Beyond Brazilian Exoticism: Dzi Croquettes and Countercultural Music Theater in 20th-Century Authoritarian Brazil

The paper discusses Dzi Croquettes, a bawdy musical theatre troupe composed of thirteen multi-talented men that performed between 1972 and 1980 in Brazil. It examines the group’s relevance in the use of non-traditional forms of politics and the role of the dictatorship and its economic boom for, paradoxically, inspiring new forms of subversion. On the one hand, the group’s trajectory shows that state efforts to align cultural practices with official ideologies have consequences that span past the official end of dictatorships. This could explain why, despite their success in Brazil and Europe, the troupe remained in oblivion until the 2009 release of a documentary film about them. On the other hand, interest in Dzi Croquettes has recently exploded in a new body of scholarly research, in theatrical productions, and in a series of art exhibitions, showing that state and intellectual attempts to curb and dismiss cultural phenomena are often futile in the long run. In addition to an a-historical human’s fascination with discovering and reviving that which was hidden, new cultural and historical dynamics have made them more legible as “queer theorists avant la lettre,” thus allowing Dzi Croquettes to be interpreted beyond the model of Brazilian exoticism.