The (no) inclusion of children with disabilities in the Limoeiro Neighborhood

reflections on the characters Luca and André in Turma da Mônica comic books

Abstract

After decades of struggling for more significant recognition and social participation, People with Disabilities have managed to have access to the work market, education and relative representation in artistic and cultural productions. Regarding the latter, the comic strips of Turma da Mônica stand out and, since the 2000's, have opened the famous Bairro do Limoeiro to children with disabilities, introducing characters who are representative for this group. Whether the fictitious neighbourhood became a de-facto inclusive one is what the present article aims to discuss, focusing mainly on the way in which the characters with disabilities are inserted, such as André and Luca, in these comic book narratives. The research corpus is composed by four stories from the following comic books: Magali – Ao assoprar a velinha (2021), Turma da Mônica – Como criar um bebê dragão (2021) and Turma da Mônica – Uma foto do Limoeiro (2021). The analysis of the episodes presented in these stories allowed for the verification that the image of the child with disabilities is expressed only and exclusively based on the symptomatological condition of their disability, as if this aspect alone was sufficient to represent real people with disabilities, which we have considered to be a discriminatory and excluding posture. This posture, unfortunately, has been reproduced in the discourse of the comic books that we have analysed. For the discussion, the theoretical contribution is based on the thinking of Serge Moscovici (2007), in the field of Cultural Studies, of Débora Diniz (2007) and João Batista Ribas (2003), who are researchers in the field of social inclusion of People with Disabilities.