Thursday 26 June 2014, 7.00-9.00pm, Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

Antônio Márcio da Silva will introduce his book The ‘femme’ fatale in Brazilian cinema: challenging Hollywood norms (2014), followed by Q&A. The femme fatale has long been constructed and understood in popular culture and cinema as a beautiful heterosexual Caucasian woman that belongs to film noir and neo-noir. Here, da Silva shows the need to incorporate diverse ethnic groups and male homosexuals into the range of “femmes” fatales. He examines how the Brazilian representations cross genre, gender, race, and class and offer alternative instances (black, slave, homosexual, married, and teenage) to the dominant Hollywood Caucasian model. As with gender performativity, the danger the femme fatale represents to society is constructed rather than being an innate feature. This figure represents areas of cultural anxiety, particularly around issues of sexuality and gender, but da Silva seeks to reframe these issues in the context of Brazilian film.

Coordinator of Portuguese at University of Kent, Antônio Márcio da Silva completed a PhD at University of Bristol (2013) and received an MRes from University of Leeds (2010). His main research interests include the representation of constructions of gender, sexuality and race in Brazilian and Lusophone cinemas, literature and popular culture and national/world cinemas and popular culture, particularly in the 1970s.

There will be a raffle of a free copy of the book for those attending.

All welcome. No booking required.

A drinks reception will follow.