AUDIOVISUAL IMAGE READING

AN ANALYSIS BASED ON THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF BRAZILIAN LAW.

Abstract

This analysis provides a critical reading of the lecture Uma evolução histórica do Direito do Brasil (A Historical Evolution of Brazilian Law) by Professor Alysson Massaro, interpreting it as an audiovisual work that constructs fundamental social images for social science research. From a theoretical perspective aligned with Marxist historical materialism, the work decodes the presented visual and discursive narrative, which describes law’s transition from pre-capitalist societies to modern capitalism. A paradigmatic shift is identified from the image of the “body-object” characteristic of societies where domination was direct and based on brute force (slavocracy, feudalism) – to the abstract image of the “legal subject” under capitalism, mediated by the contract. However, it is argued that this new image of formal freedom and equality masks continued relations of exploitation, now centered on the extraction of surplus-value through the sale of labor power. The analysis concludes that the law acts not only as a regulator but as an active producer of images that legitimize specific social orders, concealing power relations, and demonstrates the usefulness of this approach to denaturalize legal institutions and understand the continuities in the logic of exploitation within the capitalist system.