“Strong black woman” – uma análise discursiva da mulher negra e a performance da força em how to get away with murder.

Abstract

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.