UCLA Center for the Study of Women

Rolland Barthes (1961, 2007) suggests that modern sporting spectacles have assumed the primary social role theatre once had in Greco-Roman antiquity, gathering diverse groups of people under a shared experience. He draws a direct relationship between sporting spectacles and national communities. In the case of Brazil, soccer does the trick. Brazil is the only country to have played in every World Cup, winning the championship five times. In the next 10 minutes, I will run across the span of 70 years, juggling between the chronology of the sport with a series of benchmark events surrounding the history of Brazil’s political black movement. We begin with the Abolition of Slavery in 1888, and conclude with the country first victory in the 1958 World Cup, gesturing towards future discussions. In between, I will historicize the (late) process of inclusion of visibly black males on national soccer teams in the 1930s, stirring up a dramatic revolution within the image Brazilian had of themselves.