A estética da opacidade como tensionamento da representação transparente: (re)construção discursiva e imagética em The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Abstract

This research examines the cinematographic image as a territory of dialectical conflict between the discursive constructions of transparency and opacity. The investigation is guided by Michel Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, through which the classical episteme is identified as a regime of visibility grounded in rationality—one that subjected the image, along with other forms of representation, to a normative system oriented by notions such as verisimilitude. This dissertation argues that the structuring of filmic norms, such as classical découpage, was influenced by belief in this episteme, consolidating itself as an expression of a rationalistrepresentational project that sustains the illusion of transparency. To deepen this analysis, the research investigates how the classical episteme was expressed in philosophical reflections on aesthetics, examining the contributions of Baumgarten, Kant, and Schopenhauer. Subsequently, in the discussion of opacity as a disruptive force, the thoughts of Heidegger and Rancière are addressed. It is within this framework that the chosen filmic object, The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), is analyzed—understood here as a film that embodies opacity as a critical and political gesture. The conclusions indicate that the film mobilizes opacity not by breaking with the linearity of découpage, but through strategies such as parody, genre hybridization, ambiguity in the representation of gender and sexuality, the use of archetypes, and selfreferentiality. These elements destabilize the hegemonic discourse of transparency and reconfigure the boundaries of the visible.