A importância de se ver nas telas : lesbianidade no cinema brasileiro (1990-2010)

Abstract

This dissertation aims to discuss how brazilian cinema approaches the theme of lesbianity on screens, questioning how these women are represented. We will analyze two movies with lesbian women as main characters: “How to Forget” by Malu de Martino and “Elvis and Madona”, both released in 2010. The use of cinema as a tool for historical analysis comes with the advent of the School of Annales, which inaugurates a new conception for historical analysis and, consequently, a new approach to the sources and objects of study, in this context, film productions began to gain space as an object of analysis for the historians. Therefore, cinema was opted because through this tool it is possible to understand important aspects about a certain society. We will address elements of the American star system, and its use in Brazil, and how this mode of filmmaking helped to create the image of an ideal woman concept that, in turn, is widely exploited by the consumer market, as opposed to this mode of making cinema, it will be used the feminist theory of cinema. We present a historical overview of the feminist movement followed by lesbian feminism with emphasis on lesbian thought relations with queer theory. The three authors chosen for this reflection are: Monique Wittig, Gayle Rubin and Adrienne Rich. The theoretical support of the research is built with cultural studies and the main theories of representation, identity, gender and sexuality, through authors such as Stuart Hall and Judith Butler. For the analysis of the films, we used the ideas of film narrative, with the circuit of culture. The discourse of the film was analyzed by the view of queer theory, which seeks to deconstruct the heteronormative patterns of society.