Super Escolas de Samba S/A: tensões e negociações no carnaval das escolas de samba do Rio de Janeiro, em 1982

Abstract

Through research on the changes in the 1982 Rio de Janeiro carnival regulation which had proposed, at the time, a leaner parade during a period of increase in the number of samba schools financed by Jogo do Bicho (an illegal and very popular gambling game in Brazil operated on a regional basis by mobsters), this paper addresses political, economic and artistic matters regarding Rio s carnival events. In order to do so, through the guiding role of a samba school named Império Serrano which had won the parade that very year, this paper has been divided into three main parts: the character s motivation, the imperial manifest and the confrontation. Thus, in the first chapter, we focus on the concept of the "big four" the 4 greatest samba schools, the relationship between Jogo do Bicho s mobsters with the samba schools, the process of the regulation s making in order to finally analyze the context in which the samba events of the 70s and 80s took place. The second chapter refers to the proposition of Império Serrano to create a manifesto out of the carnival context in the 1982. In conclusion, in the last chapter, through the "Bum bum paticumbum prugurundum" plot aesthetics and the different ways in which carnival associations dealt with the controversial carnival regulation of that year we investigate how samba schools behaved when confronted with tensions and negotiations