Bicha (nem tão) má: representações da homossexualidade na telenovela Amor à Vida

摘要

This work analyzes the meanings about LGBT people made available for social circulation from the homosexual characters of the Brazilian telenovela Amor à Vida. Presented by the Rede Globo network between 2013 and 2014, this narrative gave visibility, in a meaningful way, to paradoxes and difficulties faced by subjects with non-normative gender and/or sexual identities. The theoretical framework of this research follows the Cultural Studies, specifically regarding the links between culture and media, along with a a discussion on intersectionality and identity and within queer theory and gender and sexuality studies. For a better understanding of the historical context in which Amor à Vida was presented, it was performed a broad review of the 126 LGBT characters that featured 62 of Rede Globo's telenovelas from 1970 to 2013. A mapping of such characters in the other fiction TV series contemporary to Amor à Vida was also performed. The analysis was constructed based on Douglas Kellner's (2001) multiperspectival approach, along with Richard Johnson's (2006) circuits of culture, understanding that a narrative's text cannot be isolated from a reflection on the meanings that are made available for social circulation. The analysis of Amor à Vida was twofold: in relation to the trajectory of homosexuality in Western societies, to the gay and lesbian and queer studies, and to the participation of LGBT characters in Rede Globo's telenovelas; and in context with the other TV fiction products presented by this network in the same period of the studied telenovela. The results made clear the complexity and controversies of the representation of homosexuality in the studied telenovela. Amor à Vida reinforces patterns of LGBT representation, with a majority of male, white, middle-class homosexual characters, with heteronormative gender performativity and wishing for social integration through a normalization of their sexuality. At the same time, Amor à Vida was innovative for presenting, for the first time in a Rede Globo's telenovela, a love triangle between three men, for the presence of an artificial insemination process conducted by a family of homosexual, and for making it visible that gender and sexuality oppressions, when crossed by other social markers such as race, social class and generation, alters the social perception of the subjects. This narrative proved to be a place for multiple construction of meanings about these topics.