Carnival in Brazil: First homosexual as samba queen

In recent years, the Rio Carnival has suffered from ex-President Bolsonaro’s anti-LGBTQI smear campaign. Apparently it’s different this year: For the first time, a gay man led a large parade as the flag bearer.

Morango has to pull in his stomach a bit to slip into the slip. Then the hoop skirt with sequins and embroidery is put on him. The bustier stretches slightly over the wide chest. A bit more glitter on the cheeks, crown on – then a nervous glance at the clock: it’s almost time.

Anderson Morango is about to lead his Arranco samba school across the Sapucai, the world-famous road through the Sambodrome. “Now I’m already fluttering, but if I go in there and people are cheering and dancing, then it’ll be fine,” says Morango.

It was a question of self-control for him. “And look where I am – black, poor and gay – now: at the biggest carnival show in the world. That was always my dream.”

Anderson Morango is the first man to serve as the flag bearer at Rio’s world-famous carnival. One of the most important figures of the samba schools, so to speak the flagship of the entire parade, which is also a tough competition.

Parallel to the start of Arranco, the first drops of rain fall, a car is stuck in the curve, some dancers are still missing their costumes. The tension increases – but then finally: Samba.

The stakes are high for Morango’s school. Arranco have only just managed to get promoted from the third to the second division. The third league occurs in the suburb of Madureira, the second is already allowed to go to the sambodrome.

resist in order to exist

That means: more prestige, more notoriety, more money, explains Rai Menezes from the Imperial Lins school. “Sometimes it hurts to do carnival from the bottom up,” he says. “The big schools are famous, we lack the money, the material and the time.” It’s a constant struggle. “But today we will enter the Sambadrome with determination and dignity.”

The floats are smaller, the costumes simpler, there are no lifting platforms and special tricks like in the special group schools. Resisting in order to exist is the motto of Meneze’s school, Arranco’s direct competitor. Her motto this year: Madam Sata, she was the most famous trans woman in Rio in the 1930s.

“Anyone who sees us doesn’t know what we’ve been through”

“Gay, black, poor, illiterate from the Northeast – and then he became Rio’s biggest performance artist who also did social work for others,” explains Menezes. This is also a metaphor for the samba schools in the suburbs. “Anyone who sees us shining in the spotlight has no idea what we’ve been through.”

They are also taking a stand against the intolerance of recent years, when then-President Jair Bolsonaro agitated against homosexuals, his followers cut funding for carnival and Madame Sata was removed from the official list of prominent Brazilian artists.

Thank God that time is over, says Morango. He fought against many prejudices in his life, today he carries the flag of respect. “We don’t have to be what society tells us to be,” says Morango. “At carnival, they say, people put on a mask. I take it off and show who I really am.”