She nonetheless regularly reminded her admirers that she wasn’t significantly courageous, and that she wanted to push herself past her concern.
“I’m an individual who’s pushed by curiosity and concern,” she stated in a 2018 interview. “If I cease to assume rationally, I do nothing. I’ve to let go of rationality to go ahead, let curiosity and concern take over, after which I’ll do something.”
Unpretentious in each method and speech, Glória Maria was particularly adored by Brazilians who, like her, got here from poverty.
“Individuals recognized along with her, they felt represented by her,” stated Pedro Bial, who co-anchored the newsmagazine “Fantastico” along with her for a decade. “It gave viewers — the poorest Brazilians, these most disadvantaged of alternatives — the expertise of residing what Glória Maria was residing on tv.”
Her ubiquitous presence on tv was additionally deeply symbolic in a rustic the place Black persons are disproportionately affected by poverty, violence and lack of alternative, regardless of making up nearly all of the inhabitants.
“Right here is that this Black lady, driving a curler coaster, having enjoyable,” stated Flávia Oliveira, a Brazilian tv presenter. “She confirmed us that the Black physique can be entitled to leisure. It’s not solely about ache, about racism, about wounds, about issues.”
Nonetheless, Glória Maria was usually the sufferer of racism. Within the Seventies, she famously filed a police grievance when a supervisor barred her from a luxurious lodge. A long time later, when she was co-hosting “Fantastico,” the primary program of its type in Brazil, viewers would name in demanding that she get replaced with a white presenter.
