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Neo-Authoritarian Masculinity in Brazilian Crime Film
About this book
Analyzing how masculinity is portrayed in Brazilian crime film, connecting movie messages to twenty-first-century issues
An incisive analysis of contemporary crime film in Brazil, this book focuses on how movies in this genre represent masculinity and how their messages connect to twenty-first-century sociopolitical issues. Jeremy Lehnen argues that these films promote an agenda in support of the nation’s recent swing toward authoritarianism that culminated in the 2018 election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro.
Lehnen examines the integral role of masculinity in several archetypal crime films, most of which foreground urban violence, including Cidade de Deus, Quase Dois Irmãos, Tropa de Elite, O Homem do Ano, and O Doutrinador. Within these films, Lehnen finds representations that criminalize the poor, marginalized male; emasculate the civilian middle-class male intellectual, casting him as unable to respond to crime; and portray state security as the only power able to stem increasing crime rates.
Drawing on insights from masculinity studies, Lehnen contends that Brazilian crime films are ideologically charged mediums that assert and normalize the presence of the neo-authoritarian male within society. This book demonstrates how gendered scripts can become widely accepted by audiences and contribute to very real power structures beyond the sphere of cinema.
A volume in the series Reframing Media, Technology, and Culture in Latin/o America, edited by Héctor Fernández L’Hoeste and Juan Carlos Rodríguez
Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
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Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction: Neo-Authoritarian Masculinity in the New Millennium
- 1. Being a Man in Brazil: Masculinity in Brazilian Crime Film since Cinema Novo
- 2. Spectacular Men and the Violence They Perform: Cidade de Deus
- 3. Brotherhoods of Exception: Power, Politics, and Masculinity in Quase Dois Irmãos
- 4. It’s a Man’s World: Neo-Authoritarian Masculinity in Tropa de Elite
- 5. Men on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown: O Homem do Ano
- 6. A Superhero of Their Own: O Doutrinador and Neo-Authoritarian Masculinity
- Conclusion: The Rise of the Neo-Authoritarian Masculine Paradigm
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index