The other side of the drama: the flesh that resists

het vlees dat standhoudt

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze contextually how Jeferson Tenório's work “O Avesso da Pele” (The Dark Side of the Skin) and the songs “Negro Drama” and “A Carne”, performed by Racionais MC's and Elza Soares, respectively, relate to each other by highlighting the marks of racial and structural violence, as well as forms of black resistance in Brazil. To this end, it is necessary to contextualize racial issues linked to racial violence in Brazil as topics of black resistance, in addition to identify representations of structural racism in the work and songs cited based on experiences of exclusion, violence, and stigmatization of the Brazilian black population, and, finally, understand the dialogue between the three works in view of the connections between black memory, identity, and resistance in view of the reconstructive approaches to individual and collective black identity and resistance represented. To support this analysis, the study in question drew on theoretical and bibliographic postulates such as Costa and Azevedo (2016), Santos (1983), and Abreu and Moser (2023) regarding the themes involved in racial and police violence linked to racist ideologies, as well as the literary work “O Avesso da Pele” (The Other Side of the Skin) by Jeferson Tenório, in an intertextual overview of the songs “A Carne” by Elza Soares and “Negro Drama” by Racionais MC's. Therefore, this study can contribute not only to the approach to the struggle of black people and racial issues in contemporary Brazil, but also illustrates literature as a locus of dialogue with other arts.