A espiã entre o arquivo e a ficção : sexpionagem, construção identitária e mediação cultural

Abstract

This work analyzes the representations of female spies in contemporary mass culture, investigating how sexpionage — defined as the strategic exploitation of seduction by intelligence agencies — is translated, resignified, and mythified in films, comic books, and video games. The research starts from the hypothesis that pop culture operates a double mediation: it grants protagonism to women, but conditions this agency to a visual codification that links their effectiveness to sexual appeal. To this end, it articulates historical, theoretical, and analytical dimensions, reconstructing the institutionalization of sexpionage in the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany and applying Laura Mulvey's concept of the male gaze to characters such as EVA (Metal Gear Solid 3), Ada Wong (Resident Evil), Black Widow (Black Widow), and Camille "Rousseau" Denis (Call of Duty: WWII). The research concludes that mass culture removes women from historical invisibility but conditions this advancement to an erotic performance that perpetuates the myth of "seductive exceptionality," offering critical tools to recognize the tensions between archive and fiction, apparent empowerment and veiled subordination