from what you have always
hoped. The choices of our own are always haunting us, but external factors will always be around.
Being an individualistic means having plenty of awareness that no creature on Earth will ever feel what
you feel and, respecting this fact. Each one has their own life story, their experiences, traumas, beliefs,
values and ways to see the world. If you do not like something, whatever it might be, just move away and
live. There is no secret.
It is extremely natural that we are touched by things that interest us. Even though there is no eyesore in
this so-human feeling. Better than impose any vision, it is to convince with good examples. No one needs
to believe and feel the very same things that you do, because not even about the biological issue, we are
equal, why should we like the same music, books, films, colors…?
The great Oscar Wilde already said “Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has
known.” Imagine if the artist had not shared his own vision about so many themes, we would lose many
fantastic works and great classics.
Thus, once empathy is not otherness, respecting is not accepting, individualism is not egoism. It is fair to
think about others, but not before having something to exchange with them. And try not to embrace the
whole world; nothing seems to be so false than trying to please others. When we look more at ourselves,
the habit of looking at the others becomes less and less workaday, and the judgments become nothing
more than opinions.
Always take care, everyone means so many people and the collective thought is quite dangerous or, often,
shallow.
Thinking about the others means being enough free to respect them and not stop being yourself, whoever
you are. Because we are not equal – we will always be similar.
TO THINK
13 MUNDANO mag
CONTACTE US: mundanomagazine@gmail.com
MUNDANO mag
14 MUNDANO mag
To be MUNDANO
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil
15 MUNDANO mag
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil Rio de Janeiro by Ryan Bevan
SÃO CRISTOVÃO FAIR
A tip for those who are in Rio de Janeiro is
the São Cristovão Fair sums up all that is best
from the brazilian northeast. Food, shopping,
music and dance are the main ingredients of
this cultural melting pot. The fair takes place
from Tuesday to Thursday: 10a.m. to 6p.m.
(free admission, except holidays).
Translation: Raí Santos
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To be MUNDANO
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil
17 MUNDANO mag
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil Iguaçú Falls by Ryan Bevan
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To be MUNDANO
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil
19 MUNDANO mag
SpecialSpecial BrazilBrazil Juréia by Anderson Leal
20 MUNDANO mag
There is an interesting conflict brewing in En-
gland involving a photographer, Wikimedia and
a monkey. The basic story is that David Slater
was trying to take a photo of a crested black
macaque. One of the monkeys took a camera
and took hundreds of photos. A set of these tur-
ned out to be the (now-famous) monkey selfies
and appeared everywhere across the web. My
favorite is the one with the toothy grin. David Slater claims copyright in the photo and meanwhileWikimedia Commons argues: “This
file is in the public domain, because as the work of a non-human animal, it has no human author in whom copyright is vested.” If Mr Slater has copyright he would obtain royalties for its use but if the photo is in the public domain then anyone can use it for free.
Copyright belongs to the creator or author of an original work. That seems easy enough – but what is an author? Despite all the painting goril-las, dogs and elephants, I want to stick with photography. We tend to think of the author as the person who took the shot,
Monkey selfies bring copyright to the forefront Mathias Klang
21 MUNDANO mag
Copyright belongs to the creator or author of an original work. That seems easy enough – but what is an author? Despite all the painting goril-las, dogs and elephants, I want to stick with photography. We tend to think of the author as the person who took the shot, who pressed the button that makes the camera go “click”. But is it that easy?
Some photographers “direct” the shot while their assistants create the lighting and operate the camera and yet we agree that they maintain copyright despite their lack of button pushing. Could Mr. Slater be the director? Well no, not really. The monkey was not directed or promp-ted. In fact, Mr. Slater did not even know that the monkey was going to take his camera. There
is no director-assistant relationship here.
In some cases the camera is automatic and does all the work but the photographer uses software to manipulate the image after it has been taken – but we do not think that the camera manufac-turer has copyright. But there would then be an argument for some form of artistic intent, visi-on, or drive of the photographer.
But this cannot be done when animals take the image. While the gorillas mentioned above may appear to have a communicative process in their artwork this cannot be applied to the mon-key selfie situation, as she would be unaware of the nature of photography. Obviously this is an assumption on my part but I think it’s a safe one to make.
The monkey selfie series of photos were not planned or created. They appeared by accident and this means that nobody gets to claim co-pyright. Sure, we could be extremely generous and argue that the monkey has copyright – not all artists are aware of the greatness of their work. But then the question is how to negotiate the rights. The monkey cannot give permission for others to use the images, nor can the mon-key assign a copyright organization to handle the rights.
So we are left with the situation where the monkey maybe has copyright of the image but cannot give permission and therefore nobody should be able to use it. But this is moot since the monkey cannot sue abusers or take them to court. Or the photo belongs to no one and le-gally appears in a vacuum…and exists in the pu-blic domain.
www.commonsmachinery.se/2014/08/monkey-
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Visit the wherever you are
23 MUNDANO mag
Visit the wherever you are
24 MUNDANO mag
The Body Mass Index (BMI) Says Nothing About Your Health By Peter Janiszewski, Ph.D.
