Historical Fiction and the Age of Fake News

In 1997, Bruno Barreto’s film, O que é isso, companheiro? sparked controversy over its fictionalized depiction of life under the military dictatorship (1964– 1985) in a film inspired by historical events. In 2018, politicians, cultural critics, and television viewers engaged in heated discussions over the first season of José Padilha’s Netflix series, O mecanismo. The series is a fictional thriller inspired by the Lava Jato corruption probe, which was initiated in March 2014.¹ Each episode begins with the disclaimer that the series is loosely based on actual events and that certain adaptations were made for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, the series and Padilha have been attacked for propagating false information about Brazil’s recent history by such high-profile critics as former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, who called the series “fake news”.² Critics accused both productions of unfairly representing historical events despite both directors’ insistence on their right to creative license, calling into the question the responsibility of artists who represent historical events in their work.

The polemics of O que é isso, companheiro? and O mecanismo are my point of departure for considering the problem of historical fiction in Brazilian audiovisual culture. I have chosen to focus on these two productions because the debates they generate engage with highly contested Brazilian histories— the military dictatorship (1964–1985) and the ongoing Lava Jato probe—and because each cultural product is released amidst transformations in the audiovisual field. Some of the foundational concepts from memory studies can also add to our understanding of why Brazilians grapple with these issues today, and what impact these historical fictions may have on the future’s remembrance of the past realities that they represent.

O que é isso, companheiro? is the filmic adaptation of Fernando Gabeira’s (b. 1941) acclaimed 1979 memoir of the same name, which depicts his life during the military dictatorship. Gabeira’s memoir was published in 1979 shortly after Brazil announced reciprocal amnesty, which pardoned Gabeira for his participation in the armed resistance movement. The Amnesty Law of 1979 (A lei da anistia, nº6.683), ratified while the military government was still in power, imposed reciprocal amnesty, allowing for political exiles to return to Brazil and protecting anyone accused of state-sanctioned human rights violations or acts of terror against the state from legal repercussions. Amnesty also prevented an official investigation into the period. While amnesty encourages a pact of silence regarding the dictatorship and hinders any exhaustive and consequential investigation of that time, cultural production has sought to represent the period. Gabeira offered his readers information about the ideology of the Brazilian left; the inner-workings of the armed struggle; the kidnapping of U.S. Ambassador Charles Burke Elbrick in which he participated; and the systemic use of torture in Brazilian prisons, all of which was information that, despite being dealt with in some fictional works, had been repressed and censored in the preceding years.

Barreto’s filmic adaptation is a fictionalized retelling of Gabeira’s account of the events related to Elbrick’s kidnapping. It is not, nor does it claim to be, a faithful adaptation; rather, it is a political thriller loosely based on historical events—a work of historical fiction. Barreto’s choices as the director were criticized for being inaccurate and unfair to those who participated in the resistance movements against the dictatorship, to those who suffered torture and were murdered by the state, and particularly to the individuals represented in the film. The debate surrounding the film confronted issues about the responsibility of cultural producers who take on political history as their subject and the implications of representing a time in history that, with the 1979 Amnesty Law still intact, remains highly controversial and under-examined.

The screenplay of O que é isso, companheiro? was written by Leopoldo Serran (1942–2008), who worked with Barreto on other films inspired by literature, most notably Dona Flor e seus dois maridos (1976). By the time Barreto made O que é isso, companheiro? he had lived and produced films in Hollywood, where he went when Embrafilme closed in 1990 and funds for filmmaking in Brazil virtually disappeared.³ Barreto considered moving to Hollywood a necessity rather than a move to pursue a dream to make Hollywood movies (Jader). Barreto returned to Brazil amidst what is known as the retomada.⁴ Dennison and Shaw characterize the retomada films as having “an international flavour” (205), which they attribute to a move towards breaking into the international market. They aptly point to the international aspects of Barreto’s O que é isso, companheiro? in which Alan Arkin plays Ambassador Elbrick. O que é isso, companheiro? appeared at a crucial moment for Brazilian cinema and was exceedingly successful.⁵

