MEMORY AND REPRESENTATION OF THE MALE FIGURE IN GAÚCHA TRADITIONALIST

Abstract

To recognize the Rio-grandense cultural imaginary represented in works with great repercussion among the public is one of the motivations of this research, whose purpose is to deal with one main problem: how is the male figure depicted departing from the identification of his profile, values, and ideals, in regional traditionalist songs written by the end of the XXth century to the XXIst? The corpus of analysis is composed by songs that, as the bibliographical references point out, are considered popular and widely recognized by the listening public in the southern Brazilian context, building up products of mass culture. The songs were selected according to the following criteria: written or recorded by José Cláudio Machado, one of the most popular artists of the gaúcho traditionalism; reference to the male figure in the lyrics; songs recorded by groups or interpreters who achieved distinction among the public. The bibliographical research is circumscribed to the analysis of the lyrics, emphasizing neither the melody nor the musical arrangements as a point of reflection. In the composition of such lyrics, the representation of male figure seems to be an important part of the preservation of male figure linked to the rural area along with the preservation of values and cultural assumptions of genre and male stereotypes worshiped in Rio Grande do Sul since the XIXth in order to maintain certain features of bravery, superiority, and virility of the gaúcho man. In this perspective, the construction of male figure memory is linked to a conservative and patriarchal vision, which entails the upgrading of the cultural past.