The characters’ dialogues as generators of violence: a study of Brazilian films

Abstract

This article presents a reflection on the dialogues of the characters in Brazilian commercial fiction films produced after Cidade de Deus (2002), which have narratives about criminal organizations and drug trafficking. In general, they are films that have a spoken word as the main element of the narrative. The dialogues of the characters of this set of films have singular characteristics in the form of speech, which differentiates them from other productions. These characteristics are the main generators of the explicit and implicit violence. Using examples, we intend to demonstrate that these films are structured in the spoken word, use a word as an act of speech and transform into symbols that represent violence from the differentiated language, comic verbiage, hyper masculinity emphasized and use of obscenity and profanity.