McBride 1

Morgan McBride
Professor Porto
5/9/2023
Brazilian TV & Culture
The Role of Football in Constructing Brazil’s National Identity

Brazil’s nationalism and cultivation of national identities stem from a long history of
myth-making that centers on the conflicting ambitions of the powerful and powerless within the
nation (Eakin, 2017). In Brazil’s early days, beginning in 1822, after its independence from
Portugal, Brazil's newly established central government struggled to assert control throughout
the enormous land mass (Eakin, 2017). Its intended constitutional monarchy system floundered,
leading to a government system structured around exclusionary politics, which left nearly 90
percent of Brazil without any power (Eakin, 2017). The primary myth regarding Roberto
DaMatta’s “fabula das três raças” highlights a shared collective history of mestiçagem that
signifies a racial and cultural mixing of American, African, and European identities (Eakin,
2017). This ideology spurred other cultural points that focused on a unified Brazilian identity;
however, whiteness often became the ideal representation throughout the nation’s culture. In the
decades preceding Brazil’s 1964 military dictatorship and during its twenty-one-year reign,
national identity centered around cultural markers that connect to the nation’s core ideologies.
Government intervention in forming a “mass culture” allowed for a national community to be
built within a geographically large area, which can be seen through football’s connection to
Brazilian culture (Eakin, 2017). Initially created in the United Kingdom, football grew into
Brazil’s most popular sport and a featured component of the nation’s mass culture. As a cultural
marker, football highlighted the nation’s fascinating relationships and dynamics within its
class-based and racialized national construction. Power and identity both play fundamental roles
in the proliferation of football and nationalism throughout Brazil.
According to Benedict Anderson, national identity can be perceived as ‘imagined
communities’ that utilize evergreen political formations and cultural representations in
developing national symbols (Jung, 2021). The sport of football persists as a strong example of
an imagined community due to its consistent role in connecting Brazilians throughout the nation.
Brazil native Charles Miller brought football to the nation in the late 1800s after football
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throughout his educational period in the United Kingdom (By SB, 2008). In the late nineteenth
century, British immigrants that contributed to Brazil’s upper-class elite population began
creating football clubs, which in many ways resemble aristocratic social clubs (Jung, 2021). So,
football initially existed as an elevated social status symbol depicting an elite lifestyle. Brazil’s
history took a similar trajectory after gaining its independence from Portugal in 1822 since the
new nation’s group of elites sought American and European values of whiteness (Jung, 2021).
Hoping to stray away from its idea of being a second-class country, Brazil aimed to amplify its
whiteness in order to rid “themselves of the backward population” (Jung, 2021, p.152). Racial
identity persisted as a central component of Brazilian culture, seen through the nation’s
football-central culture.
Brazil’s elite football structure gave way to a factory football component in the early
1900s that allowed for further inclusion of the working class within the sport. For instance, the
Bangu Athletic Club was formed at a textile factory in Rio de Janeiro’s suburbs. Although its
initial team had a more Eurocentric identity base, its players taught the game to some of the
factory workers, which helped expand local football support (Jung, 2021). Amateur football
began to see an increased presence of black and mulatto players within the sport, especially
throughout the interior regions of Brazil (Jung, 2021). Although such a development seems
optimistic, the increasing racial diversity within the sport became coupled with a growing
significance placed on whiteness within the nation. Brazil's racial identity and associated
prejudices primarily come from cultural ideas that value physical presentations and cultural
signifiers of Eurocentric whiteness. In 1914, approximately 25 million of Brazil’s population
derived from a combination of Portuguese, African, and Native American heritages (Eakin,
2017).
Nevertheless, intellectual and political elites consistently aimed to disguise such a
“tainted” racial makeup of their nation (Eakin, 2017). Football clubs feared that including black
players within their programs could threaten the present white hegemony and move black players
away from their current working-class categorization (Daflon & Ballvé, 2007). As a potential
method of social ascension, including black and brown players within professional clubs gave
them a rare opportunity for upward mobility. Race relations affected the presence of Brazil’s
national football team on the international level since racial exclusivity continuously plagued
football culture. High-level politicians even instructed national team coaches to leave black
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players off the roster for international football patches due to their concern about Brazil’s
overseas reputation getting damaged (Prange, 2014). Some fans and scholars attributed the
national team's early failures to the team’s focus on the player’s social status or racial identity
instead of their tactical skill as a player.
