COSTA, A. M. B.; http://lattes.cnpq.br/2727979932114915; COSTA, Anilaury Maria Batista da.
Resumo:
This work aims to analyze the discourses of strength and vulnerability in fragments of
characters' narratives from the TV series How to get away with murder, to comprehend
the construction of the controlling image “strong black woman”. We inquire “how the
discourses of strength and vulnerability construct the controlling image ‘strong black
woman’ for the subject black woman in the TV show how to get away with murder?”. To
answer this question, we outline specific goals: a) describe the narrative composition of
the characters Ophelia and Annalise from the TV show; b) explain how is constructed the
will to truth which supports the discourses of vulnerability; c) search the social-historical
constitution of the antithetic relation between strength and vulnerability to the subject
black woman; and d) explore the power relations and its influence on silencing practices
and on the construction of the controlling image ‘strong black woman’. Grounded on
theoretical assumptions of the contributions of Foucault (2016; 2010; 2014; 2020) to the
Discourse Analysis, we aim to discuss the way in which the discourses construct the
subject positioning and how the power relations play a role in the processes of
subjectification and objectification of the subjects. Highlighting the image the TV show
conceives of the black woman as a synonym of strength, we use the theoretical
contribution of authors like Beauboeuf-Lafontant (2005; 2007; 2009), Jones and Shorter-
Gooden (2004) to understand how the discursive constitution acts upon black women’s
experience, their relationships with other subjects and in establishing strength as a will
to truth. Using the selected corpus – discursive sequences of the mentioned TV show – we
identify that the will to truth that support hegemonic discourses influences the
organization and maintenance of the obedience of the subjects in our society, but, beyond
that, functions in a coercive way in the constitution of the subjectivities. The discourse
offers the black woman “strong black woman”, a controlling image that requires
silencing that favors the institutions. However, lines of flight of the discourse emerge as
tools for this subject, tracing possibilities that allow the expansion of its subjectivity.