CAÇADORES DE SÍMBOLOS: Culture Jamming, a Publicidade E Seu Duplo

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CAÇADORES DE SÍMBOLOS: Culture Jamming, a Publicidade E Seu Duplo VALÉRIA RAVIER CAÇADORES DE SÍMBOLOS: Culture jamming, a publicidade e seu duplo DOUTORADO EM CIÊNCIAS SOCIAIS Tese apresentada à banca examinadora da Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, como exigência parcial para obtenção do título de Doutora em Ciências Sociais, área de concentração Antropologia, sob a orientação da Professora Doutora Silvia Helena Simões Borelli. PUC/SP SÃO PAULO 2005 SUMÁRIO INTRODUÇÃO: AS ORIGENS 1 1. OS HOMENS 1.1. O desejo como arma 8 1.2. A tensão como força motriz 12 1.3. A imagem como alvo 13 2. AS INTERFERÊNCIAS 2.1. O imaginário como tática 17 2.2. A interferência cultural como atitude 17 2.3. A subversão como ritual 31 2.3.1. Buy Nothing Day 32 2.3.2. Turnoff Week 34 2.3.3. Drugtake 37 2.3.4. Antipreneur 38 2.3.5. Blackspot Sneaker 40 3. OS CAÇADORES 3.1. Absolut(a) falsidade: a unidimensionalidade do espetáculo 47 3.2. Absolut(o) processo: a formação de grupos contestatórios no campo da cultura 47 3.2.1. Absolut(a) especificidade: os jammers no mundo contemporâneo 62 3.2.2. Absolut(o) circuito: os jammers, seus fluxos e interconexões 62 3.3. Absolut(a) construção: nos bastidores da marca 69 3.3.1. Absolut(a) potência: a força de uma marca 77 3.4. Absolut(a) crítica: os jammers, suas cisões e fusões 90 3.5. Absolut(a) transgressão: a interferência cultural e seu potencial transformador 95 4. AS IMAGENS, OS MITOS 4.1. A imagem mitificada 110 4.2. A imagem desmistificada 111 4.3. Remitificando a imagem 112 4.4. Na origem, um mito 113 4.4.1 O mito retomado 115 4.4.2. Sob a perspectiva de um outro mito 118 4.4.3. Por uma decifração possível das origens 120 4.5. Os mitos e a publicidade 123 4.5.1. Culture jamming: a publicidade e seu duplo 127 CONSIDERAÇÕES FINAIS: OS LABIRINTOS Armadilhas ou a possibilidade concreta de sempre novos horizontes? 130 A VERDADEIRA HISTÓRIA DO CAÇADOR 143 REFERÊNCIAS BIBLIOGRÁFICAS 147 AGRADECIMENTOS Agradeço aos professores da Pós-Graduação em Ciências Sociais da Pontifícia Universidade Católica, pela contribuição, através de seus conhecimentos, durante o decorrer do curso. Agradeço particularmente à professora doutora Silvia Helena Simões Borelli, orientadora desta pesquisa, pela interlocução pontual e precisa ao longo do doutorado. À professora doutora Caterina Koltai, que continua me mostrando a importância da psicanálise na leitura dos fenômenos sociais. À Rosely Sayão, pela sua escuta atenta e pelas pontuações sagazes e pertinentes que, sem dúvida, estão presentes na estrutura que sustenta esta tese. Ao professor doutor Edgard de Assis Carvalho e aos meus colegas do Seminário de Pesquisa do doutorado, pelas convergências e divergências que acabaram se revelando muito produtivas e pertinentes. Aos meus alunos que, com a sua rebeldia, contribuem para a elaboração de novas questões e para a instauração de todo tipo de desafios. Ao meu pai (em memória), que representa a surpresa, o inesperado e a esperança. À minha mãe, território do conhecido, das certezas e da segurança. À Mariana, Marcela e Maria, pelo aprendizado partilhado de pequenas coisas, que não param de se revelar fundamentais, e pela cotidiana colaboração nos mais variados assuntos domésticos. À Marici, pela oportunidade de conviver com pontos de vista e projetos tão diversos e tão próximos dos meus e pelo apoio, confiança, coragem e transparência que tem sido tão estimulantes. À Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing, pelo apoio material e pelas oportunidades de reflexão. Esta pesquisa recebeu apoio financeiro da CAPES. BANCA EXAMINADORA ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ ___________________________________ RESUMO Tensões insolúveis, responsáveis por uma existência fragmentada e múltipla, que transcorre em paisagens culturais perpassadas por um contínuo esfacelamento e sem pontos fixos, livre de qualquer rigidez, são características cada vez mais presentes nas subjetividades contemporâneas. Assim como o campo identificatório caracteriza-se por essa proliferação da multiplicidade, o consumo torna-se expressão de milhares de desejos diferentes e mutáveis, organizados em torno de símbolos que são produzidos pelas grandes corporações. A ineficácia de categorias analíticas tradicionais, como a de classe social, abre espaço para outras, como a de juventude, definidas em função de características menos tangíveis. Entre os sujeitos cujas identidades são construídas a partir de traços mais sutis, questionamentos como aqueles relativos aos direitos, que eram próprios dos cidadãos, são respondidos mais pelo consumo privado de bens e meios de comunicação de massa do que pelo exercício de regras abstratas ou pela participação em instituições tradicionais, como