Rock’s and Mass Media’s Impact on Latin American narrative 1968-1984

• In Event: Invited Session - Mass Media and Storytelling: Strategies in the Global Era

Abstract

The emergence of rock as counterculture engendered new cultural identities for youth around the world and impacted the development of Latin American narrative as well. In late 1960s Mexican writers José Agustín and Parménides García Saldaña, developed what came to be known as literatura de la Onda and adopted rock’s iconoclastic stance and countercultural practices in a literature that bridged high and mass media culture; in the process they consciously broke with literary traditions while putting into question previous notions of national identity and acceptable practices in literature. In the 1970s, the impact of the Onda impacted the work of Colombian Andrés Caicedo, evident in his novel ¡Que viva la música! (1977). In late 1960s in Brazil emerged the Tropicália movement, led by legendary musicians Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil; Tropicália movement linked itself with rock music and with the historical Brazilian avant garde idea of antropofagía proposed by Oswald de Andrade. The ideas proposed by the Tropicalists are present in Ignácio de Loyola Brandão’s iconic and originally censored novel Zero (written in 1969, published until 1974). Lastly, Argentine Marcelo Cohen’s El país de la dama eléctrica (1984) explores the impact of rock and identity for the psychological exiles during the military dictatorship of the 70s; in his work the rocker’s identity is portrayed as part of a postnational, countercultural tribe whose obstinate defense of its countercultural ideals offered hope during the darkest days of guerra sucia. My presentation explores the connections between literature and rock as a mass medium

Author

• Javier F Gonzalez, Augustana College