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Pravaz - Brazilian Mulatice - Performing Race, Gender and The Nation
Pravaz - Brazilian Mulatice - Performing Race, Gender and The Nation
Brazilian Mulatice:
Performing Race, Gender, and the Nation
resumo
Este artigo analisa afigurada mulata no imaginario brasileiro situando-a no contexto
do mito da mesticagem e procura estudar a relacao complexa que as mulheres cario-
cas tern com este ideal social. As experiencias de mulheres no mundo do samba
demonstram que a performance da mulatice demanda trabalho corporal e discursive
De fato, a identidade da mulata nao se opoe a de categorias como "branca" ou "negra",
pois o conceito de raca no Brasil e tanto bipolar como continuo. Por exemplo, mulheres
que se auto-definem como negras ao mesmo tempo utilizam o mito da mesticagem para
ganhar acesso a remuneracao economica e reconhecimento social. Isto e possivel atraves
da mulatice e de usos estrategicos da cultura afro-brasileira, dancando o samba em
boates e desfiles de carnaval. O uso da "hibridacao estrategica" permite que jovens mulheres
"sejam alguem" num pais que oferece escassas oportunidades aos afro-descendentes.
A polysemic category, the term mulata1 in the Brazilian context can refer
to "a woman of mixed racial descent,"2 but it also evokes images of volup-
tuous bodies, sensuality, and the ability to dance the samba. In its restricted
sense, however, it names an occupation; that is, only women who engage in
dancing the samba in a commodified spectacle and receive some form of
remuneration for it can be called mulatas. As one of my female friends once
remarked, "We are all mulatos at home, but there aren't any mulatas!" Beyond
the subtleties of this and other distinctions, mulata is perhaps merely a privi-
leged signifier in a larger paradigmatic chain associating cultural terms such as
cabrocha, morena, and baiana. These terms denote "black woman" or "ligh
skinned black woman" and are inscribed in Brazil's complex system of racial
classification, composed of both a "fluid system" where slight gradations in
skin color are construed as distinctions begging specific denomination, and a
The Journal of Latin American Anthropology 8(1):116-147 copyright 2003, American Anthropological Association
"bipolar system" where mulatos are conceived of as black (see Fry 2000).
Depending on the context of utterance, the above-mentioned racialized and
gendered terms carry with them a certain fetishistic quality. In Brazil the mulata
is commonly portrayed as a woman always ready to deploy her tricks of seduction
and bewitchment, embodying the tropical ethos and national culture in her
proficiency at samba. In doing so, she performs what, following local usage, I
call muUtice (mulataness)that is, the embodiment of a mulata's "essential,"
fetishized features. The mulata has become a central and problematic figure of
desire in the Brazilian and Western imaginaries, as testified in recent feminist
scholarship that study mulatas's objectification in diverse fields, such as em-
ployment opportunities (Bairros 1991), Brazilian literature (Bennett 1999),
"interracial" sex relations in general (Goldstein 1999), and international sexual
tourism in particular (Gilliam 1998), the world-famous shows de mulata (spec-
tacles where mulatas dance the samba on stage) (Giacomini 1992, 1994), and
samba lyrics (Pravaz 2000).
The presence of women attempting to embody the social ideal of the
mulata is conspicuous in Rio de Janeiro's nighdife and in the world of spectacle
where they exhibit samba skills in cabarets for tourists as well as in the nationally
televised carnaval parades. The mostly poor and working-class women who
embrace the mulata role (see Giacomini 1991) do so as one of the only forms
of accessingfinancialremuneration in a country with one of the most unequal
patterns of distribution of resources in the world. Even though the figure of
the mulata is celebrated during carnaval and in other symbolic ways, the social
and class status of mulatos in general is not very different from that of Afro-
Brazilians locally classified as "black" (Hasenbalg and Silva 1988). Social
exclusion of Afro-Brazilians is expressed in many domains, such as the ability
to participate fully in the public sphere (Hanchard 1999b), residential segrega-
tion (Telles 1999; Twine 1998), employment patterns (Bairros 1991; Twine
1998), educational performance (Warren 1997), and aesthetic evaluation
C: Yellow, mameluco, cafuso, that's it. And whites. But there aren't whites
in Brazil, real Brazilians, don't you agree?
