The girl that is not the cover of the magazine: debates about race and gender

Abstract

The cover of women magazines are known for pointing out celebrities that are references in beauty, lifestyle as well as recognized by the wide audience. But when we talk about the appearance, we can notice that almost all of the celebrities chosen are white. This is one of the reasons for analyzing the topic of race in Brazil. While maintain the white body in a privileged space such as the covers, Claudia and TPM – magazines that are benchmarks in the publishing market in Brazil –, reinforce invisibility of black women. It’s intended to discuss this questions, considering that they are result of a historical process, including the “whitening ideology” and the problematic term of “Brazilian racial democracy”, that will be explained in the article. It’s also important to debate the term “race”, the way that it’s limited in the Brazilian context and question some possibilities of subversion by the political use of this term, following the thoughts of Guimarães (2002) and Schwarcz (2012).