Popular music against the grain of hegemonic sexual policies: 70's Brazil

This text follows the paths of Brazilian popular music history in the 1970s, which witnessed the emergence, in an unprecedented proportion, of composers (male and female), singers (male and female) and songs talking about women, sexuality and gender relations eroticization issues. Thus, different approaches, other than the usual ones, are developed about issues involving affective-sexual relations, to the extent that these included, in the background, topics concerning the gay universe and androgyny. One of my main goals here is to understand the meaning of this historical moment when – under a military dictatorship and a supposed ‘cultural void’– other forms of action and/or political protest gained strength and social expression. I intend to point out the widening of the notion of politics in circumstances in which the feminist notion “the personal is political” gained space and when body policies were an equally legitimate way to assert the presence in this world of social subjects that were not always politically valued. To this end, production in the field of popular music – from songs and their interpretations to album covers – are elements that will lead to a reflection on the links between culture and politics.