If you go to your physician’s office and inquire about your weight status, he or she will measure
your height and weight to derive your BMI (weight in kg divided by height in m squared). Then
they will compare your BMI to that of established criteria to decide whether you are underweight
(30 kg/m2) . Often times, this measure alone determines whether or not you receive lifestyle tre-
atment.
But how useful is this measure anyways? What does it tell you about your health? And finally,
how helpful is it to measure when assessing the effect of a lifestyle (diet/exercise) intervention?
Photos: Studio CL Art
25 MUNDANO mag
Before I get into the various limitations of BMI, I
must point out that the measure is quite useful
across large populations, as it is well correlated
with the degree of adiposity, and of course it is ex-
tremely simple to measure in clinical practice.
Nevertheless, here are some of the key issues with
BMI, particularly when used on an individual basis.
1. BMI does not differentiate between the
Michelin Man and The Terminator
Ok, we might as well just get this abundantly obvi-
ous problem out of the way. I have heard countless
times how one buff celebrity or another (e.g. Tom
Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Rock etc.)
would be classified as overweight or obese accor-
ding to their BMI due to their excess amount of
muscle. Yes, this is absolutely true. BMI is a mea-
sure of relative weight; fat mass and muscle mass
are not distinguished. Here’s what is equally true:
the large majority of the general population with a
BMI in the overweight or obese range does not look
like Jerry Maguire or the Terminator. Also, if you
seek advice from your physician about your “excess
weight”, in case you have body dysmorphia and
cannot yourself decide, they will quickly be able to
assess whether your excess weight is due to your
bulging muscles or your rolls of adipose tissue. So
while this is an obvious problem, I would argue not
the main issue.
2. BMI does not differentiate between ap-
ples and pears
For over 60 years, we have known that indepen-
dent of how heavy a person is, the distribution of
their body weight, or more generally the shape of
their body is a key predictor of health risk. It is now
well established that individuals who deposit much
of their body weight around their midsection, the
so called apple-shaped, are at much greater risk of
disease and early mortality in contrast to the so cal-
led pear-shaped, who carry their weight more pe-
ripherally, particularly in the lower body. Thus, two
individuals with a BMI of 32 kg/m2 could have
drastically different body shapes, and thus varying
risk of disease and early mortality.
Fortunately, a very simple measure allows you or
your physician to decide whether your elevated
BMI is of the apple or pear variety: waist circumfe-
rence. Current thresholds suggest that a waist cir-
cumference above 88 cm in women and 102cm in
men denotes abdominal obesity. Interestingly, for
the same BMI level, those individuals with an ele-
vated waist circumference have a greater risk of di-
abetes, cardiovascular disease, mortality, and nu-
merous other health outcomes. Thus, as studies
from our laboratory have consistently suggested,
waist circumference may be a more important me-
asure of obesity and health risk than BMI. Curren-
tly, most researchers would agree that waist cir-
cumference should be measured along with BMI to
adequately classify obesity-related health risk. >
26 MUNDANO mag
Mark Manalaysay
27 MUNDANO mag
You can measure your own waist circumference by using a tape mea-
sure and wrapping it around your abdomen, at the level of the top of
your hip bones. Make sure you measure at the end of exhalation,
without sucking in your gut – you’re only fooling yourself!
3. BMI does not always budge in response to lifestyle chan-
ge
Given the number of papers my supervisor, Dr. Ross, and I have pu-
blished on the topic, I would argue this is the biggest drawback of
using BMI: it doesn’t always change even though you may be getting
healthier. This is particularly so if you adopt a physically active lifes-
tyle, along with a balanced diet, but are not necessarily cutting a
whole lot of calories. This lack of change in BMI or body weight is all
too often interpreted as a failure, resulting in the disappointed indi-
vidual resuming their inactive lifestyle and unhealthy eating pat-
terns.
However, as we have argued most recently in a paper in the Canadi-
an Journal of Cardiology, several lines of evidence suggest that
weight loss or changes in BMI are not absolutely necessary to obser-
ve substantial health benefit from a healthy lifestyle. Thus, an appa-
rent resistance to weight-loss should never be a reason for stopping
your healthy behaviours.
First, it is well established that increasing physical activity and asso-
ciated improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness are associated with
profound reductions in coronary heart disease and related mortality
independent of weight or BMI. Second, exercise (even a single sessi-
on) is associated with substantial reduction in several cardiometabo-
lic risk factors (such as blood pressure, glucose tolerance, blood li-
pids, etc.) despite minimal or no change in body weight. Third, waist
circumference and abdominal fat (arguably, the most dangerous fat)
can be substantively reduced (10-20%) in response to exercise with
minimal or no weight loss. In fact, significant reductions in fat mass
often occur concurrent with equal increases in muscle mass in res-
ponse to physical activity – equal but opposite (and beneficial!)
changes which are not detected by alterations in body weight on the
bathroom scale, and thus BMI.
