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http://www.brazzil. com/content/ view/9781/ 80/
Through Globo TV Lenses Brazil Is a White Dreamland
Written by Mark Wells
Friday, 19 January 2007
A Brazilian Globo TV network soap opera For
approximately a year now I have been a subscriber to
Rede Globo Internacional channel that is available
through Dish Network. As I wasn't able to visit Brazil
in all of the year 2005, I thought it would be nice to
be able to take a peek into a big slice of Brazilian
culture on a daily basis.
While I had taken in a bit of Rede Globo's TV
programming on my previous five trips to Brazil, while
there, watching television is something that I only
did in the first part of the morning or in the waning
hours of the night.
After watching Rede Globo programming for over a year,
I can say that I can understand why the television
giant has the fourth largest television market behind
the big three of the United States, I can also say I
understand why so many Movimento Negro activists have
claimed that watching TV in Brazil is like watching
television in Sweden.
For a country that proclaims its pride in being a
mixed race nation, one could never tell from watching
its television programming. Where are all of the faces
of five centuries of mestiçagem?
In his study of the history of race in Brazilian
movies, NYU professor Robert Stam concluded that
Brazilian cinema "projected a vision of Brazil as a
tropical branch of European civilization. " (1).
After a few months of research, I would have to say
that this also applies to Brazil's television programs
as well as its mainstream print media. To be fair, I
can't say with any certainty that the majority of the
faces that I've seen on Rede Globo aren't genetically
of mixed race, but I can say that the overwhelming
majority of those faces look more European than
anything else. To put it more bluntly, it's almost a
complete blackout.
This is not to say that I don't enjoy some of Rede
Globo's programming. Most of the programs are quite
professional looking, colorful, entertaining and
features a charismatic line-up of personalities.
While I can't say that I am an avid watcher of some of
Rede Globo's popular novelas (Bang Bang, America,
etc.), I am a fairly regular viewer of variety shows
such Domingão do Faustão, Programa do Jô, Altas Horas,
and Caldeirão do Huck.
Novelas such as JK and America were important because
they portrayed the live of one of Brazil's most
important political figures (president Juscelino
Kubitschek de Oliveira) as well as the struggle of the
Brazilian immigrant trying to make it in the US.
But the role of television in the lives of people
around the world is more than just that of
entertainment. It informs, educates and gives a view
of the news, people and events that affect our lives.
Television can shape one's opinion and influence the
way that one sees the world. The television can act as
both a mirror and an eye.
The television can not only reflect how we believe the
world to be, how it is, but also how we desire it to
be. It is both fantasy and reality. Taken from this
point of view, which is it that Brazilian television
is attempting to show? Perhaps it is both. And for my
analysis I will take a look at the fantasy as well as
the reality.
As I have written and many of us already know, at the
end of the slave era in Brazil, elites believed that
in order for Brazil to be taken seriously as a
progressive country, its people had to become whiter.
This whiteness was to be achieved in two ways; the
mass importation of Europeans from various countries
and through the process of race mixing.
As African descent peoples outnumbered white
Brazilians by a ratio of about three to two near the
end of the 19th century, predictions were being made
as to how long the whitening (embranqueamento) process
would take for Brazil to be hailed as a white nation.
Looking at Brazil's population today, it doesn't
appear that the predictions were quite right. If one
were to believe census reports, whites make up 54% of
the Brazilian population with the majority of the
remaining 46% being a mixture of Brazil's original
three people: the Indian, the African and the
European. Again, that is if one were to believe census
reports.
In reality, no one can say what the country's racial
composition really is. There are those who believe
that very few Brazilians actually match up to what
North Americans or Europeans would accept as white.
There are those who believe that the country is made
up of a majority of African descent people of varying
phenotypes.
Just to get an idea of how daunting a task of getting
an accurate count of who is what, a recent study
showed that 30% of the people in a survey who
self-declared themselves to be pardos (mulato or mixed
race) were identified as pretos (black) by the
interviewer. In a similar twist, 30% of those who
self-declared themselves to be brancos (white) were
identified as pardos by the interviewer (2).
Back in 2004, I remember walking the streets with one
of the daughters of my host family in Bahia. She was
light-skinned, but considered herself to be black
(negra). I asked her if she had ever dated a white guy
before. She said no.
