HERÓIS SEM CAPA, VILÕES SEM MÁSCARA: O DISCURSO DE ÓDIO REPRESENTADO NA SÉRIE SUPERGIRL

Abstract

The TV series Supergirl brought an innovation in its fourth season: the great villain that the heroine had to face was not an evil businessman or an ET with super powers, but the hatred. This narrative, therefore, can be perceived as a historically situated statement, which exposes contemporary fears. Based on this premise, this article aims to analyze how the production deals with the issue of hate speech, through a foucaultian speech analysis, which understands statements as rarities. The exam of the production was associated with theoretical contributions on hatred and its political use, in order to discuss whether the series was guided by a common sense view, or if it proposed a critical reflection on this topic. The investigation showed that the narrative provided a critical thinking about the mobilization of hatred, once it portrayed the phenomenon as a social problem and not merely an individual one. Regarding the representation of the group that mobilizes hatred and also the question of the adequate reaction to these attacks, however, the series ended up reinforcing stereotypes, such as the erasure of women’s active participation in hate groups and the imperative that movements against this emotion present themselves in a homogeneous way.