In the sweltering heat of a summer afternoon in the hillside slum of Santa Marta, a toddler cools herself under the water dripping from a rag that dangles from a wire stretched high above her head. Raw sewage runs down the hills, sending nauseating odors like curses through the neighborhood. Drug dealers stand at checkpoints along winding alleys.

This is the favela, or hillside slum, that the singer Michael Jackson will use as a backdrop for his music video, "They Don't Care About Us." The knowledge that the poverty here will be used as an international image of urban misery has sparked an emotional debate dividing the "Marvelous City," as Rio likes to be called.

The furor began two weeks ago, when word filtered out that Mr. Jackson would descend by helicopter on either Santa Marta or Rocinha, another hillside slum, to film his video. It was at roughly the same time that the singer Madonna was sparking protest in Argentina over plans to have her portray Eva Peron.

Ronaldo Cezar Coelho, the state secretary for Industry, Commerce and Tourism, complained that such a video would damage the city's image, and reportedly said he would demand editing rights over the finished product. "I don't see why we should have to facilitate films that will contribute nothing to all our efforts to rehabilitate Rio's image," Mr. Coelho told newspapers here.