Meanwhile, neighboring countries were undergoing the so-called memory boom, referring to the uptick in cultural production engaged with histories of atrocity and state violence (Racja 12, Ros 21). At this time, works dealing with dictatorships in Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay flooded the market as each country navigated processes of transitional justice, from the truth and justice movement in Argentina to the pact of silence and “expiration” of the state’s ability to prosecute dictatorship-era crimes in Uruguay. In Brazil, the state had recognized wrongdoing and awarded reparations through the 1995 Lei dos Desaparecidos Póliticos (lei 9.140). As such, the state assumed civil responsibility for enforced disappearance, but without any kind of criminal accountability (Mezarobba 109). O que é isso, companheiro? was released precisely when there was some movement towards accountability for the violations of the state during the dictatorship and debates about impunity and transitional justice were very much a part of the milieu. Barreto’s film is among Brazilian cinema’s contribution to the South American memory boom, fitting among Sérgio Rezende’s 1994 film Lamarca, Emiliano Ribeiro’s filmic adaptation of As meninas by Lygia Fagundes Telles in 1995, and Beto Brant’s Ação entre amigos in 1998.

Barreto’s film was highly acclaimed, even receiving an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Film. O que é isso, companheiro? enjoyed relative success in the Brazilian market, amassing 321,450 spectators in cinemas and R$1,787,262.00 in earnings (“Valores Captados”), which Barreto attributes in part to the professionalized marketing campaigns that promoted the film: “O filme teve publicidade e apoio. A Miramax (distribuidora nos EUA) não descuidou de nada. O Ministério da Cultura ajudou com uma verba para a divulgação. Foi tudo certo” (qtd. in “O Que É Isso, Companheiro? vai disputar o Oscar 1998”). Barreto’s film achieved both commercial and critical success in the mainstream.

However, not all reviews of the film were glowing. Stephen Holden of The New York Times described Four Days in September (the English-language title) as inconclusive, asserting that “this gripping but often clumsy film presents a disturbingly ambiguous and unromantic portrait of the retaliation against oppression” (Holden). Variety’s Joe Leydon wrote, “Bruno Barreto’s ‘Four Days in September’ is a scrupulously even-handed account of the 1969 kidnapping of the U.S. ambassador to Brazil by left-wing revolutionaries. Everyone has his reasons, and nothing—not even the torture of political prisoners—is ever allowed to get out of hand in this telling.” While foreign critics, far removed from the history and culture that the film represents, considered Barreto’s treatment of the events “disturbingly ambiguous” and “scrupulously even-handed,” critiques in Brazil were much more condemning.

Many Brazilian public intellectuals, some of whom took part in resistance movements against the government and some of whom survived torture, criticized the film and its producers for creating a work that, they argue, strikes a reconciliatory tone instead of denouncing state violence. In fact, the controversy led to a collection of essays that raised questions about the implications of Barreto’s film, called Versões e ficções: O seqüestro da história. These critics identify and reject the parallels that the film supposedly draws between torturers and guerrillas (see essays by Almada, Leite, Lins, Reis, Ridenti, Salem andTapajós), as well as the parallels drawn between the captivity of the ambassador and the imprisonment of the revolutionaries. They take issue with Barreto’s portrayal of the character Jonas, who appears in the film as boorish and violent, unlike how they remember their friend, Virgílio Gomes da Silva (nom de guerre Jonas), who was killed in torture shortly after the kidnapping (see essays by Gaspari, Horta, Leite, Lins, Martins, Muniz, Piveta, Ridenti, Salem and Tapajós). While Barreto insists on his right to poetic license and his explanation of his intention to create a fictional work inspired by Gabeira’s memoir, his critics take issue with his version of a period.

Sociologist, Marcelo Ridenti, argues that the film perpetuates dangerous clichés about the period, providing a disservice to young people who want to learn about the complexities of the time. Although the film is marketed as fiction, he writes, “O problema é que o filme trata dos fatos e personagens reais, de uma época sobre a qual há muita curiosidade e também muito desconhecimento” (Ridenti 27). In an interview, historian Daniel Arão Reis posits that the film is a reconciliatory attempt to write the memory of the real events that it fictionally depicts:

Eu diria que é um filme que representa uma tendência conciliadora de recuperação da memória. […] acho que o fundamental é discutir o que esse filme representa como proposta de recuperação dos anos 60 e o que ela representa na luta pela apropriação da memória. Não adianta que os autores disseram que quiseram fazer uma ficção, que não tem nada a ver com a realidade. Isso é balela, eles estão envolvidos na luta conscientemente ou não. (Salem 91)

Reis, who participated in the armed struggle and in Elbrick’s kidnapping, also published a scathing editorial in O Globo, arguing that the film is nothing less than a product of the filmmakers’ deliberate choices and that the viewpoint is a reflection of their perspectives and lives during the time: “Não se trata de preguiça intelectual na pesquisa da época, trata-se de uma proposta que se esmera em confundir papéis, e propõe equivalências, dilui fronteiras …” (Reis 105). For Reis, Barreto’s own denial of intentionally engaging in a political debate cannot be the basis of assessing this work and he accuses Barreto of deliberately spreading a common discourse about the dictatorship that likens the violence of the armed resistance to the violence of the state, thereby morally equating them.

