Negritude e racismo no cinema: um estudo comparativo entre M8 - Quando a Morte Socorre a Vida (2019) e Ficção Americana (2023)

Abstract

This dissertation is aligned with Sociedade, Conhecimento e Educação do Programa de PósGraduação em Educação de Francisco Beltrão da Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná. It investigates the cinematic works M8 – Quando a morte socorre a vida (2019) and American Fiction (2023). The study seeks to examine how filmic scenes contribute to the formation of social imaginaries, influencing the way we perceive and position ourselves in relation to the portrayed social groups. Films function as instruments for questioning prejudices and preestablished ideas. Thus, cinema constitutes a privileged space for debate in various public contexts, including academic research in Education, stimulating reflections on prevailing social practices and their contemporary impacts on the construction of social imaginaries. The overarching objective of this study is to understand Blackness as a form of resistance and racism as an expression of violence in cinema, analyzing how these representations intersect with sociocultural practices and anti-racist movements. In doing so, it aims to elucidate racism and the possibilities of anti-racism through a theoretical examination that unveils the historical, social, and cultural practices and processes underpinning the construction and representation of Black identity in film. Methodologically, the research is characterized as a qualitative, bibliographic, and documentary study, structured in a comparative format. This approach facilitates the observation of both sociocultural intersections and historical-contextual differences between Brazil and the United States of America, allowing for an analysis of how images, stereotypes, and narratives of resistance manifest in distinct cinematographies.