The Moon is Flicts: Political and Queer Uses of Negativity in a Brazilian Picturebook
Another take on the relationship between literature and political
criticism can be found in “The Moon is Flicts: Political and Queer Uses of Negativity in a Brazilian Picturebook.” In the article, Elisa M. F. Santos performs a queer reading of the first fully colored picture book printed in Brazil, Ziraldo’s Flicts (1969). The book, published during the violent military dictatorship that ruled the country from 1964 to 1985, differs from most children’s books in its rather unhappy and hopeless ending. Using Lee Edelman’s concept of queer negativity, Santos attempts to unleash Flicts’ activist potential by exploring how Ziraldo’s employment of negative affects in a children’s book works as a form of political dissent. The text argues that protagonist Flicts’ “embracement of affects such as failure, isolation and withdrawal can be seen as a tool for political action” by exposing “the potential of altogether refusing any participation in oppressive systems” (121).