Latin American Critical Studies Working Group Discussion

Queerness in Contemporary Brazilian Music: Pablo Vittar, Gloria Groove, and the New Spaces of Musical Resistance in Brazil. 

Discussant: Marcio Bahia

The Tropicalia movement and groups such as Secos e Molhados had a decisive role in resisting ultraconservative values during the dark years of the Military Dictatorship in Brazil (1964-1985). The counterculture features and queerness of such artists constituted politicaI threats to the traditional "family values" championed by the regime. Nowadays, with the recent rise of far-right politics, the advance of ultraconservative morals and the resurgence of homophobic ideologies, what are the new spaces of musical resistance in Brazil? This presentation will argue that in times of cultural morality and political regression, Brazil has paradoxically produced a new and powerful generation of queer artists who challenge the heteronormative values of the status quo. Among them, singers such as Pablo Vittar and Gloria Groove burst the confines of a peripheral music drag scene and occupy a central position in Brazilian Pop Music. I will defend the thesis that, just like their counterparts in the 1960s and 1970s, these artists are "musical disruptors" who have become defying actors in times of political polarization and culture wars.