Carolina de Jesus, Tata, Caju e outras histórias: as representações sobre o/a negro/a nos quadrinhos nacionais contemporâneos

Abstract

In order to understand how Black individuals are represented in comics, it is pertinent to research the comics Tungstênio (2014) by Marcello Quintanilha, Carolina (2016) produced by Sirlene Barbosa and João Pinheiro, and Cumbe (2014) by comic artist Marcelo D'Salete. The general objective is to understand the representations of the Black population in these comics published by Veneta. The specific objectives are: to discuss the configuration of Veneta Publisher; to describe the racial relations among the characters in the stories; to identify gender differences and their intersectionality with race; to discuss, from a relational perspective, the habitus of the authors, Veneta Publisher, and the Black characters represented in the comics. The theoretical framework includes contributions from Pierre Bourdieu, Howard Becker, Barbara Postema, Roger Chartier, John B. Thompson, Douglas Kellner, Lélia Gonzáles, among others. The methodological approach is qualitative, based on bibliographic and documentary research. The instruments used include semi-structured interviews, aiming to bridge the theoretical content with the authors' accounts, and the use of concepts such as habitus, field, world, social representations, and life trajectories, through a relational perspective, using the theoretical framework as a basis for understanding them. The results show that Black characters were represented as a construction of Brazilian society, permeated by various social and racial inequalities. However, this reality is not objectively closed in itself, but rather a construction of reality that is relative to the position occupied by the agents who produce representation in the social and symbolic space, dialectically interconnected in a social representation carried out according to their habitus, which is completed by the consumers. The authors represent the Black population in each specific socio-historical context in the comics as a way to criticize social, racial, cultural, and gender inequalities.