Humor discursive iconographic genres in the newspaper O Pasquim: a window for the freedom of expression

Abstract

This study analyses a sample of humor discursive iconographic genres, represented by the caricature, by the political caricature and by the cartoon, published in the newspaper O Pasquim. The aim was to understand how the publication was able to capture the spirit of the time (zeitgeist) during the civil-military dictatorship of the 1970s, looking at the cognitive processes of development of the collective imagination and, above all, how was it able to express the critical opinions towards the coercive ideologies and towards the ways of censorship imposed on freedom of expression with the use of this kind of visual language. The research qualitatively interprets the humor discursive iconographic genres through their interaction with the socio-historic-cultural context, and identifies the discourses in the light of theories of language. Results showed how relevant and effective was the journalistic use of this type of language, by O Pasquim, in order to trespass the borderline of unauthorized communication imposed by the hegemonic power and thus generate critical discourses in that context. It also brought up that the iconographic genres of humor are visual texts able to express a high level of critical information, which is particularly due to the nature of this kind of language, characterized as authorial, polyphonic and poetic, allowing implicit and explicit views of the world. Thus, the humor discursive iconographic genres, besides being language with high potential for information, able to overcome the limits imposed on freedom of expression, have also proved themselves as powerful resources demarcating aesthetic styles for editorial projects of humor journalism, among which O Pasquim postulates as one of the pioneer references.