So in the end, while BMI surely has its strengths in ease of use and
pretty good reliability in large populations, on an individual basis,
the greater focus should be on healthy behaviors: physical activity
and a healthy diet. And if you must measure something, check your
waist circumference.
Reference:
Ross R, & Janiszewski PM (2008). Is weight loss the optimal target for obesity-
related cardiovascular disease risk reduction? The Canadian journal of cardiology,
24 Suppl D PMID: 18787733
www.blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2014/08/05/the-body-mass-index-bmi-says-nothing
-about-your-health/
28 MUNDANO mag
MUNDANO MUNDANO Mag wants to know what you
think, how you react to the world around you.
Send us your text, your story, your way to inter-
pret what you feel. We want to see how you ex-
press yourself. We will publish in the next issue
a text from a reader, it doesn’t matter the sub-
ject, what matters it’s the way you think:
mundanomagazine@gmail.com
Translation: Raí Santos
29 MUNDANO mag
MUNDANO mag
30 MUNDANO mag
She drastically changed her skin color with a product created
by herself, she could reach the American and African hit pa-
rades, she faced lots of health issues and says she’s engaged
in social causes. This is Dencia, a Cameroonian who con-
quered and un-conquered America. Love her or leave her. >
Text: Anderson Leal
Ilustration: Beatriz Figueiredo
Translation: Raí Santos
31 MUNDANO mag
32 MUNDANO mag
Who sees the singer Dencia on
the shows and music videos
must notice her skin color
changings.
The Cameroonian girl boasts
now a faded skin, lifeless and
with a heavy make up on it.
The American critics say she is
a mixture of Lady GaGa and
Nicki Minaj.
Her songs are quite good;
some hits have even gained
popularity. However her obses-
sion with changing her skin col-
or has become more famous
than her own voice and her
typical hip-hop swing.
Although she is not from a mis-
erable family like most part of
the Africans, the singer has al-
ready gone through tough
times in her career: at the age
of 16 she discovered that her
parents were actually her
grandparents who adopted her
once she was still a baby, and
that her biological mother it
was recognized as her sister.
Dencia has moreover discov-
ered a cyst in one of her
breasts and has undergone a
surgery to remove it, before
this, at the age of 5 she had a
hard illness in her throat which
unabled her to sing in the
church choir, having postponed
a dream of hers.
As a teenager, she opened a
clothes boutique and later
moved to the US with her family
where she studied at Buea Uni-
versity and has also graduated
in the Fashion Institute of De-
sign and Merchandising.
This victory and overcoming life
do not match with the self-
appearance- rejection image. It
is thought that she has over-
come the prejudice she has
suffered according to what she
had conquered while she was
so young, but the fact is that
she is still somehow controver-
sial. >
33 MUNDANO mag
Ph
oto
: divu
lgatio
n/W
hiten
iciou
s
34 MUNDANO mag
Since 2011 Dencia figures among
American superstar, having presenting
herself at the mainstream showbiz
events over the US. But nothing is so
commented and discussed than her
own product, named Whitenicious, a
dangerous skin whitener which prom-
ises nearly perfect and instant whiten-
ing. She ensures that the cream is
used to whiten the skin stains: “the
cream is for dark stains, but if you feel
that all your body is a dark stain, use it
on all of it” says the Cameroonian.
Doctors all over the world warn people
about the issues the product might
cause, among them: cancer, lupus
and even DNA malnutrition, injuring
the product users in the next genera-
tions. The polemic has increased even
more when groups against racism and
celebrities all over the world con-
demned Dencia for her product.
Even having prohibitions and warn-
ings, the product has been quite sold
in the US, Africa and India and some
Brazilian girls seem to be interested in
it according to what they post on their
social networks. The imminent risk of
a serious disease does not keep those
girls away from trying to be free from
prejudice.
Densia’s last attempt was trying to do-
nate one million dollars to help in Ebola
combat, even though she could not dis-
associate her negative image from Whit-
enicious.
The product is still new; although it is
believed that in a short time some peo-
ple will suffer the consequences of this
Before
35 MUNDANO mag
‘crazy’ act to be free from the stigma and
prejudice suffered for being black. Ac-
ceptance is something hard to be earned,
mainly nowadays when the explicit preju-
dice is unnoticed. None of these contra-
dictions demotivate the singer who has
earned much more with the selling of the
product – and she defends it tooth and
nails whenever it is criticized.
Is Dencia a mere reflection of a hypocrite
and conservative society or just an au-
dacious marketing ploy?
Photos: divulgation
Making Off : Super Girl
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Lewis Carroll Alice's Adventures in Won-derland (1865)
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