Mulheridades e feminilidades negras na série Them: uma análise crítica feminista decolonial dos discursos de gênero e raça em narrativas contemporâneas

Abstract

This article investigates the representations of Black womanhood and femininities in the series Them (2021), produced by Little Marvin in collaboration with other directors. From an intersectional perspective articulating Black and Decolonial Feminisms, we analyze how the narrative, marked by scenes of extreme physical and psychological violence against Black women, constructs discourses on gender and race, linking them to structural racism and forms of Black resistance. Methodologically, we focus on the analysis of two excerpts from the series: the opening minutes of the first episode, which introduces the Emory family and establishes the axes of racial and supernatural violence that structure the narrative; and a scene from the fifth episode, representing the apex of physical violence suffered by the protagonist, including sexual assault and violence against children articulated with psychological terror. The analysis articulates the theoretical-methodological and epistemological frameworks of Critical Discourse Analysis (Chouliaraki; Fairclough, 1999; Fairclough, 2003, 2010, 2016; Vieira; Resende, 2016) and Black and Decolonial Feminisms (Kilomba, 2019; hooks, 2019; Gonzalez, 2020). The results demonstrate that, although the series incorporates elements of Black feminist theories by portraying the consequences of racial violence as a systemic structure, it partially fails in critically contextualizing the legitimate responses these women give to trauma. By graphically spectacularizing suffering, aspect analyzed through the concept of torture porn, Them ultimately transforms Black pain into media commodity, reiterating colonial stereotypes about Black women rather than contributing to other ways of being, coexisting, and knowing about Black womanhood and femininities.