O discurso publicitário e a segmentação do corpo feminino: da dispersão em fragmento

Abstract

OLIVEIRA, Isabela Karolina Gomes Ferreira. The advertising discourse and the female body segmentation: from dispersion into fragments. 2025. 150 f. Tese (Doutorado em Letras), – Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras, Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná – UNIOESTE, Cascavel, 2025. Orientador: João Carlos Cattelan Defesa: 20 de fevereiro de 2025 ABSTRACT This research seeks to clarify what are the physical-aesthetic injunctions that circulate on social networks about the female public in contemporary times. To achieve this objective, the theoretical-methodological device considered is Pêcheux's Discourse Analysis, especially the two texts written by Pêcheux, signed under the pseudonym Thomas Herbert: “Reflections on the theoretical situation of the Social Sciences and, especially, of Social Psychology” (2015) and “Observations for a General Theory of Ideologies” (1995). From them, we seek to mobilize the concepts of Technical Practice, Political Practice, Ideological Practice and Social Practice, as well as what is, chronologically, the first definition of discourse presented by the author: the discourse constituted by dispersed fragments that have the coherence of a neurosis and that perform a function in the social whole (Herbert, 2015). To carry out the study, in terms of empirical observation data, twenty-four (24) advertising campaigns cut from different Instagram profiles between the years 2020 to 2024 were analyzed. The posts were chosen based on a feature called sponsored, since it is considered that can make it possible to boost the ads financially and make them appear, arbitrarily, to users. In other words, even without wanting to, people can be reached through this tool and induced to consume certain goods. Based on the selected corpus, it is possible to verify that, at the same time that the advertisements promise the fulfillment of desires and encourage consumption, they also construct a woman image that, in the vast majority of cases, focuses on her physical appearance. Therefore, it is understood that the discourses propagated through advertising have a line of coherence that is regulated in the sense of supporting a determining function in the social whole for women, imposing on them a defined body model to the detriment of other aspects that are constitutive of them. It is clear, then, that women, in advertising discourse, are hit by an unbridled amount of products that create a body model that borders on the unattainable, in addition to determining a cycle of expenses and discontent, which, ultimately, predicts a body that is always out of step with the current social agreement. From this perspective, it can be seen that advertising campaigns seek to sell items aimed at women's abdomen, breasts, buttocks, muscles, faces, hair, nails, hands and feet and, apparently, there are no parts of a woman's body that are not taken over by economic surplus value. Therefore, there is a body that is segmented into head, trunk and limbs through the production of goods and consumption. With this set of assumptions in mind, we seek to defend the thesis that advertising discourse, today, constitutes an Ideological State Apparatus, since it is in favor of the dominant ideology and of capitalism interests. Hence, it is the authorized voice that uses the tricks at its disposal, such as, for example, praising the advertised product, making promises, threats and blackmail, using attractive baits and slogans, disqualifying the competition and ratifying the social imaginary, to impose sales and profit, even if this means arbitrating over female bodies and treating them as manipulable objects.