SEXUALITY AND HEROISM IN KARIM AÏNOUZ' GAY CINEMA: THE JOURNEYS OF THE PROTAGONISTS OF MADAME SATÃ AND FUTURO BEACH
Gay cinema, Karim Aïnouz, heroism, Madame Satã, Futuro Beach
This dissertation analyzes the two feature films made by Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz starring homosexual characters – Madame Satã (2002) and Futuro Beach (2014) – seeking to identify how the filmmaker builds the journey of his protagonists and understand the way these characters embody (or not) the premises of New Queer Cinema, a movement that played an important role in the formation of Aïnouz and which recognizes him as one of the most representative artists of Brazilian gay cinema. From the dialogue between the immanent analysis of theses movies with the notions of myth and heroism as worked by Joseph Campbell, Martin Cezar Feijó and Christopher Vogler, and with the critical reviews about the New Queer Cinema and Aïnouz's work, the investigation, when examining the trajectories of protagonists involved in themes specific to the experience of a sexuality still considered abject, detected bonds between João Francisco and the tragic hero and Donato with the monomithic hero, and led to the proposition that the two characters incorporate, although in different degrees, principles defended by New Queer Cinema and contain, in their revision and reframing of already established hero models, elements for the glimpse of a cinema of gay heroes.