Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture
by Christopher Dunn
Book Summary Information
Author: Christopher DunnEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2001-10-15
ISBN: 0807826510
Number of pages: 276
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Book Reviews of Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture
Book Review: A very, very well-done interdisciplinary study
Summary: 5 Stars
Prof. Christopher Dunn has written an impressive book about music and its role in the history and development of Brazilian Counterculture. "Brutality Garden: Tropicalia and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture" begins by covering the history of Brazilian intellectual modernism (modernismo), focusing on the contributions of Oswald de Andrade and Mario de Andrade, as well as the early development of a progressive political impulse in early to mid 20th century Brazil. Two elements emerge early: the growth of a 'orthodox' socialism in the arts and music, and a concern over the authenticity of Brasilian cultural production both for internal consumption and external export. Musically, this concern with authenticity focused on the dual phenomena of Carmen Miranda, and Bossa Nova, both of which carry either heavy non-Brazilian influences and uncomfortable racial stereotypes.
Meanwhile, the progressive impulse is subverted in a right-wing military coup (supported and encouraged by the United States) which profoundly affects the Brazilian arts and the public. Television and Opera maintain a certain degree of freedom from censorship at first, but revolutionary socialism seems unable to articulate an effective resistance.
Enter Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil. In this matrix of poltical and nationalistic uncertainty, and through the use of pastiche, dissassociative imagery, irony, parody, and a concern with the everyday frustrations of Brazilians, they construct an insurgent music that gains a wide reach and audience, while mostly flying underneath the dictatorship's radar screen. Refusing the government's attempts to force a highly nationalistic concept of unity on the populace, Tropicalia uses deploys the benign imagery of tropical paradise, only to subvert them with references (sometimes overt, sometimes oblique by necessity) to social and political trauma. The more orthodox leftists, of course, criticize Tropicalia for not directly inciting the masses to act, and instead promoting escapism. Yet Tropicalia's moment in the sun is not only threaded in the past of Brazilian historical discourse on modernity, but serves to feed a growing countercultural movement in Brazilian culture throughout the late 1960s and 1970's. By foregrounding areas of Brazilian socio-economic underdevelopment, Afro-Brazilian religion (Macumba, Candomble), and the historical legacy of Portugese colonialism, Tropicalia stakes out a lasting ground, and a usable past for Brazilian counterculture.
The book is heavy on history, and light on the explicit citation of theory, although its playful and trickster hermeneutic (well suited to its subject matter) is everywhere. Also playing a prominant role in the book is Candomble. Candomble religion plays an imporant role in the history of Tropicalia, and in the larger history of Brazilian metaphor and music. Candomble practices and practitioners occur in artistic discourses concerning the nature and center of Brazilian modernismo. Such as the 1971 painting "Primeria missa no Brasili" by Glauco Rodrigues, the song "Batmacumba" on "Tropicalia , ou panis et circensis" and on Os Mutandes first recording , Veloso's "Triste Bahia," a 1970's pop revival with roots as early as the 1930's. but especially prescient with Gil Gilberto and Veloso, and Gal Costa's tour of "Doces Barbaros" in 1976. 1977 saw Veloso's album "Bicho" and Gilberto Gil's "Refavela," both intimately concerned with Black consciousness and Candomble. Even as 1997 Gil's album "Quanta" wove discourses of the Internet with Orisha worship.
A dense book that weaves from literary and painting analysis to economic development theory and musical hermeneutics--this is a carefully written and edited interdisciplinary work of Cultural History and American/Atlantic Studies.
The author recommends the CD "Tropicalia Essentials" for use with the book. It is available on Amazon.com
After reading the book , I would also suggest "Tropicalia, ou panis et circensis" -- the original release of which appears to have been a crystalizing moment in the Tropicalia movement.
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