In 1923, the football club Vasco da Gama featured a racially mixed championship team
that altered the trajectory of the “color barrier” within the context of Brazilian football (Eakin,
2017). Along a similar time frame, the Modernist Movement of the 1920s sparked a cultural
transition, for some, toward a restoration of Brazil’s authentic identities (Eakin, 2017). The
movement towards a less-racialized society became stunted through the coordinated proliferation
of “whitening” and “racial democracy” ideas. The idolized concept of mestiçagem, or racial
mixture, creates an exceptional quality unique to Brazilians, restating the nation’s race relations
(Eakin, 2017). So, the “color barriers” throughout Brazilian society are not fixed because the
lines continue to get blurry. The monolithic approach to national identity pushes ideas of racial
whitening forward while pushing discussions of racial discrimination to the side. Freyre
considered mestiçagem to be a connector of Brazilians that can augment the nation’s internal and
global power (Eakin, 2017). The vision of “racial democracy” formed a vibrant,
multidimensional imagined community that proliferated positive nationalistic ideas. However,
this noble idea thoroughly neglects the racial and ethnic conflict that such an ambiguous cultural
ideology could create.
President Getulio Vargas’ strong nation-building ambitions throughout the 1930s to
1950s led to advantageous developments in football, which were directly tied to his regime’s
ambitions of authoritarianism, populism, and general nation-building (Jung, 2021). The regime
united all the existing football clubs under the Conselho Nacional de Desportos to enhance
football’s popularity and appeal throughout Brazil (Eakin, 2017). With increasing government
support, football began to penetrate social discourse avenues and become a staple component of
Brazilian activity. During this time, radio broadcasts could connect and popularize football
nationwide, which helped make players like Domingos and Leônidas national icons (Eakin,
2017). Radio precedes television as the early distributor of cultural information like football and
music. Connecting the nation through wires and sound waves, football began to flood into homes
in all Brazilian states, which is one of the few things to do.
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As the hosts of the 1950 World Cup tournament, the nation had high hopes for a major
tournament win on home turf. Brazil managed to surpass numerous teams spectacularly, like a 7
to 1 win over Sweden (Brewin & Williamson, 2014). However, the final match between Brazil
and Uruguay in front of 199,000 fans resulted in a shocking defeat for the home team (Brewin &
Williamson, 2014). The public response to the loss sparked a discourse blaming the black
defensive players for the team's loss (Jung, 2021). Remarks claimed that those players lacked the
stamina and courage required for their role, which made them “scapegoats for the nation’s
tragedy” (Jung, 2021). Similar to other cultural instances of race relations, the degradation of
black and brown individuals of notoriety remains an alarming trend regarding the nation’s social
construction of racial identities. The apparent stereotypes throughout Brazilian society
intensified in the years after the World Cup loss, which traced back to the widely held ideas of
racial mixture and gradual population “whitening” (Lopes, 2000). Football seems to represent
Brazilian culture as the same racist ideals present in other cultural markers also appear within
football.
The positive transition towards World Cup success in 1958 was marked by the nation’s
first multi-racial team that featured a more creative version of football. The futebol-mulato style
of play developed by Freyre used the ideology of racial democracy to fight against the rational
playing styles of European football teams (Eakin, 2017). Brazilian football players were regaled
for developing a beautiful version of the global sport featuring an artistic yet skillful use of the
legs and the body (Jung, 2021). Brazil’s samba style of play sees a collaborative look at multiple
avenues of cultural markers integrating into the nation’s identifiable traits. Using a relatively
similar team to that of the prior defeats, this victorious 1958 team helped squash some of the
racial stigmas and stereotypes ameliorated earlier (Lopes, 2000). The following years saw a
slight taming of racial discrimination within the sport; however, substantial changes were not
made to remove such discourse from the sporting community. Although disheartening, the lack
of reform seems expected since similar discriminatory practices persisted in realms like samba
and acting roles.
When reformist President João Goulart was overthrown via a military coup, a
twenty-one-year-long military dictatorship began, ending Brazil’s first democratic period (Porto,
2023). The following repressive period, between 1968 and 1974, featured a significant growth in
urbanization, internal migration trends from the Northeast to Southeastern regions,
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mega-construction projects, and network television utilized as a national medium (Porto, 2023).
However, the regime shifted some political power to electronic colonels, who acted as local
political bosses in charge of managing the local media systems (Porto, 2023)—such actions
aimed to extend the dictatorship's power through their assertion of power within hard-to-reach
localized areas. The authoritarian leadership also invested in the Brazilian national team, the
seleção, since they aimed to capitalize on the nationalism deriving from football success.
National television broadcasting systems bolstered the government’s unification efforts through
the prominent depiction of football matches on television sets throughout the nation (Jung,
2021). Brazilians were thus able to connect with the powerful symbolism of the flag, national
anthem, and colors seen in connection to the national football team (Jung, 2021). The military
dictatorship skillfully amplified the significant presence of football as a cultural marker with the
help of television and broadcasting advancements.
