(DE)CONSTRUCTION OF BLACK CULTURAL IDENTITY THROUGH FILMIC CHARACTERS:

A LOOK AT BLACKNESS IN THE FILM M-8 QUANDO A MORTE SOCORRE A VIDA

Abstract

This research aims to analyze how the cultural identity of black people can be re-signified from a perspective of blackness, using as its corpus the film M-8 Quando a morte socorre a vida (2020), scripted and directed by filmmaker Jeferson De, a member of Brazilian black cinema. This is a qualitative investigation using the methodological approach of Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (FAIRCLOUGH, 2016), based on the social relations that the representation of a black character can bring about socially. The research is based on studies on cinema by Stam (2003); on identity by Hall (2006); on black identity and representation by Fanon (2008), Kilomba (2019); and on blackness, with Césaire (2016) and Bernd (1998). The analysis consisted of interpreting and discussing the standardized discourses that are reproduced and those that are re-signified through the lens of blackness. The development of these categories made it possible to understand the strategies of re-signification in the black reexistence constructed in the film. The hypothesis is that the production constructed by the black filmmaker shows that the representation of black cultural identity, commonly stereotyped to subjugate them in film works, can be demystified by the discourse of blackness, enabling discursive and social changes, in the short and long term, in social spaces.