Some historians believe that the Tropicália Movement, one the most significant counterculture movements in Brazilian history, originated or took great influence from Oswald de Andrade’s Anthropophagic Manifesto. The most famous line in the work was: ‘To tupi or not to tupi: that is the question.’ Tupi are an indigenous people of Brazil that practiced cannibalism in the past. The statement then adopts a popular line from Hamlet, modeling its anthropophagic message by combining Brazilian culture and English phrases. The manifesto argued that Brazilian culture thrives through the ‘cannibalization’ (adopting it and modifying it in a Brazilian context) of other cultures, particularly as a way to improve upon and differentiate influence from colonizing cultures.
The Tropicália Movement began in Brazil the late 1960s. It was a creative movement that was fueled by oppression under the rule of a military government that took over the previous government of President João Goulart. The movement’s name was meant to be ironic, playing on the portrayal of Brazil as a tropical paradise. A rallying cry of the Tropicália movement was “Seja Marginal, Seja Herói,” which means “be a delinquent, be a hero.” It was described as “a creative explosion.”
The artifact I am focusing on today is the infamous musical album, Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis, which is misspelled Latin meaning Bread and Circuses. The album popularized the movement and cemented it in history. Collaborators on the album included Caetano Veloso, Gilerto Gil (a former Minister of Culture), Maria Bethânia, Gal Costa, Os Mutantes, Tom Zé, Nara Leão, Torquato Neto, and Rogério Duprat. The titular track, Miserere Nóbis, was a rock song satirizing the bourgeois. Gil and Veloso were the main writers on the album. As the album continued to gain popularity, they were imprisoned by the dictatorship government for their radical music. The album is known for bridging the genres of traditional Brazilian music and rock, further epitomizing anthropophagia. It is also known for revolutionizing Brazilian sound through anarchy. Psychedelia, samba, bossa nova, and traditional Brazilian styles are balanced and recombined throughout the album in a way that had never been done before.
The cover art was also very purposeful in portraying the message of the Tropicália Movement. The cover is an ode to the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. A large photo of some of the collaborators takes up a majority of the cover of Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis. The bold text of the title, which are in Brazil colors embody the bold, empowered resistance of the movement. Subsequent music that was created at the time became tinged with politics, as Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis had set the trend for music being used as a vehicle for political messaging.
Letícia, my language partner, began playing the first track on the album for me because I had asked her to play one of the songs. Her eyes went slightly wide as she turned to me after just the first few bars and said that she knew this song, it was played all of the time in Brazil. She started humming along. Nothing could’ve cemented more to me the lasting legacy of this movement and the music that propelled it forward.
Source: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/what-is-the-tropicália-movement/ygUB8lo7KJ2GJQ?hl=en
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