Lilith’s disobedience: representations of the myth of the first woman in the animated movie Paranorman

Abstract

From a visual culture packed with symbolic and social constructions that anchor representations, it is possible to make sense of the apprehension of reality in various forms. In this culture, fragmented identities are forged and can be constantly renounced and reshaped, often having the representations in the media as reference. In such media context, the cinematographic animations, inserted in the cultural scope, also serve as a reference and appropriate elements common to the popular imagination - such as mythological narratives -, to be closer to the audience and make sense of their stories. In this way, this article brings to light reflections on the mythological journey of Lilith, Adam’s first wife in Judeo-Christian mythology. Associated with the eternal condemnation of the feminine, this emblematic figure has multiple aspects in history, which meet various aspects of feminist struggle and its sociocultural impact, raising a contemporary look at its manifestation. Therefore, the present work seeks, as a general objective, to analyze the female representation from the witchy aspect of Lilith represented by the character Agatha Prendergast in the animation Paranorman (2012). The theoretical north is defined by bibliographic research on representations and identities based on Hall (2000; 2003), Silva (2000) and Woodward (2000), as well as approaches to animation cinema in Fossatti (2011) and Denis (2010), followed by investigations into the Lilith myth from Sicuteri (1998) and Koltuv (2017) for further analysis based on Content Analysis (PENAFRIA, 2009).

Keywords: Gender. Representation. Animation.