As we continued walking the streets, she gave the
typically Brazilian kiss on each cheek to a guy I
thought would be considered white by Brazilian
standards (although not American). As we continued
walking, she told me that the guy had been her
boyfriend once upon a time.
I then reminded her that she said that she had never
dated a white guy before. She confirmed that she
hadn't. And "what about that guy", I asked. She then
stopped walking as she turned to me to make her point.
"Listen, I spent a whole year living in Germany, so I
KNOW what real white people look like."
Thus, when one speaks of race with Brazilians, it is
necessary to understand what their social
constructions of whiteness and blackness are.
Depending on the person's social
conscious/construct ion, someone like singer Caetano
Veloso could be considered white, mestiço or what some
call "Brazilian white." (3)
It is this complex manner of classifying individuals
by race that became a hot topic when the idea of
quotas for Afro-Brazilians to get into Brazilian
universities became a highly-debated question on
forums and Internet sites. All over the web, people
argued about to define who was black or white.
To be truthful, it was more intriguing to me to know
who was considered preto/negro (black) and who was
considered pardo/mulato (generally, a person of mixed
African descent). After all, how mixed would a person
have to be to be considered mixed? One drop of
non-African ancestry? Can a person still be considered
white if they had a considerable percentage of African
or Indian ancestry?
Then we have to consider the idea that Brazilians
supposedly define themselves more by appearance than
by ancestry. (4) I won't linger on these often debated
topics here but some of these questions and ideas will
periodically appear throughout this essay. There is
one specific idea that I've always found to be a
contradiction in the Brazilian imagination: if
everyone claims to be mixed, why do the majority of
people declare themselves to be white on census forms?
If everyone is indeed mixed and are proud of this
mixture, shouldn't ALL Brazilians declare themselves
to be pardos or more accurately, mestiços? Looking at
Brazilian television through the lens of Rede Globo
led me to investigate the intricate details,
contradictions and complexities of whiteness from the
Brazilian perspective.
Over the past few years, many people have denounced
what they consider to be an imperialist American idea
of race-based Affirmative Action policies as well as a
US-modeled bipolar scheme of racial classification.
While I agree that the history of racial mixing is
deeper in Brazil than in the US, the bottom line is
that the color of success and power in Brazil is white
or something that is close to white.
In this line of reasoning, one is either white or they
are not. This is not simply the idea of an American
who is trying to impose his views on an entire
country; it is the way Brazil chooses to see itself
and the way it wants to be represented to the world.
When one takes an honest look at the racial hierarchy
that Brazil has set up for itself, this becomes
unquestionably true.
Take Rede Globo for instance; anyone who has access to
this channel should try this test. Imagine that you
are watching this channel from outside of Brazil and
the channel was said to be representative of Brazil's
racial composition. Would you get the idea that Brazil
was a mixed race country? Count for yourself how many
non-white faces you saw on the network for that week.
Ask yourself, when you did see non-white faces on the
channel, how were they portrayed? Were they musicians?
Soccer players? How many non-white news anchors did
you see? How many program hosts? Were the non-white
actors in subservient positions? Maids, slaves, sex
objects? Did they provide comic relief? These are some
of the typical roles portrayed by non-white people
when featured on the Rede Globo channel.
Preto/Pardo, Negro/Mulato: Is there really a
significant difference?
These roles appear to be so deeply ingrained in the
Brazilian conscious that they hardly strike people as
being demeaning. Perhaps this is why so many voices
from the Brazilian black women's movement have voiced
objection to the portrayals of black women being beat
up and raped in the miniseries JK. (5)
Regardless of attempts of Brazilian intellectuals to
paint a picture of Brazil's slavery era being less
violent than that of the US, the fact remains that the
history of mestiçagem has in reality been the
continued rape and sexual exploitation of black women.
One of the progenitors of the famed Brazilian "racial
democracy" myth, Gilberto Freyre himself tells us that
"it was the bodies of the black girls, sometimes
10-year old girls...that freed white women from sexual
assault." (6)
As a matter of fact, the virginity and chastity of
white women during the colonization of Brazil was
protected through the prostitution of the black female
slave. This exploitation of the black female body is a
legacy that has continued today in several ways.
