Dreams in the sand: the silencing of African-based religions in pop culture – a study of the Sandman case
Ethnic-Racial Relations; African religion; Afrofuturism; comics
The objective of the present work is to analyze how the representation of religious entities of Yoruba origin occurs in American comic books. As a clipping, Sandman was chosen, a work by British author Neil Gaiman, which presents in its pages various deities and beings from different folklores, religions and mythologies of the world. The comic was part of the Vertigo label, a line of comics aimed at the adult audience from the publisher DC Comics. We briefly discussed what comics are; media, culture and their influence on our society; how the products of mass culture affect our perception of the world and our education. We contextualize the time and environment in which the comic book series Sandman appeared and the analysis of the pages of that magazine. In the process of building this dissertation, several authors with knowledge in the areas of criticism of the media and culture were used; education and communication; studies on education and comics and in the field of ethnic-racial relations.