Gender as an idol in pop music

Femininities and phallocentrisms in music videos made in Brazil

Abstract

Considering musical performances as dimensions of the lived experience and spaces for the production of knowledge about gender structures, this article reflects on how Brazilian/Latin pop singers' fabrications of corporeality, expressed in music videos, negotiate with positions of idolisation of the phallus as a construct of performativity. It can be seen that, while restoring phallocentrism, these corporealities also reiterate an idea of sexual freedom and female emancipation, which show how the play of contradictions in pop and its relationship with celebrity systems reiterate gender fictions. In theoretical and methodological terms, we propose an articulation between performance studies and gender performativity for the debate on the embodiments staged by the singers Ludmila, Anitta and Luísa Sonza in the music videos Socadona, Envolver and SentaDONA.