A órfã : cinema de horror, infância e feminino

Abstract

It is believed that the exercise of thinking through an agency with horror cinema can move knowledge and powers about childhood and the feminine. Among images, plans, frames and angles, screen ethnography is used as a methodology for analyzing the film Orphan (by Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009). The feature film presents the story of the adoption of a nineyear-old girl named Esther, the main character of this investigation. The narrative puts the viewer in touch with the “others” of childhood and the feminine, who threaten and terrify the certainties about what they are. It is possible to perceive the formation of horror cinema and its characteristics, understand how childhood was created as a historical device of power and, finally, understand the concept of gender, as a theoretical and political tool, verifying its implications in the narrative of audiovisual product. The work undertaken does not judge or defend a certain childhood, nor a certain femininity, however, it tries to observe them in their infinite possibilities and allow them to be and exist. Esther, therefore, horrifies the viewer for articulating what is attributed to childhood, but mainly, for transgressing the discourses of truths, smudging a moral of the age group articulated to a gender moral.