Take for example the flyers and catalogs featuring
brown-skinned Baianas that are given to European male
tourists who come to Brazil in search of "ethnic"
prostitution and sexual commerce (7). This
representation of afrodescendente women proves that
the words of French anthropologist/ sociologist Roger
Bastide still hold true today.
Having devoted a part of his career to the study of
Afrocentricities in Brazil, Bastide, speaking on
miscegenation, wrote that the extramarital affairs
that were common in Brazil "effectively reduced an
entire race to the level of prostitutes" (8).
As a matter a fact, in direct opposition to the idea
that miscegenation proves the absence of racism,
Bastide points out that the relationship between the
dominant and the dominated actually makes prejudice
more visible. (9) As the woman of color (i.e. negra or
mulata) is considered a simple object of sexual desire
and not a future mate (10), the underlying sexual
valuation of the negra or mulata woman emphasizes
another form of discrimination (11) because the negra
or mulata is ultimately considered inferior to the
white woman. (12)
Perhaps this is part of the reason one so rarely sees
so many of Brazil's afrodescendente soccer stars
married to women of color. This ideal of the Brazil's
afrodescendente women having value only for work or
sex permeates every realm of Brazilian society,
including its literature.
Speaking of Brazil's world famous author Jorge Amado,
Teófilo de Queiroz Júnior affirms that Amado exalts
mulatas "physically, without conceding respectability
to them or recognizing their value for matrimony."
(13)
Lest we still have confusion as to what type of women
we are speaking of when we say mulata, a verbal
exchange between an American journalist and a
Brazilian cab driver should clear this up. Charles
Martin was riding in a cab in Rio de Janeiro when the
cab driver (who was white) asked if he'd had the
chance to know Brazil's mulatas. Martin tells the
story this way:
"As I had been asked so many times by so many people
about the country's mulatas, this time I answered
differently. I told him that I did know some, but that
I knew some in the U.S. as well. He said the two were
different. I said that the essential distinction I saw
was national culture, and that in either place, the
women simply were black women. The driver insisted no.
I asked: what is the mulata? She is not white. She is
not dark black.
"Thus, she is like many black women in the U.S. (but
here, they have not been seen as a particular sexual
class since the old formal balls of New Orleans where
quadroons and octoroons were gathered to become long-
or short-term mistresses to white men of means).
"The driver, somewhat exasperated, insisted that there
was a difference and that the Brazilian women were not
black. I said that surely "mulata" meant something far
more specific than "non-white." He wasn't talking
about Japanese women, for example, was he? No, he was
talking about women who were black.
"Disgusted, the driver conceded that, yes, black blood
was the special ingredient that made the mulata. He
went on to say that the difference between Americans
and Brazilians is that Brazilians made use of a polite
term, mulata, while Americans used gross ones, such as
black." (14)
Note again the repugnance associated with the term
black. Brazilian painter Emiliano Di Cavalcanti gained
famed for his portrayals of the mulata. In an
interview he once explained his fascination with this
type of woman:
"I've always had an immense passion for the mulatas.
Her plasticity, the sensuality inherent in the black
race and that sad look enchanted me. (15)
Thus, as I have argued before, the term mulata is but
a certain type of afrodescendente woman. She is
usually not as dark as say, Sudanese model Alek Wek,
but her complexion can span from the light-brown color
of actress Camila Pitanga to the medium brown
complexion of singer Paula Lima. The key here is that
she is considered to be sensuous and very attractive.
Thus, as I wrote in a previous article, mulata carries
a certain sexual connotation in its description of the
negra-mestiça: she is considered more attractive than
the preta woman but her status as an inferior has
historically given white men the "license" to exploit,
degrade and abandon her.
In some ways, the term mulata is similar to the term
"brown sugar" that has been applied to
African-American women. Millions of music fans are no
doubt familiar with the infamous Rolling Stones song
of the same name, an ode to slave era sexual
relations. The term also recently caused a stir in
Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury comic strip in which George
W. Bush was made to call Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice brown sugar bringing to the fore "the
painful stereotype of the black woman as a hot-blooded
minx," (16)
For those who don't have the cultural background to
understand the difference between a preta and a
mulata, the difference can be sometimes subtle,
sometimes more obvious. A good example could be found
on the 1970s CBS sitcom Good Times, in which actress
Ester Rolle played Florida Evans (preta) while Bern
Nadette Stanis played daughter Thelma (mulata).
