The Aída Cury case: playboys and wayward youth as representations of the youth in modern times

• Autor(a) principal: Garson, Marcelo
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: E-Compós
• Texto Completo: https://www.e-compos.org.br/e-compos/article/view/1284
• topic: Delinquência juvenil; Representação social; anos 50.

Raped and thrown from a building by two juveniles, Ronaldo Castro and Cassio Murilo, the young Aida Cury, was found on the morning of July 14, 1958 laying on the sidewalk of Copacabana. The national awareness of this crime made middle class juvenile delinquency a central topic of the great Brazilian press of the late 50’s. Taken as a symptom and product of a new social order, so-called “playboys” – existing as a product of media representations - help to uncover the ambivalences of a historical period commonly associated with generalized optimism. The purpose of this article, therefore, is to understand how these playboys summoned the consequences of national modernization, a project based on the urban landscape, where cosmopolitanism, progress and social diversity could mean promiscuity, vice and moral corruption.