Abstract

Cinema is a stage for the manifestation of social representations by directors and spectators. Food is covered in the cinema, awakening the palate and appetite through the projected images.  Surveying and analyzing the social representations of cinema viewers regarding food portrayed in films is the objective of this study. Google Forms was used to raise the film on social media with the respective image or speech depicting food in the cinema. The statements were interpreted by content analysis, using the theory of social representations. The most mentioned films that came to mind among the 35 participants was Babette’s Feast (26.47%). At Babette’s Feast, food is initially restricted, appropriate to the small village, reflecting the conservative and religious parameters of the two sisters, being only a source of food. Then, at the banquet, food serves to discover pleasure, affective (re)encounter, empowerment of the being as a unique individual, who needs both social obligations, but also to discover in his individuality, the pleasure of life. In the film Babette’s Feast, the RS of people who like films about food emerge when food is transformed into tasty food, shared among people. The use of the theory of Social Representations in this study made it possible to study social realities, phenomena that involve some fundamental characteristics of daily life and those phenomena that disturb people’s routines, such as the film Babette’s Feast.