In short, there are millions of African-American women
who regard themselves as black women who would be
considered mulatas in Brazil. In 1970s Brazilian
advertisements, American singers Donna Summer and
Diana Ross were often referred to as mulatas. (17) To
be more specific, a mulata is an attractive woman of
African descent possessing some physical markers of
miscegenation, either immediate or distant. A mulata
can have light to medium brown skin with shoulder
length or longer hair.
The concept of hair texture and length is an important
attribute when defining whether a woman is negra or
mulata. Anthropologist Nilma Lino Gomes has done
extensive research on the significance of hair in the
construction of black identity in Brazil. She notes
how a negra can instantly become a mulata by simply
changing her hairstyle. Hair weaves and extensions
have become more and more popular amongst
Afro-Brazilian women as the price becomes more
affordable.
Gomes herself notes that when she wears her own hair
in its natural state or in braids, white and black men
refer to her as crioula, negra or negona. When she
wears the weave, men call her morena, morena linda
(pretty brown-skinned girl) or mulata. (18) As I
reported on my first trip to Bahia in 2000, some black
women feel that wearing a weave is the only way for a
black woman to attract a man. (19)
I will also analyze this significance of hair through
a nasty little fight that occurred on the fourth
installment of the popular reality show Big Brother
Brasil back in 2004. On one episode of Big Brother
Brasil 4, two female participants, Solange and
Marcela, got into an altercation that led an exchange
of verbal insults.
As the argument ensued, Solange Couto (black girl),
told Marcela Queiroz (white girl) that she had a
"droopy butt (bunda caída)". Marcela, in turn, replied
"at least I don't have that nappy hair!" (20)
Later, Queiroz was eliminated from the show, and in
her opinion, it was because of her fight with Couto.
Days later, she would proclaim herself "not a racist"
because in the heat of the argument, she had attacked
Couto's weak spot, knowing that it would bother her.
In defending the idea that she was not racist, Queiroz
mentioned that she didn't say anything about Couto in
reference to her color. (21)
Apparently, Queiroz didn't know that, historically, in
Brazil, as in the rest of the world, skin color, as
well as hair texture, has been used as targets against
the afrodescendente as a mark of his/her inferiority
in comparison to the universally- accepted European
beauty standard.
On the other hand, it appears that Queiroz had to know
this for the simple fact that she used it as a means
of insulting her opponent. In the verbal insult, a
person will always attack a socially unacceptable
attribute of the other person. Typical insults have to
do with a person's physical appearance or ethnic
origin.
While I am on the subject of Big Brother Brasil 4's
Solange, I would also like to bring to the fore the
virulent attacks she received from viewers of the show
who proceeded to post their opinions online. During
the run of the show's fourth installment on Rede
Globo, there appeared an online blog called "Eu Odeio
a Solange (I Hate Solange)".
On the infamous blog-page, next to a photo of a
seemingly frustrated Solange, appeared a photo of a
cartoon monkey standing on top of the letter "e" in
Solange's name. To make matters worse, there was also
a photo of the trademark character of Assolan (22), a
nationally-recogniz ed Brazilian brand of steel wool
scouring pads used to scrub dirty dishes.
On the blog, Solange's name was fused with that of the
scrubbing pad to create the word Assolange. So what
does the Assolan product have to do with Solange from
the reality show? Another widely used insult against
the Brazilian afrodescendente is the idea that they
have "cabelo de bombril" or steel-wire hair.
Insults such "cabelo de bombril" or "nega do cabelo
duro (23) (black woman with the hard hair)" are
insults so common that one can readily reference them
online with a simple Google search. The point here is,
terms such "cabelo de bombril" or perhaps even more
common, "cabelo ruim (bad hair)" are so deeply
ingrained, recognized and accepted in Brazilian
society that it doesn't always appear to be an insult.
From the non-racist argument, how could it be racist
if everyone accepts it to be true? Whites, as well
blacks themselves will use the term from time to time.