partidos políticos e sindicatos. Na linha da não institucionalização dos movimentos sociais, a culture jamming representa uma importante e criativa forma de resistência às mensagens corporativas. Apesar de propor diversos tipos de ação, sua principal característica é a subversão de significado, através da paródia, de peças publicitárias propostas pelas grandes empresas e veiculadas pela mídia hegemônica. Transgressores sagazes e atuais, eles trocam as armas por uma bem-humorada interferência cultural na mídia, internet, publicidade e produtos de consumo. Através da proposta de democratizar a mídia pela desconstrução de um discurso hegemônico e institucionalizado, os jammers colocam-se como mediadores na medida em que, reivindicando o direito à comunicação, assumem a tarefa de ampliar o acesso à cidadania para um grande número de consumidores cujas vozes são cotidianamente abafadas pelo rugir das grandes corporações. ABSTRACT Unyielding tensions, responsible for a fragmented and multifarious existence taking place in cultural landscapes touched by ongoing deterioration and devoid of fixed points, free from any rigidity, are features that become more conspicuous everyday in contemporary subjectivities. As the identification realm is marked by this growing multiplicity, consumption becomes the expression of thousands of different and changing desires, deployed round symbols produced by the great corporations. Given the inefficiency of traditional analytical categories, such as social class, new ones, such as youth, emerge and are defined on the basis of less tangible features. Among subjects whose identities are built on subtler features, instances of questioning, such as those regarding rights which pertained to citizens, are answered rather by private consumption of goods and the mass media than through the exercise of abstract rules or participation in traditional institutions such as political parties and trade unions. Along these lines of non-institutionalization of social movements, culture jamming is an important and creative form of resistance to corporate messages. Despite the many forms of actions proposed, its main feature is the subversion of meaning carried out through the parody of marketing pieces proposed by large companies and circulated by hegemonic media. Shrewd contemporary dissenters, they have given up weapons for humorous cultural intervention. Through a proposal of democratization of traditional media and the deconstruction of a hegemonic and institutionalized discourse, jammers stand as mediators since, in claming a right to communication, they take upon themselves the task of widening the access to citizenship for a large number of consumers, whose voices are daily muffled by the roar of great corporations. INTRODUÇÃO: AS ORIGENS As origens continuam desde sempre enigmáticas, inaprisionáveis na ficção de uma temporalidade linear, mas insistindo como um mal necessário. Onde e quando originou-se a reflexão teórica que faz desta tese uma concretude provisória e inacabadamente possível? Mergulhando na complexidade, que propõe a construção de um conhecimento fundado em bases mais éticas, posso afirmar que o surgimento desta tese vincula-se à aula proferida pelo professor doutor Edgard de Assis Carvalho, no dia 20/8/2004, no seminário de pesquisa do doutorado. Isso apenas é possível – uma vez que nessa data o relatório de qualificação e o capítulo principal já estavam prontos – num universo povoado de ressonâncias e vozes de um futuro quase passado, que concorrem para constituir uma verdadeira polifonia atemporal. Se a função do mito é possibilitar a evasão do tempo histórico, amenizando a angústia da própria finitude através da atualização de uma ligação com o tempo primordial, com as origens (Eliade, 1989), talvez seja possível imaginar que os mitos, numa sociedade extremamente racionalizada, onde as emoções, os sentimentos e a imaginação foram separados do processo cognitivo, vingam-se desse recalque a que foram assujeitados e se transformam em teses: delimitadores parâmetros da emergência de idéias em turbilhão, cujo destino costuma ser o enclausuramento nas empoeiradas estantes das bibliotecas. Mas se o conhecimento criado numa tese surge no âmago de um mito confinado nas zonas obscuras da psique e da cultura, sendo gerado no útero da própria ciência por esses prometéicos personagens denominados cientistas, isso torna de fundamental importância a atualização de um movimento inaugural, capaz de libertá-lo de uma vez por todas da posição restrita em que se encontra. Para que isso seja possível, é necessário admitir que não há origem definida nem fechada, ou ponto de chegada definitivo, para as teses que forem capazes de se assumir como antídoto e se revoltar contra o engessamento ao qual qualquer estante possa confiná-las.
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