FRAGMENTS OF STRIP CARTOON DISCOURSE: A CRITICAL READING OF THE CHARACTER MONICA

Abstract

In the last decades, strip cartoons have multiplied to a surprising degree. With the system of universal communication, they appear initially as entertainment principally for the child-youth public. However, by means of this type of entertainment, an ideological conception is created which the author of the strip cartoons subtly transmits through his characters and the plots of his stories. Based on a reading of the Monica series of strip cartoons, we analysed Monica’s discourse to prove how the production/construction of the strip cartoon discourse is based on a bourgeois ideology. We also verified how the reading of Monica is elaborated by a group of 20 children, 10 from public schools and 10 from private schools in the Municipality of João Pessoa in the State of Paraíba. Among the results, there is evidence that the Monica series of strip cartoons do not collaborate substantially in uncovering stereotypes and in eradicating prejudices. In the evaluation of the children’s reading, we verify a tendency to reproduce what is said. The children assimilate through reading the ideology transmitted in the Monica strip cartoons. Thus, we conclude that cartoon characters function as powerful educational instruments in the hands of teachers, librarians, communicators, artists and educators concerned with improving the quality of the teaching-learning process.