The depiction of state violence is another sticking point in Ficções e versões. Political scientist, César Benjamin attacks the film’s torture scenes as unrealistic and unnecessary, concluding that the representation of torture in the film is an injustice to victims. Filmmaker and author, Renato Tapajós, criticizes the film’s depiction of torture as a practice at the discretion of the functionaries who had to carry out the physical torture, thereby absolving high-ranking officials of the responsibility for what was indeed a government policy. He points to Barreto and Serran’s divergence from the actual events that they are fictionalizing as ideological choices.

In contrast, Fernando Gabeira defends Barreto’s right to fictionalize his memoir, and in an interview with the Folha de São Paulo calls his former comrades and other critics “pessoas de má fé” (Caversan). Gabeira, who had limited involvement in the production of the film, argues that the characters portrayed in the film, including the character based on himself, were syntheses of many people and archetypes and do not represent any particular person. “Nem dá para caracterizar que aquele personagem sou eu. Não sou eu!” Gabeira explains: “As pessoas que se sentem prejudicadas vão sofrer inutilmente, e as pessoas que se sentem beneficiadas vão se alegrar estupidamente. Você tem que se acostumar com essa relação com a ficção” (Caversan). Gabeira also observes that the majority of critics who attack the film do so largely ignoring the aesthetics of the film, focusing instead on the narrative and its relation to their versions of the past. Regarding the torturer character, Gabeira points to his own memoir as a source of the ambiguity that many critics attacked: “O torturador não podia ser visto como um monstro. Aprestá-lo assim iria dificultar compreender a banalidade do mal” (Caversan). The banality of evil in the film, as Gabeira identifies it, would not be recognized by narrative analysis, but an aesthetic analysis can reveal other nuances.

One who ignores the aesthetics would miss how Henrique, the torturer character, is problematized in the film. In the scene where his wife, Lília, discovers that he works as a torturer, an analysis of just the dialogue shows the torturer justifying the use of torture in general: “… se essa escória chegar ao poder, Lília, não vai haver apenas tortura, mas muito fuzilamento sumário.” Along with his personal justification for carrying out torture, “É o meu trabalho. Fui designado para ele e faço.” However, examining the aesthetics of the scene it becomes clear that the spectator should be sympathizing with Lília, who is horrified that her husband is a torturer. When Henrique admits to her that he tortures, dramatic non-diegetic music begins and from there the shots of the scene maintain a focus on Lília’s horror. She pushes him away when he tries to embrace her and, in the end, averts his gaze and shakes her head in disbelief. This scene is just one example of how Barreto’s film employs subtlety through the cinematography and underscore, which is largely ignored in critiques of O que é isso, companheiro?

The debate surrounding O que é isso companheiro rehashes common concerns with historical fiction, such as the ideological decisions that cultural producers make. It was released at the intersection of the so-called memory boom of Latin America and the retomada, meaning that Barreto’s film enters into a widening conversation about dictatorship remembrance and Brazilian film’s growing audience is increasingly international. As such, filmmakers like Barreto were answering a demand for productions about the dictatorship and had the best technology and marketing at their disposal that Brazilian filmmakers ever had. Because of the memory boom and because of the potential reach, the stakes for Barreto’s film were high, which compelled his critics to speak out and write about it. O que é isso, companheiro? generated numerous articles and a book, creating space for discussion about what the dictatorship was really like and what really happened.

