Os dentes elétricos dos canibais: uma cartografia dos fluxos semióticos na canção de resistência da década de 1960

Abstract

We seek to operate a mixture, a theoretical hybridization between the semiotic theory of French matrix, some philosophical assumptions (SPINOZA, 2007; NIETZSCHE, 2011), and music theory. Considering that every song is an act of speech that produces realities that emerge from plays of force and power relations, I analyze two of the different strands of Brazilian popular music that made resistance to power during the period of repression that crossed the end of the 1960s in Brazil: Tropicália and the group popularly known as MMPB (Modern Brazilian Popular Music). The corpus consists of the four songs that reached the first positions in the III Festival of Brazilian Popular Music in 1967, since, among these four songs, there are two representatives of each strand. We start from the hypothesis that the tropicalist song uses a power of connections that operates from an aesthetic affirmation materialized in an anti-dialectical pluralism that aims at a reciprocal possession between different styles and forms (originating in different cultures and social strata) despising the boundaries imposed by the power, which reverberates in a more festive and, in a way, "Dionysian" resistance; while the MMPB seems to express a reactive militancy, an ascetic search for a state of affairs based on an ideal and a dialectic based on aesthetic sorting and "purity." We attribute the same importance to the four different sub-strata present in the songs: melody, harmony, rhythm and letter. Tatit's theory (2007) gives a good account of the relationship between melody and lyrics, other semioticians such as Carmo Junior (2002) and Dietrich (2009), help us in research related to harmony and rhythm. The investigation of the relation between the works and the forms of resistance adopted by its enunciators is realized mainly in the analysis of the passions resulting from the affections, for that our methodology articulates to the semiotic theory the thought of authors like Spinoza and Nietzsche. The intention is to show the different forms of confrontation with dictatorial power without any judgments of prescriptive value or intention; it is a question of looking at different positions in the same situation, in order to understand an important part of our history.