Rising Up to Fall Down: Women, Political Dissent and the Gender Barrier in Brazilian and Argentine Cinema

Latin American countries went through periods of military intervention from the 1960´s to the 1990s. During these decades, resistance and revolutionary groups emerged in these nations, as strong oppositions to the military rulings and their ideologies. A lot of scholarship has investigated these groups, which have been portrayed in many Latin American films. Nevertheless, very little has been written about the role of women within such groups. Argentina and Brazil are two countries in which women were very active in resistance groups during their dictatorships. They were very important in groups such as the Montoneros, in Argentina and the Revolutionary Movement October 8th, in Brazil. The Brazilian films Araguaya - A Conspiração do Silêncio and O que é isso, Companheiro?, as well as the Argentinian movies Infancia Clandestina, Montoneros. Una Historia and Noche de los Lápices, portray examples of revolutionary women and reveal the challenges and the contradictions their revolutionary role reveal. This work analyzes how those films depict the role of women during the military dictatorship of the 60´s, 70´s and early 80´s, showing the dominance of patriarchy within those organizations that paradoxically questioned the established order in those countries. This work, thus, intends to explore to what extent gender relations in revolutionary groups, as depicted in these movies, contradict their quest for an egalitarian society. Furthermore, it also aims to analyze the representation of gender-based violence perpetrated by official authorities in those authoritarian regimes.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Latin American Studies

Grantor dc:publisher

University of Kansas

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Nogueira Fontes de Castro, Caio

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Tosta, Luciano

• Argentina
• Brazil
• Cinema
• dictatorship
• gender
• guerrilla

Language dc:language.iso

en

Dc Identifier Other

https://www.proquest.com/LegacyDocView/DISSNUM/28499441

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:kuscholarworks.ku.edu:1808/38255