Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: GEOVANE DE CARVALHO MELADO

Uma banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO de MESTRADO foi cadastrada pelo programa.
STUDENT : GEOVANE DE CARVALHO MELADO
DATE: 24/11/2023
TIME: 14:00
LOCAL: UFSJ. Plataforma
TITLE:

"THIS TIME IT'S A BIT DIFFERENT": AMERICAN NEOCONSERVATISM IN THE
1980’s IN AMERICAN HORROR STORY: AHS 1984 (2019)

KEY WORDS:

Slasher; Neoconservatism; United States of America.

PAGES: 63
BIG AREA: Ciências Humanas
AREA: História
SUMMARY:

Abstract: The slasher cinema is a subgenre of cinematic horror that was created and achieved
great success in the United States of America in the late 1970’s and primarily in the 1980’s.
Its impact was such that it turned several figures from its films into icons of Western pop
culture, recognized to this day by various generations. In the eighties, the slasher served as a
vehicle for a neoconservative vision, sharing the ideals of the Ronald Reagan government
(1981-1989) and a portion of the country's ruling class. After various genre reformulations,
the slasher embraced metanarrative and evolved in dialogue with contemporary societal
changes. We aim to understand here how the fear created on the screens of slasher films from
the 2010s and early 2020’s connects with its audience, revealing their fears and anxieties. The
constant use of nostalgia and self-reference within the genre currently serves to comment on
the early slasher works and, consequently, on the 1980’s and the society of that period.
Therefore, by analyzing representations of contemporary society, the mechanisms used to
generate fear and attract the audience, as well as reflections on the slasher's past, are
suggested strategies to understand how contemporary United States exposes its fears and

desires through the genre. In 2019, the ninth season of the horror anthology series “American
Horror Story” (Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, 2011 - present) aired. With a beginning,
middle, and end, and no connections to the other years of the production, it was titled “AHS
1984”. Telling a slasher narrative, the work paid homage to the genre and the 1980’s while
also offering criticism of the era and the neoconservatism present in it and in the subgenre's
films. Starting from this subject, I aimed to analyze the representations of neoconservative
groups and discourses from the contemporary perspective of the producers, observing what
the genre has to say about the past and present through tropes, stereotypes, and the use of fear
as tools in audiovisual media.

BANKING MEMBERS:
Presidente - 1297563 - CASSIA RITA LOURO PALHA
Interna - 1030508 - INGRID SILVA DE OLIVEIRA LEITE
Interno - 1061311 - ALFREDO NAVA SANCHEZ
Externa à Instituição - GABRIELA MULLER LAROCCA - UFPR