An object for desire: representations of the female body on billboard in Natal (Brazil)

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze images of the female body in public space of Natal, Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), by considering as corpus 64 billboard advertisings with 74 female characters located in the main avenues of the city. Field incursions, mapping and collection of pieces were conducted based on a transdisciplinary approach, being analyzed through the interpretative perspective of Goffman (1987) which perceives advertising as a diffuser of ideological representations and social stereotypes. The obtained results emphasize that: the advertisements displayed in the streets of the city address the female body into five categories (family, professional, beauty, erotic and consumer); little representation of minorities (black and old) and no representation of women with any disabilities were encountered; the education sector is the one that displays the most women in advertisements; women are usually shown smiling, looking at the viewers with passive postures and apparently inviting to a reading of their bodies as object of desire.