Humor and gender in Turma da Mônica Jovem

Abstract

This Scientific Initiation Program paper suggests a reflection about the gender relations and its representations in the printed media. Following the research line of Discourse and Identity: gender and power representations, from the Discourse Studies group and it are part of General Plan of Research Gender and Power Representations: focus on the humoristic and educational discourses. This is a documental research, which theme covers the male and female spaces in the world today, and presupposes meaningful alterations compared with old times. It is restricted to the study of comics (humoristic texts) published in present periodicals, which theme are the marks of the relations of gender in the humoristic discourse. The corpus is about the characters of Monica's Gang Youth comic books (in Mangá style). Such non-verbal and verbal texts (therefore complex) has been published in recent magazines (for two years), by Maurício de Souza. The main character is the teenager Mônica - a new period of life for this well-known smart and funny girl, who has a strong personality. We will try to verify the female and also the male marks in a humoristic text for adolescents, as well the relationship among the characters - young boys and girls. The material to be analyzed is supported by the French Discourse Analysis theories, so that we can understand the way(s) the society sees men and women, as well their inter-relations and relations with the society in general. As the subject constructs his own identity when interacting with the other, the male and female profiles are many times established by this inter-relation. On the other hand, the humoristic discourse constructs stereotypes, that may be considered universal, and reveals, as in other discourses, cultural aspects of the society that produces it (and spreads it). The humor reveals discourses that circulate in many places of society. (AU)