PERSPECTIVAS INTERSECCIONAIS NA MÚSICA “AS GRANFINAS” DO DISCO QUARTO DE DESPEJO: CAROLINA MARIA DE JESUS CANTANDO SUAS COMPOSIÇÕES (1961)

Abstract

The Brazilian writer Carolina Maria de Jesus (1914-1977) denounced, in her most widespread work, Quarto de Despejo: Diário de Uma Favelada (Child of the dark) (1960), some of the Brazilian social ills, such as hunger, racism, classism, and sexism. Such denunciations are also present in her namesake album, the object of this study, released in the following year: Quarto de despejo: Carolina Maria de Jesus cantando suas composições (Quarto de despejo: Carolina Maria de Jesus singing her compositions) (1961). Thus, observing the intersectionality perspectives (AKOTIRENE, 2020) present in the course of the author’s work, as well as the social-historical context and the “lugar de fala”  (standpoint of speech) (RIBEIRO, 2020) that involves the ninth song of the album, “As granfinas”, the aim is to verify how the intersections between race, gender, and class, of the portrayed female characters in this song, manifest. This analysis considers that, despite sharing gender issues, the female representations that emerge are opposites: on one side the “granfina”, a white woman confined to the mythological construction of the gender rolls ideas, and on the other, the maid, stigmatized to maternal and domestic rolls added to racism, due to the sum of the colonial invention of gender and race.