When carnival questions the limits of your own freedom

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Carnival, a space of freedom par excellence, this year breaks down yet another taboo: your own freedom. Representatives of blocks from Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo declared that they will not play some traditional marchinhas because they consider the lyrics to be sexist, racist or homophobic. Opposite and favorable reactions took over the media and social networks. What for some was understood as an attack on freedom of expression, for others, was considered another small step in the fight against discrimination and prejudice.

Marchinhas like Zezé's hair e Your hair does not deny are in the spotlight. For more than 50 years, played inside and outside halls, apparently without bothering anyone, they became the subject of discussions. As historian Maria Clementina Pereira Cunha, professor at the Institute of Philosophy and Human Sciences (IFCH), explains, “when Lamartine Babo wrote Your hair does not deny, he didn't think he was being racist. It was a moment of great success for theories of miscegenation as a differentiating framework for the country's identity. They never attacked the issue of racism, on the contrary, they made it friendly, palatable.”

Professor Maria Clementina Pereira Cunha
Professor Maria Clementina Pereira Cunha

For Sirio Possenti, professor at the Institute of Language Studies (IEL) at Unicamp, what changed was not the discriminatory connotation of the letters, but the mobilization of offended minorities. “In the past, people did not have enough organization to defend themselves. Homosexuals hid, they didn’t even want to show themselves.”

Strengthened, the feminist, gay and black movements began to question carnival lyrics. Sociologist Camila Teixeira Lima cites some examples of feminist blocs such as Pernambuco “Sink or swim”. "They [the group's participants] never played homophobic, racist, or sexist songs. What may have happened now is that the debate reached the traditional blocks and reached that white male middle class, who never had their place of speech questioned.”

According to Camila, who is a doctoral student at IFCH, the controversy arises from the strangeness on the part of the population historically unaccustomed to limits. "It's an elite that has never had its voice silenced, has always been very violent and said what it wanted. Suddenly, some groups, which have always had to fight hard to have a voice, manage to win some rights. Hence this response

Sociologist Camila Teixeira Lima
Sociologist Camila Teixeira Lima 

offensive".

In the state of Bahia, the 'Antibassy' Law was approved in 2012, which prohibits the hiring with state public money of artists who have songs in their repertoire that are offensive to oppressed populations. “You want to play the game, but it will not be with public money that you will offend groups that are in situations of oppression”, says Maíra Kubík Mano, PhD from IFCH and professor at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA),

Perhaps the most important thing about the debate is looking at the contradictions it points out, highlights Carla Vizeu, singer, composer and master at the Institute of Arts (IA). “I think it's no longer the time to say that 'the color doesn't work' or 'I wonder if he is'. It's time to portray the change that is happening. This is the artist’s social function, breaking standards, using your voice to make a difference in the world.”

Carla Vizeu is one of the authors of Marchadelas, who participates, this Tuesday (21), in the final of the 1st marchinhas competition at Tonico's Buteco, a bar in the center of Campinas. “The proposal was to put the woman’s voice at the center of what we experience at Carnival,” she explains.

Freedom of expression and censorship

The tension between freedom and limits is also highlighted by Professor Possenti as a key to understanding the controversy. “What is important is to realize that there are these forces in conflict: there is a group that thinks it can do anything, there is a group that thinks it has limits”, he points out. “All control, Freud would say, is a bore. Society represses behaviors that it considers inappropriate for its survival. In the case of marchinhas, what is boring? Are you telling me I can't have fun at your expense? Why am I not the annoying one who wants to have fun at your expense?”

professor Sirio Possenti
professor Sirio Possenti

In the field of communication, the discussion intensifies. Any limit or regulation is immediately understood by many as censorship. Freedom of expression is elevated as an absolute value. Ultimately, as Possenti points out, “I can say whatever I want. You may not like it and not read it”, recalling the words of cartoonist Laurent Sourisseau, director of Charlie Hebdo, on the program Roda Viva, in July 2015.

For Professor María Kubík, the defense of freedom of expression in these terms is in reality a defense of freedom from oppression. “It is the freedom to continue saying anything and everything even if it offends or violates someone, even if it keeps the other in a position of subordination before you.”

When it comes to language, opinions seem even more divergent. Linguists like Possenti point out that it is a theoretical mistake to fight over the use or not of a certain word. “If you change one word for another, but the situation doesn't change, in a short time that word will connote what the other connoted”, he argues. On the other hand, Kubík believes that culture should also be seen as a field of dispute. “As we exchange and change words, there may also be a cultural change. Each letter and each word is also a trench, a space for dispute and debate.”

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Writer and columnist, the sociologist was president of the National Association of Postgraduate Studies and Research in Social Sciences in the 2003-2004 biennium