Roberto Carlos is at once the most popular and most widely rejected of Brazilian artists. The paper aims to understand the roots of this contradiction, including both the positives and value of his work - trying to relativize a number of stigmas and prejudices that surround his figure, and demonstrate, so to speak, the legitimacy of his crown - and, on the other hand, the standpoints of his detractors, in order to reveal the set of interests and positions that undergird these critical judgments.
Roberto Carlos; mass culture; MPB; samba