Publications

Publication details [#59802]

Plaza Pinto, Joana. 2015. Trajectories of the black female body in Brazil. Circulations of racist and antiracist representations on a TV show. Pragmatics and Society 6 (2) : 197–216.
Publication type
Article in journal
Publication language
English
Place, Publisher
John Benjamins
Journal DOI
10.1075/ps

Annotation

This paper offers a situated perspective on the political and semiotic landscapes of the circulation of racist and antiracist images and texts in and around a dark-skinned female character, Adelaide, in the popular Brazilian TV show Zorra Total. It aims to differ and defer the character as a sign, in order to undermine the character’s hegemonic frame of interpretation. First, the paper contextualizes some resources used in a typical episode, including the character’s performance as a trajectory of racist signs about the black woman’s body. Next, It discusses the contemporary circulation of the character, confronted by the experience of discussing this character in an undergraduate classroom. In conclusion, it argues that by exposing trajectories of the black female body, it is possible to gather together its fragmented signs as a multi-layered and overlapping set, and it identifies these trajectories as a blind spot in the history of Brazilian racism.