ABSTRACT
The focus on the idea of the North American national identity encapsulated in the Western is clarified in the comparison with Brazilians' experience of collective identity. Roberto Gambini has argued that his nation suffers from a serious problem in lacking a myth of origin. Gambini's rueful account of Brazilian cultural history resonates edgily with the North American experience because significant features of their histories run parallel. The small guys, American domestic concerns, seem to win; but, interpreted in this register, the monstrous, greedy figure that buys up and oppresses the West stands for global imperialist expansion, never completely exterminated. Hollywood productions usually do this tactfully so that the spectator can find gratification in the story without being obliged to explore the deeper levels. Thus this genre provides a semi-constant but evolving armature around which may be wound readings bearing on moral questions, politics, economics, psychology and spirituality.
