Brazilian queer cinema and the destabilization of hegemonic masculinity in large urban areas

An analysis of the films Hard paint and Body electric

Abstract

This article analyses the city as a public space that allows us to understand tensions that homosexuality causes towards hegemonic masculinity, through the feature-length films Hard Paint (2018) and Body Electric (2017). Film analysis will be adopted as a methodology (Aumon-tand Marie, 2004) and this paperwork will focus on the narrative of the scenes in which parties take place on the street. Discussions about the construction of filmic space will be based on Bordwell (1995), Gaudreaulta nd Jost (2009) and Costa’s thoughts (2013a and 2013b). The concept of hegemonic masculinity will be based on Connell and Messerschmidt’s work (2013). In order to understand the history of demands for rights by minority groups with dissident sexualities, as well as the relationship between large urban areas and the trajectory of such political struggles, this paper will present as a theoretical basis the works of Lacerda (2015), Lacerda Júnior (2015 ), Nagime (2016), Lopes (2016), Louro (2018), Galuppo (2019), Ramalho (2020), Quinalha (2022) and Halberstam (2023). As a result, it was possible to understand that queer cinema raises provocations and questions to hegemonic paradigms and, through narratives that distance themselves from a pursuit of assimilation, the analysed films portray possibilities of reinventing cities. The presence of the protagonists of both movies at parties attended by heterosexual individuals puts prejudices into tension and destabilizes heterosexual male characters’ pursuit of domination. The city, however, is also portrayed in the films as a public space where plurality and new ways of both being and understanding the world find ways to resist and live the differences proudly.