Entre destruição e sobrevivência: luto, iconoclastia e disputa pelas imagens de Marielle Franco

Abstract

This study investigates how the image, in its medial and political function, transforms physical absence into a lasting symbolic presence with social impact, especially in the context of mourning for public figures such as Marielle Franco. The research questions how visual representations of Marielle promote resilience and resistance after her death, understanding the image, according to Hans Belting, as a junction between body, media and cultural significance, capable of going beyond the visual record. The concept of iconoclasm is examined in the light of Alberto Klein and Georges Didi-Huberman, who see the gesture of destroying images as an attempt at erasure that, paradoxically, reinforces their symbolic and political presence. Klein emphasizes the media spectacularization of iconoclastic acts, while Didi-Huberman suggests that images, when threatened, perpetuate memories and reactivate emotions. Jacques Rancière complements this view by positioning images as instruments of political "disagreement", challenging the established order. Susan Sontag, in turn, emphasizes the need for an ethics of spectatorship in the face of public suffering, while Judith Butler and Carla Rodrigues argue that political mourning connects the other’s memory to the defense of human dignity. In addition to the destruction of images, the research investigates the commodification of Marielle Franco's figure, analyzing how her image, when commercially appropriated, can suffer political emptying. The commercialization through t-shirts, plaques, dolls and other products tensions her representation between a symbol of resistance and an object of consumption, which raises the question of the limits between homage and symbolic exploitation. With these authors as the pillars of our theoretical construction, we bring an analytical approach to material collected between Marielle's pre-political periods until 2025. This material, covering news, social networks and visual manifestations, was structured to capture Marielle's visual and political trajectory. Thus, the study analyzes these representations in a symbolic field of political disputes, where her image persists and resists in spite of attempts to erase it. Methodologically, the study adopts an exploratory, theoretical-conceptual and bibliographical approach to examine the posthumous images of Marielle Franco and the role of political mourning in symbolic resistance. The analysis is based on the semio-semantics approach by Algirdas Julien Greimas and Joseph Courtés, which are visually formalized with the aim of mapping the oppositions, contradictions and implications in the dispute over her memory. Furthermore, it uses the examination of the types of veridiction contracts to investigate the transformations of the image in the interactional processes between authenticity, simulation, neutralization and political resignification.