Going to the Movies, Constructing Race and Gender in 1920s Brazil

In the early twentieth century, movie theaters were appearing in cities around the world, including in Brazil. Amidst an influx of European, Asian, and internal migrations, Brazilian state and moral authorities debated the role that movie theaters, which were often owned and frequented by immigrants, would play in shaping a rapidly urbanizing nation. In addition to the changing racial and ethnic identity of Brazil, movie theaters represented shifting gender norms. Movie-going women, who could be seen strolling in streets on their way to a matinee or mingling with strangers in the darkness of a theater, challenged notions of gendered honor in which respectable women did not circulate in public. Among other critics, writers and cartoonists debated whether women who went to the movies were fashionably modern or threats to the social order, representing these two poles in racialized and ethnicized ways. Depending upon their relationship to urban space, movie-going women might be depicted as alluring “francesas” (Frenchwomen) or gullible “lituanas” (Lithuanians, a codename for Jews). By highlighting the intersection of space and gender in Brazilian literature and cartoons, I assess how a woman’s presence in public streets affected interpretations of both her sexual morality and her racial and ethnic identity. Finally, drawing upon oral histories and film school applications, I explore how movie-going women identified themselves and their roles in the urbanization of Brazil.