At 90 years old, completed this Monday (27), Mauricio de Sousa is the father of ten children and also of more than 400 characters, including a little girl who wears a little red dress and who is always carrying a stuffed bunny: Mônica, his best-known figure. But he didn’t stop there. Many Brazilians learned to read from his stories and, therefore, affectionately, they also call him father.
“I hear this very often, that he is a bit of everyone’s father. His works, the characters he created are as if they were our best friends, they are our family. It’s priceless to really feel all this affection that everyone has for my father. And, because of that, my father ends up being this big daddy. My Maurício, he is the father of Brazil. And I’m not jealous, okay, guys?”, joked one of his sons, Mauro Sousa.
Mauro’s statement was made to a packed audience who went to watch a special screening of the biopic Mauricio de Sousa – The filmpresented in the program of the São Paulo International Film Festival, last week, at the Cinemateca Brasileira, in São Paulo.
In the film, Mauro Sousa plays his father and tells the story of how he began his career as a cartoonist and comic artist in the country. The special – and exciting – session featured the participation of Mauricio de Sousa, who, although he did not make any statement, was greatly applauded by the public.
The session was also attended by his mother, the artist and executive director of MSP Estúdios, Alice Takeda. In an interview with the program Reporting Pathswhich airs this Monday (27), on TV BrasilAlice told how she met Mauricio de Sousa and has lived with him for over 50 years.
“Living with Mauricio taught me a lot of things. One of them is that we are all equal. So, there is no difference between people, not in color, not in race, not in status. There is no difference. Everyone is equal. We learned this from him and he always asks us to teach this to the children and to the new generations that are coming”, he said.
According to her, Mauricio de Sousa sought to bring all this plurality and human diversity to his comic books, creating, for example, characters with disabilities.
“When a screenwriter writes a story, a designer, an inker, a letterer, all of them, when they write stories with children or people with disabilities to convey this message, all of this comes from within and is drawn with a lot of love, with a lot of love. This magazine, with these stories, contains a lot of feeling. That’s why when a reader picks up this magazine to read, he finds there not only a message of love, but a magazine that contains feelings from many people who worked on it.”
Simplicity
Although he is considered the “father of Brazil”, Mauricio de Sousa is defined as a simple person. This is, in fact, a characteristic that he sought to bring to his characters. In an interview with TV Brasil in 2013, the author explained that he himself was the inspiration for his first stories.
“I talked about my little dog, about the life I had when I was a kid. And I put it in the newspapers, which were adult publications.”
Director of the biopic about the designer, Pedro Vasconcelos reinforced that simplicity is one of the characteristics that most defines the writer in his personal life. “Mauricio de Sousa is a simple, human guy, extremely respectful and extremely loving”, he defined. “Great human beings are like that. And we will see this in the film. This simplicity, humanity and love that we all need so much, especially in the times we live in, is present in the human being Maurício de Souza”, added the director.
In an interview to present his new film at the São Paulo International Film Festival, Pedro Vasconcelos also highlighted that Mauricio remains an eternal child.
“To this day, a beautiful child lives in that heart,” he said.
Visionary
Another very striking quality of the designer and writer is his generosity, highlighted his wife, Alice Takeda. “He is a generous person, who opens his arms and hugs someone who is in need. He has no limits to this. We also ended up learning this in life, through living with him”, he said.
For Marina Sousa, executive director of MSP Estúdios and who inspired the character Marina, another characteristic of her father is to always be in tune with what is happening in the world.
“I see Mauricio as a visionary. From the beginning, when he started making comics, he was already following society, what everyone was enjoying. He was trying to please everyone and make entertainment for everyone”, she said, in an interview with the program Reporting Paths.
Even at 90 years old, his father never tired of suggesting new ideas. “His mind, his personality, is like that. He always comes up with ideas. For example, he loves watching my children play. My children are little, but he always turns to me and says: ‘Oh, this gives character, this gives a story’. There’s no way my son can do something and he doesn’t come up with some idea, some suggestion.”
Cartoonist and writer Maurício de Sousa turns 90 years old. Photo-file: Antonio Cruz/Agência Brasil
In an interview with TV Brasil In 2015, Mauricio was already reflecting on the role of the artist. “Artists don’t retire. Artists become little stars and continue to illuminate some place out there in some way.”
And that’s what Mauricio continues to do at ninety years of age, which should make his birthday even more special. “It will be very emotional. It will be so good for Mauricio, at 90 years old, to receive these emotional hugs, of gratitude, [de pessoas dizendo] You taught me to read, you taught me to enjoy picking up a book or a magazine. It’s going to be a thrill”, added Alice Takeda.
Called Mauricio 90: designing Brazilthe program Reporting Pathswill be shown this Monday (27), from 11pm, on TV Brasil.