Thus, in the eyes of the country, Queiroz can
legitimately stake a claim when she lamented that she
"was not racist in any moment" and that now "everybody
with bad hair ("cabelo ruim") will file a lawsuit."
(24)
In recent years, racist ideas and opinions that have
been posted online on Brazilian websites have been
more closely monitored and the blog-page entitled "Eu
Odeio a Solange" was shut down soon after it was
discovered.
(Returning to the previous discussion.. ..)
While the use of the term mulata may denote a certain
type of afrodescendente woman in the eyes of some, it
can also inhibit the development of a specifically
black identity. As the actual meaning of mulata
denotes a woman of mixed African/European ancestry, it
also represents a step closer to the white ideal and,
just as important, a step away from blackness.
By referring to all attractive afrodescendente women
as mulatas (or morenas), Brazilian society erases the
possibility of the terms negra/negro being synonymous
with beauty. As a result, many would-be negras in fact
reject the term negra. Referring back to the cab
driver incident, who would want to be called something
"gross" like "negra"?
The terms mulata and negra have not only sexual
connotations, but also represent a certain "place" in
Brazilian society. For instance, traditionally,
middle-upper class white Brazilian families have often
"adopted" young negras or mulatas from lower class
backgrounds and trained them to take care of the
household, cook the meals, and help in raising the
children.
As these girls grew older, they were also to serve as
sexual initiation of the young boys in the household.
This type of arrangement caused a controversy in 2003
when Rede Globo aired its soap opera Mulheres
Apaixonadas.
In protest against an episode in which the character
Carlinhos (Daniel Zettel) attempted to lose his
virginity to the (black) domestic servant Zilda
(Roberta Rodrigues), the Sindicato dos Trabalhadores
Domésticos (Syndicate of Domestic Workers) went to
court to try to prohibit the episode from airing
because they felt that the episode's content would put
the wrong idea about domestic workers into the minds
of adolescents watching the program. (25)
Still today, in many middle-upper class homes, one
will find young, primarily afrodescendente girls
working while the children of these families attend
school. (26)
So what does the rape of black (and Indian) women have
to do with the programming on Rede Globo? Brazilian
television, like American or French television, is a
vision of how the nation envisions itself.
What is problematic about the Brazilian situation is
that, while the US and France both have significant
minority populations, non-whites in Brazil could
arguably make up the majority of the population.
While mestiçagem is promoted as the Brazilian answer
to racial conflict, the overwhelming whiteness of
Brazilian television represents the Brazilian ideal.
In other words, mestiçagem is a necessary transition
into whiteness.
In the predictions of intellectuals in the early 20th
century, it was the complete disappearance of the
Indian, negro AND the mestiço that signified the
triumph of whiteness; if not genetically, at least
phenotypically. This obsessive march to whiteness has
had dire effects on the psyches of those who do not
fit this ideal.
Thus, while many continue to point the finger at the
US for its shameful race relations or for supposedly
imposing its racial classifications on the Brazilian,
they ignore the psychological healing that millions of
non-whites, as well as near whites, may need.
This psychological damage starts early in adolescence
when a child somehow realizes that they are not deemed
to be valuable because of their skin color or some
other physical attribute.
Footnotes
1. Stam, Robert. Tropical Multiculturalism: A
Comparative History of Race in Brazilian Cinema and
Culture. Duke, 1997.
2. Ramos, Alberto and Marina Oliveira. "Sem medo de
revelar a cor". Correio Braziliense. May 9, 2002.
3. Some people with whom I discussed race spoke of
this idea of "Brazilian white" in reference to a
person that they knew would most likely not be
considered white on a global scale or even in Brazil's
most southern states but could be considered white in
some social circles or regions of the country.
