TECHNOLOGIES OF GENDER: HOW THE MONSTROUS BODIES OF VAMPIRES REPRESENT GENDER IN ANIMATIONS?

INTRODUCTION: This research is part of the Programa Institucional de Bolsas de Iniciação Científica (PIBIC) of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR) and investigates the figure of the vampire in contemporary animations, focusing on the relationships between gender, sexuality, and monstrous corporeality. It begins with Sheridan Le Fanu’s short story Carmilla, a pioneering sapphic vampire narrative, and extends to recent works marked by dissident characters who challenge white cisheteronormativity. AIMS: In this trajectory, the vampire is understood as a liminal figure, traversed by desires, displacements, and exclusions, capable of operating as a critical metaphor of the norm. Animation is approached as a gender technology, following Teresa de Lauretis, due to its role in constructing social imaginaries and possible bodies. Thus, the animated field becomes a space of symbolic dispute where queer visualities take shape. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The adopted methodology is Suely Rolnik’s sentimental cartography, an implicated and affective approach, combined with a theoretical review in academic journals and a film analysis based on Jack Halberstam’s queer studies. The corpus of the research is composed of the following selected animations: Castlevania (2017), Castlevania: Nocturne (2023), and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2001). RESULTS: In these works, vampires such as Alucard, Olrox, and D are represented with aesthetic and performative ambiguity, staging identity crises, pain, desire, and displacement. Through them, reflections on the abject body and social exclusion emerge, reaffirming the potential of animation for fabulating deviant existences. FINAL CONSIDERATIONS: The study concludes that the animated vampire functions as a critical device for gender and sexuality, enabling the imagination of dissident subjectivities beyond the cisheteronormative order. The research therefore proposes a reading that articulates the monstrous with the political, highlighting animation as a fertile space for thinking about queer bodies, affects, and resistances.

KEYWORDS: Animação; Vampiro; Estética; Tecnologias de Gênero; Corporalidade.