The Body that Menstruates: countervisualities in the graphic humor produced by Fabiane Langona (2014-2021)

Abstract

The article examines the use of graphic humor to guide menstruation in cartoons and strips by cartoonist Fabiane Langona, published between 2014-2021 in the Folha de São Paulo newspaper and in her Instagram and Facebook profiles. The central purpose is to point out how, through the use of the grotesque and irony, graphic and discursive elements that characterize her work, the cartoonist strives to destigmatize the theme, facing the established taboos about the menstruating body and menstrual blood. I defend the premise that by putting the menstruating female body on stage, with the pain and discomfort it carries during this period, Fabiane Langona seeks to modify the meanings that are historically attributed to them, as something dirty and shameful, and break with the visual silence in which it’s wrapped. In this way, the artist builds counter-visualities, that is, transgressive images that go in the opposite direction to the historically interdicts placed on this theme, provoking reflections on them and on the meanings imputed to female bodies.