Xuxa is like a character from a porn movie written by Baudrillard and directed by McLuhan. She's the first Latin American entertainer ever to make the Forbes list of big-money stars. Her most accessible face is as the host of a phenomenally successful Brazil-based children's show (available in most US cities on cable). But even that benign image is rife with contradictions: Xuxa's kiddie show, Xou da Xuxa , is a construct as well planned and ordered as neurosurgery, a bright and rapid-fire combination of songs, games, and teasing sexuality. Xuxa (pronounced "soo-sha") plays host in hot pants and tiny tops. She is surrounded by equally leggy teenage nymphets - the ever present paquitas , who keep the show moving and the kids in line. As a media package, Xuxa is almost perfect. Her combination of sexy moves and maternal images continues to short-circuit both the dullness of kiddie-show formulas and complaints about her erotic persona. She's Mommy and Temptress in one buns-of-steel, Aryan-wetdream package, as popular with dads as she is with the kids.
It's no accident that Xuxa's star first rose in Brazil, a country notorious for watching more TV than any other nation in the region. Xuxa is a product of mega-TV marketing: throughout South America, Xuxa's face graces not only her show, but a magazine, modeling school, travel agency, limo service, line of clothing stores, bikes, yogurt, surfboards, shampoo, cosmetics, and soup.
Amelia Simpson's book, Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity , looks at the ubiquitous pop goddess's early days as a Playboy model and soft-core porn actress, as well as her more recent successes. Simpson focuses on Xuxa as media construct and marketing device, dissecting the star's selling of "gender, race, and modernity."
The book examines Xuxa's fame and what it reveals about Brazilian culture and, by extension, the image-hungry and well-wired First World, too.
Xou da Xuxa : weekly, check local cable listings. Xuxa: The Mega-Marketing of Gender, Race, and Modernity, by Amelia Simpson, US$14.95. Temple University Press: (800) 447 1656, +1 (215) 204 8787.
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