Abstract

MAIA, Suzana. Identifying the un-named whiteness: race, body, and nation in representations of Gisele Bündchen in the transnational media. Cad. Pagu [online]. 2012, n.38, pp. 309-341. ISSN 0104-8333.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0104-83332012000100011.

This article examines the discursive configurations that associate the body of top model Gisele Bündchen to the body of the Brazilian nation, and analyses the ways through which these configurations define what means to be Brazilian according to discourses that circulate in Brazilian and transnational media. In order to do that, I use images of Gisele to interrogate the racial formations in the two contexts and to examine how theses formations are being reconfigured due to recent changes in the demographic and political contexts in Brazil and in the United States. Following the studies of racial relations in the two countries, I adopt a framework developed by the studies that focus on the construction of whiteness.

Keywords : Whiteness; Racial Relations; Representations.