Comida como distinção entre hibridismo cultural e poder no filme estômago

Abstract

In "Estômago," the mouth is the organ of two worlds. If at the beginning Nonato cooks to avoid starving to death, in the end he cooks to avoid being killed. After all, you are what you eat!? The Brazilian film Estômago (2007) mixes drama and humor to tell the story of Raimundo Nonato's rise to power, an immigrant who discovers an extraordinary culinary talent. The plot uses food as a metaphor for power and survival, alternating between his success in a restaurant and his life in prison. In this meta-language, using cult cinema as an object to dialogue with the seventh art and a banquet of concepts, it addresses cultural hybridity with power through cuisine; the central element being food as a means of social distinction. Therefore, this article aims to verify how food is linked to cultural identity, through the dishes prepared by the protagonist that reflect his origins and experiences, and to understand this practice reflected by synesthetic commensal values, recipes, rituals, gastronomic practices, eating habits, cultures, social classes, times and spaces, valuations about what is good or bad, edible or not, sophisticated or not; with the ethics and aesthetics of food prevailing. The methodology involved watching the film, taking notes in real time, using AI-assisted scriptwriting, and observing visual, sound, and narrative elements. A qualitative-interpretative perspective was employed, utilizing the categories of distinction, hybridity, and power; the authors discussed were Bourdieu and Foucault. Given the importance of metalinguistics and cinema in revealing values, the results presented highlight ideological concealments in light of the film's diegesis, suggesting that taste classifies, and classifies the one who classifies, with significant impacts on Brazilian gastronomy and the entities that comprise this "chef" subject.