The discourse of toxic masculinity in a government advertising campaign

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the discourse of toxic masculinity present in three pieces of an advertising campaign called “Nova Masculinidade” (New Masculinity), created by the government of the State of Bahia, Brazil, in 2019, as an action for prevention of violence against women. Theoretical and methodological background of this analysis is based on some French research on Discourse Analysis, focused on constitution, formulation, and circulation of meanings concerning this kind of masculinity. This analysis enabled to observe that the background of gender and masculinity studies, as well as the background of social movements that fight against gender-based violence have supported the statement of this advertising campaign. In addition, constituted and formulated meanings of this campaign circulate in an area with high traffic and diversity of people, which could promote the re-signification of the term “masculinity” considered as an object of discourse, as intended by this advertising campaign. However, New Masculinity campaign constitutes a single event, that is, it does not belong to the regularity patterns of our memory.