This chapter explores the 1950 comedy film Aviso aos Navegantes (Warning to Sailors), a classic of the slapstick chanchada genre. The chapter examines the role of lead actors Oscarito and Grande Otelo in representing an idea of the Brazilian underdog, in ways that make fun of racial and social hierarchies and suggest nationalist resistance against foreign exploitation.

The Introduction makes the case for the book’s structure and approach, an idiosyncratic selection of ten key moments in the history of Rio de Janeiro, illuminating the ways in which tricksters, newcomers and strivers continually remake the city. It introduces themes of the legacy of slavery in the violence and inequality of the city, as well as its cultural expressions.

This chapter connects the burning and removal of the Praia do Pinto favela in 1969, the development of the Cidade Alta housing project on Rio’s north side, the development of the middle-class apartment complex Selva de Pedra on the former site of Praia do Pinto, and the preeminent soap operas of Globo Television in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The chapter shows how the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964-1985) carried out a process of state-sponsored gentrificaion through favela removal and subsidized development for the conservative middle class.

This chapter explores the 1936 professional soccer season in Rio de Janeiro, and the best-of-three final between the Flamengo and Fluminense clubs. The chapter concentrates on the emergence of Black players in an increasingly professional league, and their creation of a distinctive Brazilian style of play.

This chapter explores the images of urban slavery created by French painter and lithographer Jean-Baptiste Debret. The artist sketched these images during his sojourn in Rio in the 1810s-1830s, and published them as a volume of lithographs upon return to France. They revealed the omnipresence of slavery in the streets of Rio, including both its grinding violence and manifestations of resistance and cultural invention.

This chapter explores the composition of Chiquinha Gonzaga’s hit song, “Corta-jaca” (the jack-fruit cutter) and its enduring resonance. The chapter traces Gonzaga’s career, her tumultuous personal life, and her unlikely success as a divorced woman who became a professional musician and composer. The chapter places her in the context of the end of the Brazilian Empire and birth of the Republic of Brazil, and the Pereira Passos urban reforms in Rio.

Did I really write an entire book about the cultural history of Rio de Janeiro without mentioning Aldir Blanc? Let me rectify that immediately. Blanc (1946–2020) was one of Brazil’s great lyricists and a chronicler of everyday life as slippery and compelling as Machado de Assis. Blanc grew up in the densely populated neighborhoods of the Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, far from fashionable beachside neighborhoods of Copacabana and Ipanema. He earned his degree in psychiatry and pursued that profession for several years, first in a large hospital, caring for the severely mentally ill, then in his own practice. These experiences shaped his creative work – he became a peerless observer of the daily lives of Rio’s less glamorous residents – the working stiffs, the hard-luck hustlers, the low-budget romantics. And he brought to this task a mode of inquiry that was both clinical and empathetic.

This chapter explores key works by sculptor and painter Lygia Clark and author Clarice Lispector. The chapter notes that although these women came from very different backgrounds, with Clark a daughter of the Catholic provincial elite and Lispector arriving in Brazil as a penniless, Jewish refugee escaping the pogroms of Eastern Europe, their careers had similar trajectories and explored similar themes of female interiority. The chapter compares their innovative works of the early 1960s and the artistic context that allowed them to emerge.

This chapter explores the relocation and upgrading of the Feira de São Cristóvão or St. Christopher’s Fair, a flea market on Rio’s north side, created by northeastern migrants to Rio in the 1940s, and long associated with working-class northeastern culture in the cosmopolitan southeast. The chapter sets the modernization of the fair in the context of neoliberal reform in the city.