“The same extraliterary insults are repeated tirelessly”: Homophobia and prejudice in the repeception on Mário de Andrade

Abstract

In the society in which Mário de Andrade lived, there were various forms of prejudice, and his study offers a perspective for understanding artistic performance. Since the beginning of the 1920s, the São Paulo newspapers A Gazeta and Folha da Noite, and the magazine D. Quixote in Rio de Janeiro produced prejudiced content to ridicule the modernist group. Writers, journalists, and comedians have directed the most aggressive content against Mário de Andrade. They use specific artistic forms such as poetry, prose, and caricature. Different authors have used artistic resources to promote prejudiced speech, however, art is also an element of questioning prejudice. The author considered ideas from Queer Theory and chose visual material to comment on homophobic speech. This essay is based on documentation that is unknown to scholars of modernism and Mário de Andrade. Knowledge of its existence is a condition for overcoming prejudice.