4. For a more thorough look at this idea, see my
previous essay entitled "How Is Brazil Racist? Let Me
Count the Ways". Brazzil. April 2003. Available online
July 13, 2006.
http://www.brazzil. com/content/ view/3542/ 29/
5. Rufino, Alzira. "Resultados da reunião sobre o caso
de violência contra a mulher em JK". Etnia na TV.
http://www.eticanat v.org.br/ pagina_new. php?id_new=
152&idioma= 0
6. Westphalen, Cecília Maria. "A Mulher no Universo de
Casa-Grande & Senzala".
http://nmnt. fgf.org.br/ artigos/a_ mulher.html
7. Dias Filho, Antonio Jonas. "As Mulatas que não
estão no Mapa." Cadernos Pagu (6/7), Núcleo de Estudos
de Gênero - Pagu/Unicamp, 1996
8. Bastide, Roger. "Dusky Venus, Black Apollo", Race
(1961) as quoted in Carl Degler's Neither Black nor
White: Slavery and Race Relations in Brazil and the
United States. University of Wisconsin Press, 1971.
9. Bastide, Roger and Fernandes, Florestan. Negros e
Brancos em São Paulo. Companhia Editora Nacional, 1959
10. Ibid
11. Cardoso, Fernando Henrique and Ianni, Octávio. Côr
e Mobilidade Social em Florianópolis: Aspectos das
Relações entre negros e brancos numa comunidade do
Brasil Meridional. Companhia Editora Nacional, São
Paulo. 1960.
12. Ibid
13. Queiroz Júnior, Teófilo de. Preconceito de Cor e a
Mulata na Literature Brasileira. Editora Ática, São
Paulo.
14. Martin, Charles. "Brazil: Such Nightmares, Such
Dreams". Black Renaissance. December 31, 1998. Vol. 2,
Issue 1
15. City News de São Paulo from November 7, 1971, as
quoted in Queiroz Júnior, Teófilo de. Preconceito de
Cor e a Mulata na Literature Brasileira. Editora
Ática, São Paulo. 1982
16. Bernard, Michelle D. "Brown Sugar - Its not so
sweet". Independent Women's Forum. April 30, 2004.
[Available online June 2, 2006].
17. Daniel, G. Reginald. Race and Multiraciality in
Brazil and the United States: Converging Paths? 2006
Penn State University Press.
18. Gomes, Nilma Lino. Sem perder a raiz: Corpo e
cabelo como símbolos da identidade negra. Autêntica
Editora, 2006.
19. Wells, Mark. "Down in Black Bahia". June 2002.
Available online July 23, 2006.
http://www.brazzil. com/content/ view/6704/ 39/ . For
an
in-depth discussion on the politics of hair amongst
black women in Brazil see Nilma Lino Gomes's Sem
perder a raiz: Corpo e cabelo como símbolos da
identidade negra (Autêntica Editora, 2006). Her
description of the maintenance and importance of hair
weaves reminded me much of what I saw in observing my
friends, the sisters Danielle and Fátima, in my "Down
in Black Bahia" essay.
20. WEBTAL. "Juliana e Marcela estão no "Paredão"
desta Terça-Feira." March 22, 2004. Available online.
January 26, 2006.
http://www.webtal. com.br/noticia. php?cd=735
21. Terra. "Não sou racista", diz Marcela. March 24,
2004. Available online. January 26, 2006.
http://exclusivo. terra.com. br/bbb4/interna/
0,,OI283352- EI2533,00. html
22. www.assolan. com.br/
23. The term "Nega do Cabelo Duro" was also a popular
Carnaval song from the 1940s written by the team of
David Nasser e Rubens Soares. The song has been
recorded countless times over the years including a
version by the Rock/Rap group Planet Hemp.
24. Terra. "BBs "lavam roupa suja" e Cris leva prêmio
extra." April 12, 2004. Available online. January 26,
2006.
http://exclusivo. terra.com. br/bbb4/interna/
0,,OI292209- EI2533,00. html
25. Mattos, Laura. "Domésticas entram na Justiça
contra novela". Folha de S. Paulo. September 22, 2003.
[Available online June 1, 2006]
http://observatorio .ultimosegundo. ig.com.br/
artigos/asp23092 003993.htm
26. see France Winddance Twine's Racism in a Racial
Democracy: The Maintenance of White Supremacy in
Brazil. Rutgers University Press, 1998.
This is part five of a multi-piece article.
Mark Wells holds a bachelor's degree in Anthropology
from the University of Michigan-Dearborn and is
currently working on a Master's Degree in Social
Justice at Marygrove College in Detroit, Michigan. He
can be reached at quilombhoje72@ yahoo.
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