Brutality Garden: Tropicália and the Emergence of a Brazilian Counterculture

CHAPTER 4 In the Adverse Hour: Tropicália Performed and Proscribed

66666666666666 4 IN THE ADVERSE HOUR TROPICÁLIA PERFORMED AND PROSCRIBED T o fully appreciate the controversy generated by Tropicália, it is necessary to remember that many mpb artists, particularly the protest singers, maintained an ambivalent, if not antagonistic, relationship with the mass media. Sérgio Ricardo , the artist who was booed off stage at the 1967 TV Record festival, has provided insights into the tension between committed artists and media professionals. Moments before his disastrous performance, Ricardo remembers a backstage encounter with Paulo Machado de Carvalho, the station’s owner: In that dressing room corridor of the Paramount Theater, two antagonistic universes whose alliance had led to stagnation confronted each other. One universe presented its artistic product, and the other facilitated its sale with one motivation in mind: profit. One side was interested in prestige and consecration; the other in money. Both sides depended on each other.Businessisbasedonhardmathematics,inwhichsomeproductsare replaced by others when sales decline. Art is dynamic and free by nature and so when it becomes dependent on anything, it stagnates and only the worst products survive.1 Although not intentional, Ricardo’s denunciation of the ‘‘universe’’ of mass media resonates with Frankfurt School analyses of the ‘‘culture industry’’ as a total system that degrades art by reducing it to a mere commodity. He seems to embrace a typically modernist position that art is essentially autonomous (‘‘free and dynamic by nature’’) and only ‘‘stagnates’’ when co-opted by the media. The tropicalists began with the assumption that cultural production in the age of mass media was not an autonomous or ‘‘free’’ domain. By publicly advocating ‘‘pop’’ following the 1967 TV Record festival, Gil and Veloso implicitly acknowledged that art was ultimately a commodity for mass consumption even if it expressed opposition to dominant political and cultural institutions. Veloso stated as much in the fake movie script written for the back side of the album cover of Tropicália, ou panis et circencis. In the script composer-arranger Rogério Duprat argues that music must be understood as a commercial product for sale. He challenges the young Bahian musicians: ‘‘How will you react to the news that an album is made to sell? . . . Do you understand the risk you’re taking? Do you know you can make a lot of money with this?’’ Duprat’s provocation goes unanswered, but it suggests that the tropicalists were aware of the implications of engaging with the culture industry .This understanding informed theircompositions,which often appropriated the formal techniques of mass media oriented toward rapid communication .2 This view of art and commerce would have particularly dramatic effects as the tropicalists fashioned a public image for mass consumption. Under the direction of André Midani, their record company, Philips (later Polygram), sought to capture a youth audience, and Tropicália was readily marketable as a transgressive novelty.3 Veloso would later claim that Tropicália ‘‘was a way to create a public image while critiquing this image and knowing what was involved in the creation of a public image. In a way, we made explicit the mechanisms of marketing and exposed the commodification of popular musicians.’’4 It was not always clear, however, whether they were critiquing these mechanisms or simply using them for a competitive advantage. Another set of ambiguities were generated by the tropicalists’ ironic recycling of dated, stereotypical, or ‘‘low-brow’’ material from Brazilian culture of the archaic past and the mass-mediated present. In contrast with the seriousness and ‘‘good taste’’ of their post–bossa nova colleagues of mpb, the tropicalists consciously embraced cultural emblems considered vulgar and kitsch. The earliest press commentaries about Tropicália fixated on this dimension and interpreted the movement as a playful and ironic parody of dated styles and retrograde values. With the revival of conservative social valuesundermilitaryrule,thesegesturesservedtocritiquethelaw-and-order patriotism of the regime. Yet, as I will discuss below, the tropicalists’ use of dated material was not always parodic and scornful. In particular, their retropic ália performed and proscribed 123 lationship to the tradition of Brazilian song was curiously devoid of ironic distance, suggesting more ‘‘neutral’’ pastiches of past styles. Throughout 1968, these ambiguities would be dramatized in numerous live performances, some of them televised,which consistentlydrew substantial media attention. Indeed, the tropicalists’ musical innovations generated less controversy than their flamboyant performances of this new aesthetic. Whereas the 1967 TV Record festival provided a venue for formal...