‘Você Quase Ganhou Um Orquídea Viva!’: Dissimulação Queer e Desejo Homossocial em Os Cafajestes de Ruy Guerra

This article will examine queer themes in one of the earliest examples of Cinema Novo, Ruy Guerra’s Os cafajestes. Through a close reading of the film, this article traces queer themes in both the plot and in the film’s broader political message. As such, this article explores one way in Western queer theory might be used to understand Brazilian political cinema of the 1960s. It finds, in part, that when a queer critique complements aMarxist perspective, Os cafajestes can be shown to present viewers with a potent and multifaceted diagnosis of oppression.