Ruby Buttolph
Thesis Title (MLitt)
QUEER FEMALE AND TRANSMASCULINE IDENTITIES IN CONTEMPORARY BRAZILIAN MUSIC
My research explores the production and performance of music by Brazilian queer women and transmasculine people. Despite Brazil’s deep-rooted homophobia and transphobia, some of the country’s most popular musical artists are gay men, trans women and drag queens. However, this popularity is not afforded to queer female or transmasculine artists – neither in the charts nor in the existing scholarship about queer music and performance. My research aims to explore how these groups use music to challenge hegemonic narratives in Brazilian culture and how they question and subvert traditional performances of Brazilian music. By first focusing on theory, activism, cinema and the MPB genre, I build a comprehensive foundation from which to introduce my central research topic. I conduct a digital ethnography of Brazilian queer female and transmasculine activists on social media to understand the nature of these online communities before exploring how music fits into this context in the contemporary digital age. Online queer communities in Brazil are a fervent hub of cultural production, activism and advocacy. I suggest that the music shared in these spaces acts as a form of activism that highlights the experiences of queer women and transmasculine people who subvert the preexisting ideas about whose music is worth listening to.