Only the strong: the global adventure of capoeira in cinema

Abstract

Capoeira is a type of fighting game or dance from afro-Brazilian origin, that in recent decades has gained wide global expansion. Part of the success in the globalization of this form of art results from their inclusion in American cinema, in particular the production, in the nineties , of the movie Only The Strong . It was through the film that thousands of young people around the world , felt motivated to start capoeira. This article seeks to question how capoeira was represented in the film and to identify the elements of the U.S. global culture that were mobilized to present capoeira to an international audience. It’s also important to know how the movie influenced the new non- Brazilians practitioners outside of Brazil. To get these answers, we will analyze the movie , and introduce a case study that examines the journey of a capoeira group in Poland , whose path was started from the viewing of the film Only the Strong.

Keywords

• Capoeira
• cinema
• globalization