“O adolescente mais velho do Brasil”: investigações sobre as representações de Dinho Ouro Preto associadas à juventude

Abstract

The aim of this research is to understand how representations of the singer Dinho Ouro Preto, 59, lead vocalist of the band Capital Inicial, are constructed, particularly in relation to the aspect of youthfulness. We focus on a male celebrity who is thus favored by privileges of various kinds, aiming to bring to light shared social values in Brazilian society – values mainly linked to an overemphasis on youth at the expense of aging, often viewed with a negative perspective (referred to as ageism). We seek to observe how the singer's image disseminated in different empirical materials triggers representations of youth. The corpus comprises two types of empirics: sets of posts from the singer's official Instagram profile (selected by themes relevant to our investigation), and songs from Capital Inicial (from three albums). We opted for a framing analysis (Bateson and Goffman) to capture the construction of meanings by different actors – Dinho, the media, and the public –, followed by a comparison of these different frames. The analysis reveals a performance by the singer associated with representations of youth that are recognized and valued by a large portion of his fans. The posts on Instagram basically reveal an endorsement from followers of the idol's presentation without wrinkles or gray hair and an athletic body, in addition to a lifestyle associated with youth. The exception was the period in which he let his hair grow and was faced with a strong negative reaction, which associated him with old age and femininity. Dinho's performance as the band's frontman is marked by intense movement on stage, surrender to the music, communication with the public and a certain irreverence, characteristics that bring him closer to the young/adolescent condition. These same elements valued on the social network and in artistic performance are seen negatively by music critics and people who are not necessarily admirers of Dinho Ouro Preto. The way the artist's aging is presented, with an aesthetic focus on the valorization of youth and adolescence, has been compared to that of others from the same generation and musical genre. The research results point to the circulation of social values such as ageism and sexism.