Remixing Mixedness
Chapter 5 explores the transnational dimensions of racial imaginings through the vision of Brazil as a mixed-race tropical paradise in both U.S. and Brazilian productions. U.S. hip-hop music videos such as Snoop Dogg and Pharrell’s “Beautiful” (2003), will.i.am’s “I Got It from My Mama” (2007), and the Hollywood film Fast Five (2011) exploit Brazil’s image as a racial paradise and a site of black male independence, based on its reputation as a racial democracy with a large mixed-race population and the imagery of the Brazilian mulata. The chapter ends with how the Brazilian state presented the Rio 2016 Olympics bidding process and the London 2012 handover ceremony on a global stage through images of multiculturalism.