The same policy also promoted the neutralization of Afro-Brazilian culture. Thus, capoeira - the Afro-Brazilian fighting art disguised as dance - became the national version of martial arts, supported by the government and confined to closed spaces called academias. The samba schools presented during Carnival in the 1920s were tamed into parades which, over the past 100 years, have been controlled by numerous rules defining acceptable themes, the streets where they can be held, their timing, dress and, ultimately, the racial features of their queens. Samba as a musical genre also suffered great modifications, with the introduction of Western instruments and arrangements that created what became the famous bossa nova, as the white elite and middle class gradually adopted the new rhythm. While recognizing that every culture is the product of a continuous process of assimilation of new influences and adaptations to current circumstances, Brazilian  
samba suffered a whitening process, its original rhythm relegated to second place, giving the world bossa nova, which became the soundtrack of Brazil's rise to international fame during the 1960s. In addition, until the 1990s, the visual media (television, cinema, magazines and advertising) were massively white, minimizing the exposure of Afro-Brazilians (Araujo, 2004).