Mirrors of Whiteness

Media, Middle-Class Resentment, and the Rise of the Far Right in Brazil

Mauro Porto, Mauro P. Porto

• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780822947523
• eBook ISBN: 9780822989288
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

In Mirrors of Whiteness, Mauro P. Porto examines the conservative revolt of Brazil's white middle class, which culminated with the 2018 election of far-right candidate Jair Bolsonaro. He identifies the rise of a significant status panic among middle-class publics following the relative economic and social ascension of mostly Black and brown low-income laborers. The book highlights the role of the media in disseminating "mirrors of whiteness, " or spheres of representation that allow white Brazilians to legitimate their power while softening or hiding the inequalities and injustices that such power generates. A detailed analysis of representations of domestic workers in the telenovela Cheias de Charme and of news coverage of affirmative action by the magazine Veja demonstrates that they adopted whiteness as an ideological perspective, disseminating resentment among their audiences and fomenting the conservative revolt that took place in Brazil between 2013 and 2018.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 | Whiteness, Middle-Class Identity, and Media
• 2 | Democratic Decay in Brazil
• 3 | Status Panic and the Middle-Class Revolt
• 4 | Domestic Workers and Whiteness in the Telenovela Cheias de Charme
• 5 | Affirmative Action and White Backlash in the Newsmagazine Veja
• Epilogue
• Notes
• References
• Index