Masculinidade, feminilidade e publicidade: uma análise semiótica dos papéis de homens e mulheres nos comerciais de Veja

Abstract

This work seeks to understand the relations between men and women in the context of unpaid domestic work, based on the study of gender representations in Brazilian advertising for cleaning products through the theoretical framework of Discourse Semiotics or Greimasian Semiotics and its further developments in Brazil. Following Teixeira's (2009) methodological approach, which we have adapted to accommodate the identification of gender stereotypes in the syncretic texts taken as corpus, we analyzed four television commercials for the cleaning goods brand Veja, aired between 2012 and 2021. The concept of gender we have chosen to explore stems from a relational perspective, meaning that its definition is not necessarily determined by biological sex or sexual differences between subjects, but by the social construction that produces inequality between men and women. The normative aspect of the gender order shapes the conduct and social roles of individuals, leading to the sexual division of labor, which is unevenly imposed upon men and women in the patriarchy, especially concerning housework and care activities. The main goal of this analysis is therefore to assess whether there is reinforcement, transgression or updating in crystallized discursive practices in how male and female figures are portrayed in advertising for cleaning products in the 21st century. This examination employs the notions of representation, stereotypes, socio-discursive imaginaries and social roles. We focused on the discursive level of the generative trajectory of meaning, finding correspondences that show semi-symbolic relations between the content plane and the expression plane, as well as a global enunciative strategy that governs the utterances of each commercial. Upon examination of the corpus, we conclude that gender relations and stereotypes in Veja television commercials have been updated in the last decade, with greater male participation in commercials and in cleaning chores, but that the gender order and sexual division of labor remain, still demanding responsibility and competence from women when it comes to housework.