Quando Madonna Virou Loira?

"Everybody" (1982) foi o primeiro single de Madonna que conquistou os topos das tabelas musicais norte-americanas. Invocando a minha infância nos EUA, recordo muito bem a importância que a Madonna teve para os jovens, filhos de pais emigrantes. Como é do conhecimento geral, os EUA apresentam uma grande hibridez em termos de raças e culturas e desde cedo, os jovens têm a tendência de formar grupos com quem sentem uma maior identificação iconográfica e sociocultural, uma vez que partilham a mesma língua-mãe, a mesma cultura musical, o mesmo estrato social, etc. O facto de ser filho de pais portugueses significava que não tinha lugar em determinados grupos. Lembro-me muito bem que os meus amigos eram quase sempre de descendência hispânica, latino-europeia e latino-americana, logo, pertencentes a uma classe social mais baixa. Na escola marcávamos a diferença (...)
Madonna conseguiu penetrar nesta hibridez e, apropriando-se de um estilo, de certa forma, “americanizado”, manteve um vincado orgulho em exibir as suas raízes e origens, o que fez com que conquistasse um público muito diversificado (...)


texto em construção.

EQUALS

My Favorite Lilith

Child Language and Gender

Jorge Correia Orfão

Master in Feminist Studies

FLUC

Seminário de Feminismo e Linguística

February the 10th of 2011

Abstract

This essay intends to assess how language and gender are related to society, helping us understand that both constitute an individual’s social identity. When we learn a language, we are being socialized and influenced by patterns of doing language/actions. Considering that socialization has its foundation on the development of language, I will expand the idea of how gender roles are socially acquired. Illustrating Mary Talbot and Deborah Cameron’s “feminist critique of language”, I will focus on the analysis of how language acquisition may influence children’s gendering processes. In order to contextualize the relationship between language and gender acquisition, I will present an outline of theories of language development and will explore the usage-based theory of language acquisition, in which Michael Tomasello explains the foundational social-cognitive skills of child language. Subsequently, I will comment on a short episode of Phineas and Ferb, a cartoon show produced by the Disney Channel, in order to evaluate the extent how such programs may (or may not) facilitate social development concerning language and gender. This review attempts to indicate how masculine and feminine features are represented in the cartoon show, considering some ethnographic outcomes presented in Marjorie Harness Goodwin’s investigations about children’s socialization. (...)

Women In Red: Almodovarian Representations of Gender

Abstract

Jorge Correia Orfão

Master in Feminist Studies

FLUC

Methodologies Seminar

February the 18th of 2011

The following interpretation of Pedro Almodóvar’s film Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios (1988) will address gender representation by analyzing the leading female characters of the film. After a period of repression and censorship as a result of the Franco dictatorship, democracy was established in Spain, and the country underwent a process of modernization. In order to understand why Pedro Almodóvar’s films are of interés nacional, I will briefly place him within the context of Spanish National Cinema. This will help us understand not only the intertextual references in Almodóvar’s movies to the Modern Art period of the second quarter of the twentieth century, but also how he represents masculinity and femininity through modern techniques of doing art cinema. The purpose of such an interpretation is to display gender as something that can be “represented”, raising further discussion on the performative nature of gender as something that is not innate. Almodóvar’s films have been heavily debated, analyzed, praised and criticized, and of course, Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios is not an exception. One thing is certain though: no matter how hopeless and ironic some scenes are, there is a certain vitality that always comes through and finds an echo in the viewers. (...)