C: There are, but nowadays you only see a few of them in Brazil. Because
the races got mixed, since the invaders arrived to Brazil. The Portuguese
mixed with the blacks, the French mixed with the blacks, blacks mixed
with the races, understand? Mixed, Brazil is mixed, it's a race mixture.
The association between Brazilian identity as mixed and mulatice is made
explicit by Celma, a 40-year-old woman who used to perform in Sargentelli's
nightclub, the Oba-Oba, and now makes a living by selling clothes at home:
"Mulata is the mixture of the races, of the black and the white, showing what
Brazil is."
Mulatice, however, is not about mulatos in general. The idea that a
racialized figure can "show what Brazil is," is a very gendered one, much in
the way of Gilberto Freyre's narratives. As one of the pamphlets for tourists
advertising the Oba-Oba reads, the nightclub offers "a musical journey across
the authentic Brazilian folkloric show. Full of samba and carnaval with the
famous mulato girls." The Portuguese version reads " . . . com as mats lindas
mulatas" (with the most beautiful mulatas). It is the female mulato "girl" who
can perform authentic Brazilianness. In these particular associations, mixture
and femininity appear to be deeply intertwined with local values of beauty
and sexual attractiveness. These associations are part of the "job description"
for the mulata show (professional mulata)18, the same kind of associations
expected of a "go-go girl," with a twistthe need for brown skin color. How-
ever tied to mulatice as a job description, these associations spill over local
conceptions of the mulata offstage. Priscilla, a young, single, mass communi-
cations student, told me: "The stereotype [of the mulata] involves a certain
kind of clothing, hair, a way of walking, of talking. The hair is long, as long as
it gets. [Mulatice] is trying to pass on a lot of sensuality, to play with people's
libido. It is to have large buttocks and to wear skimpy clothes, high heels,
fetishes, right? You have to see it to understand." Held by many cariocas19 as
the quintessential Brazilian beauty herself, Valeria Valenssa, a woman who
performs the samba bearing her skin on a TV Globo video clip, embraces the
discourse that put her on the national pedestal: "Since I travel a lot, I've seen
NP: Men?
V: Yes, men. "The mulata." But there isn't, mulato. It's either black or
white, isn't it?
Conclusion
There are many questions we can pose regarding Brazilian mulatice. My
research participants' statements puzzled me. If so many of these women clearly
identified themselves as black, why did they also play with the notion of the
mulata? If they identified the stereotypical connotations associated with the
concept, what justified their embrace of the stereotype? How can we make
sense of such contradictions? In the context of my research, these paradoxes
seem to be pointing toward something else beyond strategies for avoiding the
racist connotations of "blackness." I suggest that the use of the category of the
mulata as a practice of self-identification can also be understood as a strategy
of survival in a world of limited options due to class immobility and struc-
tural and face-to-face racism. This strategy to begin with can be a means of
upward mobility through a remunerated and socially valued job. In the larger
context, however, it is a way of achieving social recognition by tapping into
the polyphony of discourses of race in Brazilian society. The myths of
mestujagem and racial democracy have been analyzed by many authors as
ideological constructs whose most important consequence is a misrecognition
of the striking economic inequalities and power differentials that constitute
the relationships between blacks and whites in Brazil. Although this is certainly
true, I consider that the force of these myths can be better understood if we
also pay attention to the productive effects these narratives have in everyday
life, in identity formation, and in the world of spectacle.
Mulatice is not only a way of talking about Brazilian national identity or
even about masculinist, stereotypical understandings of "black" women. As
social narrative, it has also come to be an ego ideal and an ideal ego. By this I
mean that some Brazilian women have, on the one hand, come to desire and
aspire to the subject-position of the mulata as a kind of personal identity, and
on the other, view themselves as embodying the quintessential mulata. According
to Stuart Hall, "identities are points of temporary attachment to the subject
positions which discursive practices construct for us . . . They are the result of
1.1 use the local term mulata in order to make reference to these multiple
meanings.
2. While mestico is a term used to indicate "mixed descent" in general
(i.e., including all possible racial combinations), mulato is a term that makes
specific reference to the "mix" of black and white ancestry.
3. Between October 1997 and September 1998, I conducted a series of
unstructured and semi-structured interviews with Brazilian men and women