Um beijo vale mais que mil palavras: a representação do homossexual masculino nas obras de Walcyr Carrasco

Abstract

The research 'A kiss is worth a thousand words: the representation of the male homosexual in the works of Walcyr Carrasco' aims to understand the social representations that permeate the concept of masculinity and, also, the way in which gay characters deal with their own sexuality, sexual discovery and as experiences in family and emotional contexts. As a selection, we selected three soap operas from Rede Globo, shown at 9pm and written by Walcyr Carrasco: Amor à vida (2013); The other side of paradise (2017); and A Dona do Morga (2019). We investigated the trajectories of three sexual dissident characters, one from each work, respectively: Félix (Mateus Solano); Samuel (Eriberto Leão); and Agno (Malvino Salvador). From this perspective, we also evaluate the participation of partners who form romantic partners with those selected for the sample. To understand such issues, we anchored ourselves in the evidentiary paradigm (Braga, 2008), to track evidence presented by the scenes that reveal the characters' family and emotional experiences. Such evidence was organized into six axes: the presentation of the character to the public; the moment when the audience discovers the character's real sexuality; the conflicts experienced up to the moment of coming out of the closet in the fictional context (if it is not explicit from the first appearance); the family relationship - or the nucleus in which it is inserted - in relation to sexuality; the challenges experienced by the character / or emotional experiences experienced; and, finally, the gay kiss as a redemption for the character. At the same time, the evidence is observed in light of the Audiovisual Materiality Analysis (Coutinho, 2018), since this procedure allows us to evaluate aspects of image, sound, text, editing, in addition to paratextual information for the composition of the scenes. As the main theoretical lenses used for the investigation, we used proposals about Brazilian soap operas as a narrative about the nation (Lopes 2003) and soap operas as a communicative resource (Lopes, 2009). We also anchored the research in studies of masculinity and sexuality by Almeida (2016), Connell (2016), Januário (2016), Miskolci (2016), Trevisan (2018) and Foucault (2021). To deal with Social Representations, we will use the studies by Moscovici (2007), Jodelet (2005), Hall (2016) and Procópio (2008). The results found lead us to problematize the obstacles socially created in the relationship between men and how the institution “family” represents the main basis for the creation of closets in the fictional context.