Disputa por um lugar de verdade em discursos na websérie sociedade da virtude

Abstract

Cultural productions of superheroes have been a constant presence in traditional media such as TV and cinema for decades. However, in recent years, these statements have come to occupy a privileged place in the Cultural Industry, becoming a market trend, especially with the growing demand for adaptations in streaming services. Taking this historical data into consideration, we chose the animations of the web series as the corpus for a Foucauldian discursive analysis. Society of Virtue, available on the video hosting and sharing platform Youtube. For this goal, we adopted the methodology of discourse archeogenealogy, based on the studies of Michel Foucault (1985; 1995; 2011; 2011a; 2012; 2014; 2014a; 2015; 2017), allowing us to "excavate" the enunciative formations and their imbrications with relations of power and knowledge. This thesis had as main objective to carry out an archeogenealogical analysis of the discourses found in these animations, with developments in four specific objectives: describe the constitution of the discursive subject in the audiovisual materialities published by the channel; illustrate the power-knowledge movements in which these discourses are inscribed; analyze the regime of truth production that sustains such discourses in contemporary times; and investigate the functioning of humor as a structuring element in the emergence of these statements. To organize the corpus, we described seventy-nine videos from the first two seasons of the web series . Based on this organization, we categorized the productions into four recurring discourses: derisory (mocking the cultural product superheroes), conservative heteronormative cis , productive (disciplining bodies), and confrontational (between conservative discourse, minority empowerment, and political correctness). Next, the delimitation criterion adopted was the number of views of the videos, which allowed the final constitution of the corpus into enunciative series. In the first chapter, we contextualized Society of Virtue within the Global Cultural Industry, according to Duarte (2003), addressing the channel's activity, the constitution of the characters, and the impact of YouTube on the circulation of humorous statements. This panorama dialogues with Sociology, Cultural and Discursive Studies, based on Burgess and Green (2009), Feijó (1984), and Goulart (2014). In the second chapter, we discuss the concept of humor based on Eagleton (2020), Minois (2003), and Possenti (2014), emphasizing its relevance as a discursive practice. In addition, we describe how politically correct and minority empowerment discourses manifest themselves in contemporary humorous productions, drawing mainly on studies by Cabral (2015), Scabin (2016; 2023), and Possenti and Baronas (2006). Then, we observe that these discourses configure a field of dispute, illustrating the power-knowledge movements that, according to Rocha (2021), follow a trend of cultural war. Thus, in order understand how these discourses structure identities and power relations in contemporary times, in the third chapter, we delve into a description of the constitution of the discursive subject in Society of Virtue ; we articulate the notions of power- knowledge and regime of truths based on the studies of Foucault (1985; 1995; 2011; 2014; 2017), Deleuze (2017) and Revel (2005) . In the fourth chapter, we carry out the discursive analysis itself, identifying the enunciative series and their conditions of emergence and reproduction. Using the archeogenealogical method, we describe the power-knowledge relations that support the discourses of the web series , enabling a brief reading of the present. We conclude that Society of Virtue uses humor to ridicule opposing discourses, attributing greater legitimacy to conservative discourse. This approach is aligned with derisory techniques that confer a power of truth to this discourse. Finally, this analysis allows an understanding of how these conservative-religious, productivity, cis- heteronormative and politically correct discourses are in dispute in contemporary times, using humor as a fundamental instrument in this struggle for a place with the status of truth.