One of the best things that ever happened in Brazilian cinema was Pornochanchada – a low-budget genre that mixed sexploitation with comedy. In the 70s, theaters were filled to the brim with this kind of sleaze. If there’s a guy, besides myself, who kept his right hand busy with these movies, it’s J. L. Benício. He illustrated the majority of Pornochanchada’s posters. We tracked him down and asked him a few questions.
Vice: I’ve heard that you were a great pianist, then worked in a radio station and ended up as a cartoonist. How was that?
Benício: People have different talents. Just as I had talent for drawing, I also had a talent for playing the piano. So I’ve played for many years. But I was really young, a kid, so I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life – I started playing around when I was eight years old. I’ve even tried to make a living as a piano player; I had this radio show where I used to play North-American music and romantic stuff, you know.
Why did you stop?
Oh, I was fed up. I didn’t have the calling to be a pianist anyway. I had the talent to draw and, at that time, all schools had drawing classes. And as I had an inclination for that stuff, I took some extra classes.
OK, what I really want to know is how you started drawing those Pornochanchada posters.
This was because I started working at a publishing house. At that time they had female magazines and short story publications, and I started illustrating for these titles. So I was drawing lots of women, and I ended up becoming a specialist in drawing beautiful women. In the 70s I started drawing those posters.
Did the actress posed naked for you, or did you draw from photos?
Naked? No way, man! I was starting my life, I had no conditions of having naked women at my service. It was all based on photographs. I draw and then painted with gouache. When I started with the movie posters I had already been working as a cartoonist for a while. I was already married, with a son. So it’s a fantasy lots of people have that my studio was filled with women. I saw some of them, sometimes I even photographed them, but it was rare.
And was there any sort of image manipulation back then?
Like thin some bellies or enlarge breasts?
Sure! I used to apply a kind of plastic surgery there. I would take off the cellulite, make them look hotter than they were in reality, those kind of things. This was something we did to attract the audiences.
What was the major challenge to making erotic posters during the dictatorship era?
The censorship at that time was really harsh. But that’s the point, we had to use the seduction in the illustrations to the limit. That’s why we started using little flowers and stars and that kind of thing–you couldn’t show stuff. Nipples, for instance, weren’t allowed at all.
And among all the posters, what’s your favorite?
A Super Fêmea (The Super Female). That poster was really famous. It became a reference of my work. Everybody knows that one.
Yep, that one’s pretty good.
Tags: art, Brazil, Censorship, Editing Out Cellulite, Film, Pornochanchada
