Estudos de Literatura Brasileira Contemporânea (Jan 2015)
Cenas cotidianas: cultura de consumoe mídia em contos de André Sant’Anna
Abstract
This article presents an analysis of the representation of mass culture andconsumer culture inrelatos(stories) from André Sant’Anna’sSexo e amizade. Ianalyze the stories in question within the context of Brazilian literature’s extensive dialogue with mass culture that has been in place since the beginningof the twentieth century, and which has often produced critiques of consumerculture. I argue that, in the stories under study, Sant’Anna represents consumerculture as a force that is intrinsic to characters’ social relations andconceptualizations of reality. He articulates a critique of consumer culture’spresence in Brazilian everyday life that departs from what Lidia Santos calls anaesthetic of difficulty, which marked Brazilian literature’s approach to massculture between the 1960s and the 1980s. This critique is conveyed through theuse of language that is predominantly accessible and mediatic and through thedepiction of individuals from different social classes.
