O império do grotesco em Fellini e Almodóvar: a desconstrução de estereótipos e estigmas sociais no cinema

Abstract

This research seeks to understand the effects of the use of the grotesque as an expressive form in the works of the filmmakers Federico Fellini and Pedro Almodóvar. For that, we comparatively analyze two films: 8½ (FELLINI, 1963) and All About My Mother (ALMODÓVAR, 1999), to establish dialogic relations between the analyzed works and the other productions of the directors from their representations of bodies stigmatized. This methodological strategy allowed us to discuss the aesthetic way in which filmmakers articulate symbolic marks and stereotypes in their narratives. Although there are innumerable differences in the way they make cinema, is possible to approach them in the way they both create labyrinthine patterns for transgressing characters, using an aesthetic elaboration that provokes estrangement and thus contributes to the deconstruction of stereotypes and social stigmas. The figure of the clown, the life experiences and the threats of death size the circus perspective of the universe of Fellini, who celebrates the madness, the obscene and the deformed; Almodóvar abolished the right and wrong dichotomies to invite the viewer to aberration, solitude, marginality. As a theoretical main contribution to the research, we use Goffman's (1978) notions of stigma and Soares (2009) about social stigma in the media, the categorizations of the grotesque in the light of Sodré and Paiva (2002) and the theories of cinema coined by Edgar Morin (2014) and Christian Metz (1980). The method of approach suggested by Vanoye and Goliot-Lété (1994) was used to analyze the films.