Homophobia and Chilean New Song

Abstract

This article aims to demonstrate that homophobia shaped not only the lives of Chilean New Song artists, but also the discourses that later researchers have constructed when writing about the movement. On the one hand, I explore the homophobia that existed during the peak years of Chilean New Song, in Chilean society in general as well as within the movement. With regards to this historic homophobia, the objective is to foreground the impact it had on musicians’ lives and the strategies they developed to cope with it. On the other, I document the ways in which homosexuality was, and to a large degree still is concealed in studies of Chilean New Song. I argue that this historiographic homophobia results in an archive with important imprecisions and incoherencies. My ultimate objective is to demonstrate that we have more to gain than to lose if we acknowledge the sexual diversity that existed within Chilean New Song.