Dimensões políticas e sociais de um entretenimento audiovisual lucrativo: os Simpsons e as construções imagéticas sobre o Brasil

Abstract

Although animated sitcom fiction has always been the focus of researchers analysis, historical studies about animated series aired on TV are still scarce. Moreover, whether researchers have investigated animated sitcoms, it was not with the intention of discussing their relation to the images of Brazil and Brazilians conveyed both on TV and the Internet. Because of that the object of study of this thesis is the discussion of socio-historical-political dimensions in The Simpsons , a profitable animated sitcom and a satirical parody of a working class American lifestyle family, whose episodes have been aired on Brazil and all over the world s TV channels for more than two decades. Therefore, the corpus of this investigation is some of the series episodes, notably Blame it on Lisa during which the fictional family travels to Brazil. With the objective of bringing to light the representations of Brazil in the last decades the research makes use of the internauts speech acts of which emerge their critical discourse construction of the The Simpsons. The Internet, an interesting locus to reveal Brazil and its relation to the American production of series, is also used not only in an attempt to define simpsonized language and discuss the (re)signification of Brazil s imagery as created by the internauts, but also to put to question concepts such as family, childhood, criminality, violence, sexuality in children s programs and the lampooning of Brazilian identity symbols, always treated in an unflattering or negative light, in the search for larger audiences (Top 30 ratings) and for money, categories also selected for the development of this work. Still, anthropophagy, a category largely used in Brazilian literary (con)texts in the beginning of the XX century, supported the analysis of internauts and actual viewers perception of the series as a point of departure for helping engender behavior and attitudes that can help rebuild realities, via massive media, even if inspired by The Simpsons, and mainly based upon criticism revealed by the episode Blame it in Lisa. On the one hand, the text attests the capacity of Brazilians, by means of using communicative technologies, for reacting against the negative satirical portrait of Brazil and Brazilians and on the other, for rescuing this image, even if utilizing that simpsonized language . Research leads to the conclusion that Brazilian internauts and actual viewers do not watch The Simpsons passively but stand up against the unflattering insinuations in relation to Brazilian culture, society, history, folklore, Brazil and the Brazilian people, and try to rescue those images conveyed by the sitcom episodes, especially the ones in Blame it on Lisa . And yet, the text evidences that certain images of Brazil and Brazilians represented in the animated sitcom expresses the troublesome reality of truthfully and because of that they have become one of the thesis concerns and another significant aspect to be considered. Such images are the reason for the investigator s raising relevant questions and his strongly suggesting accurate reflection and discussion on such a matter.