By late 1960s and early 1970s, international countercultural ideas held significant sway over Brazil’s urban middle-class youth. Among the counterculture’s many challenges to societal norms was the destabilization of sexual codes and gender norms. As traditional insistence of premarital virginity and normative heterosexuality became regarded as antiquated and repressive, Brazil’s biggest stars projected unabashed sexuality and were rumored to have homosexual affairs. Singers such as Caetano Veloso and Ney Matogrosso presented themselves as androgynous, gender-bending performers and raised important questions in society about gender roles and identities. Indeed, the overwhelming popularity of such performers reflected a growing societal acceptance of deviance from traditional Brazilian constructions gender and sexuality.

Songs like Caetano Veloso’s “Leãozinho” (1977), an intimate ode of physical and emotional admiration for another man, exposed Brazilian listeners to a form of same-sex attraction. Interestingly, the song is off Veloso’s album “Bicho” and is accompanied by other songs such as “A grande borboleta.” Click here for a 1897 interview with Caetano entitled “Caetano Veloso, the Most Popular Singer/Songwriter in Brazil, Talks About Music, Sexuality, AIDS, and Creating a New Pop Nationality“, and see below to listen to a recording of “Leãozinho.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXsJsDQBExQ

Ney Matogrosso, on the other hand, was far less subtle in his subversion of traditional notions of gender and sexuality. Ney often sang entire songs in falsetto, used dramatic makeup and exotic costumes, and danced in a style that was as traditionally feminine as it was traditionally masculine. In 1978, Ney clarified his homosexuality in a magazine interview, and, in the face of widespread homophobia, he remained one of Brazil’s most famous celebrities. Below is a video of Ney performing in 1973 as the lead singer for the group Secos e Molhados.

The Dzi Croquettes, formed in Rio in 1972, became yet another expression of homosexuality and gender bending in Brazilian popular culture. Unlike the stars of Rio’s traditional drag shows, the fourteen members of The Dzi Croquettes freely mixed masculine with feminine and challenged notions of gender rigidity. In 2009, filmmakers Raphael Álvarez and Tatiana Issa released the documentary Dzi Croquettes, which went on to win several Brazilian and international awards.

In 1974, Liza Minnelli attended a Dzi Croquettes performance and became enamored with the group. Below is a photo of her with the group in 1974 and in 2012.

Liza Minnelli and the Dzi Croquettes: Then and Now