Música de protesto e indústria cultural : do espectro subversivo ao reacionário

Abstract

In this dissertation we draft the social and political role played by music in Western society, starting from its educational function, in which music becomes functional in the formation of the subject as a citizen, going through its social function, in which music acquires the status of a work from art and private property, to its political function, in which music becomes a vehicle for political messages, a means of political mobilization and engagement. As a focus, we will deal with the notion of protest music, an artistic-aesthetic object peculiar to the urban culture of contemporary society, which appears in the song form – “protest song” – as a means of denunciation, protest and mobilization against various forms of oppression. : political, relating to the bourgeois State, socioeconomic, relating to the capitalist system, historical, relating to colonization processes, and structural, relating to the forms of violence carried out today against social minorities. In the quest to go beyond a mere technical and qualitative analysis concerning the structural elements of the song form – harmonics, melodic and rhythmic –, we will focus on the problem of form brought by protest music, based on the philosophy of Theodor W. Adorno . Taking into account the author's musical writings and his criticism of the cultural industry, we will discuss the hypothesis that protest music, as a cultural commodity, sabotages its own disruptive and emancipatory intentions in relation to the subject and the dominant society, ultimately serving as a vehicle for political-media manipulation. Finally, we will verify how the relationship between individual and society mediated by protest music results in the formation and exacerbation of a reactionary subjectivity, mystified by a “subversive subjectivity”.