Visões da modernidade nas histórias em quadrinhos: Gotham e Metrópolis em finais de 1930

• Autor(a) principal: Vieira, Marina Cavalcante
• Data de Publicação: 2012
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UERJ
• Texto Completo: http://www.bdtd.uerj.br/handle/1/8441
• topic: Comic books; Cities; Modernity; Chicago School of Sociology; Urban imagery; História em quadrinhos; Cidades; Modernidade; Escola de Chicago de Sociologia; Imaginário urbano; Histórias em quadrinhos; Chicago, Escola de sociologia de; CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::SOCIOLOGIA::SOCIOLOGIA URBANA

Metropolis and Gotham are the imaginary cities of comics that respectively set the adventures of Superman and Batman. These two superheroes were created in the United States in the late 1930s and continue to populate the lives of children and adults eight decades after its conception. The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the cities of Superman and Batman in their context of creation through an ethnographic analysis of comic book literature. The aim is to analyze the fictional representations of these cities in relation to the issues faced by large North American cities of its time, such as crime, migration and delinquency. In this intent the first stories of these superheroes are analyzed since its creation in 1938 and 1939 until the U.S. entry into World War II in December 1941. It is discussed the question of dual identities, freedom and anonymity in large cities through the comic book superheroes genre, as well it is contextualized the creation of comics as a medium of mass communication born in modern and urban context. The central thesis of this dissertation is developed around the discussion between cities and Modernity. Gotham and Metropolis are seem as representations that reflects distinct point of view about great modern cities. The former is a nocturnal and violent city which crimes are related to madness, organized crime and migration. Here underlies the notion that modernity, having as its prime locus the large cities, it is a factor that disrupts the social life leading the inhabitants of Gotham City to face a daily conflict with either criminals, madmen or immigrants. The city of Metropolis, in turn, faces technical problems and moral crimes, a daytime city of straight lines and buildings of modernist architectural styles always portrayed from panoramic images that highlight their buildings and gleaming skyscrapers, while Gotham is represented as a city with a dark outline of monolithic buildings repeated without distinction on the horizon. Cities of comics are representations that either fictional, utopian or dystopian they may be, are related to the imagery time and society in which they were created. This dissertation comprises Gotham City and Metropolis as synthesis of modern urban concepts, relating them to urban conceptions present in the first decades of the twentieth century and with issues exposed by the social thought of the Chicago School of Sociology.