Corpo, vícios e compulsões: leituras de uma dietética da metrópole e da alimentação contemporânea no filme Réquiem para um sonho

Abstract

This research aims to comprehend food contemporaneity, as well as diet, by problematizing the individual/society relationship in the metropolis from the film Requiem for a Dream, directed by Darren Aronofsky (2000). Considering that cinema has much to say about social aspects, whose transformations are determinant in food practices, this dissertation took the perspectives of Gilles Lipovetsky (2014) when it comes to considering communication mediums as accelerators of the process of individualization; Zygmunt Bauman (2001) to reflect about such process as a fatality rather than a choice; Georg Simmel (1903) to investigate how the life in the metropolis affects the individual and causes the blasé attitude; Michel Foucault (1984) for contextualization of what represents dietetics; and Edgar Morin (2014) and Edgar Carvalho (2008) to using filmic analysis as means for sociological investigation. The film, the corpus of this work, was analyzed through four reading keys (television, dress, refrigerator and table), considered as elements of the narrative that dialogue with contemporary sociocultural aspects. Through this analysis, we interpret that the movie Requiem for a Dream problematizes themes which allow inferences about compulsions and ways of dealing with the body that interfere with food; that the manipulation of the body through diet may symbolize a way of dealing with the blasé phenomenon caused by metropolitan life; and that the weakening of social relationships has significant impact on transformations and excessive concerns associated with food and the act of eating.