Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture) - Hardcover

Green, James N.

4.2

60 ratings by Goodreads

9780226306384: Beyond Carnival: Male Homosexuality in Twentieth-Century Brazil (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, and Culture)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0226306380 ISBN 13: 9780226306384

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2000

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For many foreign observers, Brazil still conjures up a collage of exotic images, ranging from the camp antics of Carmen Miranda to the bronzed girl (or boy) from Ipanema moving sensually over the white sands of Rio's beaches. Among these tropical fantasies is that of the uninhibited and licentious Brazilian homosexual, who expresses uncontrolled sexuality during wild Carnival festivities and is welcomed by a society that accepts fluid sexual identity. However, in Beyond Carnival, the first sweeping cultural history of male homosexuality in Brazil, James Green shatters these exotic myths and replaces them with a complex picture of the social obstacles that confront Brazilian homosexuals.

Ranging from the late nineteenth century to the rise of a politicized gay and lesbian rights movement in the 1970s, Green's study focuses on male homosexual subcultures in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. He uncovers the stories of men coping with arrests and street violence, dealing with family restrictions, and resisting both a hostile medical profession and moralizing influences of the Church. Green also describes how these men have created vibrant subcultures with alternative support networks for maintaining romantic and sexual relationships and for surviving in an intolerant social environment. He then goes on to trace how urban parks, plazas, cinemas, and beaches are appropriated for same-sex erotic encounters, bringing us into the world of street cruising, male hustlers, and cross-dressing prostitutes.

Through his creative use of police and medical records, newspapers, literature, newsletters, and extensive interviews, Green has woven a fascinating history, the first of its kind for Latin America, that will set the standard for future works.

"Green brushes aside outworn cultural assumptions about Brazil's queer life to display its full glory, as well as the troubles which homophobia has sent its way. . . . This latest gem in Chicago's 'World of Desire' series offers a shimmering view of queer Brazilian life throughout the 20th century."—Kirkus Reviews

Winner of the 2000 Lambda Literary Awards' Emerging Scholar Award of the Monette/Horwitz Trust

Winner of the 1999 Hubert Herring Award, Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies

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From Library Journal:

This extensively researched and engagingly written dissertation by Green (history, California State Univ., Long Beach) "acts as a bridge between historical analyses of the medicolegal discourses of the 1930s and the anthropological studies of contemporary Brazilian homosexuals." Beginning with a description of male cruising in public parks at the turn of the century and concluding with the emergence, in the 1970s, of a gay and lesbian rights movement, Green's book weaves a rich and textured chronological narrative. Focusing on gay life in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, he expertly unearths the ways in which race, class, and gender operate in such areas as performance, slang, literature, prostitution, and cross dressing, noting similarities and differences to urban counterparts in America and Europe. Recommended for large public libraries.
-James E. Van Buskirk, San Francisco P.L.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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