As a powerful fixture within Brazilian media, TV Globo had two national sports
programs in 1965, Por Dentro da Jogada (Inside the Play) and Em Cima do Lance (Eyes on the
Play). These programs broadcast live coverage of the nation’s professional club soccer programs
while also including some pundit content (Melo & Drumond, 2014). With a viewership
encompassing nearly 98 percent of the nation’s population, TV Globo’s television network, Rede
Globo, retained a tremendous connection to the forming of Brazilian culture. Contrastingly, other
media companies struggled to remain afloat if they failed to comply with the campaigning goals
of the dictatorship (Melo & Drumond, 2014). Rede Globo obtained the broadcasting rights to the
1970 World Cup matches, which made it the only Brazilian network with such freedom (Melo &
Drumond, 2014). According to Eakin, the broadcasts of the World Cup, especially the qualifying
and final round games, amounted to nearly 100 percent audience viewership for the network. So,
the leaders of the dictatorship seemingly implemented stringent constraints on all aspects of
media production to cultivate a cultural narrative of their design. In other words, the propaganda
focus of the time aimed to magnify Brazilian football as a way to manage social and political
discourse through a more jovial lens. Enhanced telecommunications capabilities throughout the
nation allowed the authoritarian government to amplify its power through a more unified cultural
nationalism.
Abertura, Brazil’s period of political opening from 1974 to 1985, led to a shift into more
liberalized government control, which saw a reduction in censorship for networks like TV Globo
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(Porto, 2023). The progressive shift of media content led to the development of telenovela
programming that broaches new subject matters intending to relate further to their audiences.
Throughout the transition back towards democracy, telenovelas continued to influence the
primary conversations surrounding brasilidade, which primarily focused on concepts of culture
and individual identity. In TV Globo’s 1995 remake of Irmãos Coragem (The Brave Brothers),
the opening scene depicts a glorious moment of the character Duda Coragem scoring a goal in
the championship game (Melo & Drumond, 2014). Using authentic footage from a football
match heightens the realistic nature of such a moment while further constructing the glorifying
feeling behind football culture. Furthermore, TV Globo’s telenovela Avenida Brasil, released in
2012, showed Carminha luring Tufão, a lovable and rich football player, into a marriage built on
lies ("Avenida Brasil (TV series)," 2023). The altruistic football star exhibits the adoration
presented to leaders of such a popular cultural marker. In nearly all depictions of football within
the telenovela landscape, the sport and its players embody the solid cultural ties surrounding
Brazilian football.
Towards the end of the twentieth century, Brazilian society increasingly viewed their
football stars and the beautiful sport as a ritual almost as valued as Carnaval (Eakin, 2017).
However, the highly esteemed culture of Brazilian football felt a shift by the late 1990s when an
increasing number of great players moved to European club teams in their teens and early
twenties (Eakin, 2017). European leagues like the English Premier League and the Spanish La
Liga consist of numerous Brazilian players over the last few decades. According to Statista’s
data, approximately 1,219 professional Brazilian footballers currently play abroad. Such leagues
began a period of rapid economic growth, which led to their increased financial ability to seek
out Brazil’s star players (de Vasconcellos Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009). Since Brazilian clubs can
encounter economic gain through selling their players abroad, a complicated financial balance
must be made at home to ensure the longevity of Brazil’s club football future.
Additionally, the strong cultural ties behind football led to the cultivation of the
“Brazilian Dream.” The new-found dream emphasizes the desire for young people to devote their
lives to being future football stars (de Vasconcellos Ribeiro & Dimeo, 2009). The stronghold of
football success throughout the nation has developed a significant point for Brazil to form its
national identity around.
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Michael Billig posits that national identity gains a permanent foothold since tokens of
Brazil’s cultural makeup get reemphasized consistently (Jung, 2021). These signifiers are
ever-present through the portrayal of pop stars, telenovela stars, and sporting heroes that
individuals can admire. Success through players like Garrincha and Pelé in World Cup victories
in 1958, 1962, and 1970 helped amplify Gilberto Freyre’s ideas of the racial and cultural mixture
as a method towards national success (Eakin, 2017). Although most modern fans were not
around to watch Pelé in his prime, as “an institution,” Pelé exists as a mythic figure throughout
Brazil (DaMatta, 2012). Brazil’s star football players receive high acclaim throughout the nation
and globally.
Nevertheless, the racism faced by the nation’s Black players persists throughout modern
football culture. The national team's star-studded roster primarily consists of Black players, yet
the coaches and club managers typically come from a white racial background. So, many players
have to grapple with racial abuse from spectators and have limited ways to combat such
damaging attacks. Nevertheless, reaching Brazil’s elites and the povo demographic through
football exemplifies a unifying cultural attachment within the nation. Football, television, and
social tensions exist through an intertwined web rooted in Brazil’s cultural history that ultimately
structures the nation’s identity.
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