EM TEMPOS DE TIRO AO ÁLVARO: FORMAS DO DIREITO E CENSURA AO SAMBA NA DITADURA MILITAR BRASILEIRA (1964-1985

Abstract

The study of the law presupposes reflections on the ethical and political aspects of the history of the legal system. In the case of Brazil, it is important to highlight the role of censorship of public entertainment in the representation of conflicts between the law and attempts to control the social imaginary through the control of art. Among the censored artistic productions is samba, a central musical genre in the debates about the definition of national identity, which encompasses themes related to customs and the political conceptions of Brazilian society. In light of this, this paper questions: how did the juridical-administrative structure of the Brazilian Military Dictatorship function in the institutional exercise of censorship of samba between the years 1964 and 1985? hus, it seeks to understand to what extent the authoritarian regime mobilized law and the administrative infrastructure of the State, at a legislative and interpretative level, to exercise censorship against the modern and urban samba that captured the attention of the Brazilian people. This is a descriptive research, based on documentary and bibliographic sources, with consultation of the digital collection of the National Archives Information System (SIAN). In this regard, in the first instance, the use of archival documents as a means of researching the normative universe of rules and exceptions established by the Brazilian Military Regime from 1964 onwards is elucidated. Next, the historical legal modifications related to censorship are presented, with a focus on the instrumentalization of normative types by the Military Dictatorship. Building on this, the fourth chapter examines the institutional path and the respective justifications of the opinions from the Censorship Division regarding the compositions of Adoniran Barbosa, an exponent of São Paulo's samba, during the military regime. In light of this, it is understood that censorship behaved in a discontinuous and complex manner, in interdependence with the political status of the regime, oscillating between political censorship and the protection of moral values. Samba, with a focus on Adoniran Barbosa's compositions, served to musically portray the contradictions between the celebration and denunciation of exclusionary national modernization, representing the different voices present in this multifaceted social process.