The critiques of the first season of O mecanismo (released March 23, 2018) that denounce the eight-episode season’s representation of recent Brazilian history echo the controversy over O que é isso, companheiro? Once again, some prominent Brazilian public intellectuals and pundits complain that the representation is unjust, while the producers of the series and other critics stress that the series is a work of fiction and emphasize the importance of creative license. In 2018, O mecanismo was released into a world that some call post-truth or post-fact. Padilha’s series enters into a struggle over how to represent past events that are part of a still unfolding scandal fought in the global context of accusations of so-called fake news and over a justified fear that media can acutely manipulate public opinion to influence elections. The Brazilian political climate was volatile in the wake of a parliamentary coup that ousted Dilma Rousseff; the imprisonment of front-running presidential candidate, Lula; a financial crisis; unpopular austerity measures; the impunity of then-President Michel Temer, who was accused of graft; the assassinations of progressive politicians, such as councilwoman Marielle Franco; and an upcoming election that would result in the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. In addition to viewers in over 190 other countries, Netflix released O mecanismo to a politically polarized Brazilian public, paranoid and uncertain about the country’s future.

The Brazilian public was also witnessing and participating in drastic transformations in the way that television was defined and consumed. Netflix and other video-on-demand (VOD) services have shifted the paradigm of film and television consumption by enabling viewers to watch whatever content they want whenever they want, divorcing television consumption from a set schedule. Mareike Jenner points out that “streaming services are inherently linked with the medium of TV and its cultural connotations, even though the technological infrastructure is different and the streaming of content implies a disconnect from TV schedules” (“TVIV?” 262). As such, VOD services compete with, and in some households replace, traditional scheduled television programming.

When Netflix changed its business model from primarily DVD rentals to a VOD streaming service in 2007, it also launched original series and films, thereby becoming “the first in the chain of media exhibition distribution” (Jenner, “TVIV?” 261), and in doing so created an innovative approach to media distribution. Amazon and other VOD services followed suit, also creating original content and distributing it exclusively on their platforms. Netflix’s original content includes hit series that are considered high quality, with celebrities in front of the camera, top directors and writers behind the scenes, and budgets that enable programs with cutting edge technical quality.

One of the ways that Netflix changed the way that viewers consume television is by creating serialized dramas for the phenomenon of binge-watching.

In a 2013 press release, Netflix divulged the results of a survey in which “A majority (73%) defined binge-watching as watching 2–6 episodes of the same TV show in one sitting” (Netflix, Inc). It is worth noting that binge-watching has become so commonplace that it was Collin’s Dictionary Word of the Year in 2015. Programs created for VOD and binge-watching have some commonalities that set them apart from scheduled and synchronized television programming. First, they are released a season at a time. For example, the first season of O mechanismo, all eight episodes, was released at the same time on March 23, 2018. All eight episodes of the second season came out on May 10, 2019. As such, the program was available for binge-watching. A series designed with binge-watching in mind can offer a much more complex and non-linear narrative than that of traditional television dramas; they can break with a model of television series that relies on a formulaic story arch to be wrapped up neatly within the time of the episode. To be sure, serialized dramas designed for binge-watching, such as O mecanismo rely on cliffhangers and open endings to episodes to coax viewers into clicking the “Watch next episode” button.⁶ As such, O mecanismo was a novelty in that it was among the first Brazilian series to be distributed on Netflix and created for the binge-watching viewer at a time when Netflix was experiencing extraordinary growth in the Brazilian market.⁷ While in 2017, Netflix had 6 million subscribers in Brazil, Tecmundo reported that in October 2019 that number had climbed to 10 million (Dias and Navarro 27). The first season of O mecanismo, therefore, became immediately available in its entirety to millions of Brazilians and other viewers abroad. The all-star cast, celebrity director, and controversy upon its release piqued viewer interest in the series and became a popular topic of conversation on social media. Politically, Netflix did not have an affiliation with any particular Brazilian political party or ideological tendency as some of the major Brazilian television networks appear to have.⁸

Some background information about Padilha’s career as a filmmaker can better contextualize the controversy surrounding O mecanismo. José Padilha is an Oxford-educated director whose “academic pursuits continually crop up in his movie work” (Aftab). Also recurrent in his work is the exposition and critique of complex webs of power that he attributes to the social and political problems addressed in his films. His fictional works also have historical referents, sometimes filtered through literature, as is the case with his successful films, Tropa de elite (2007) and Tropa de elite 2 (2010), both based on a book about a special squad within the military police.⁹ Tropa de elite 2 remains the most-watched film of Brazilian history, with over 11 million spectators (“Valores Captados”). In the field of VOD, Padilha is the co-creator and executive producer of the hit Netflix series, Narcos, which is based on the history of Colombian drug lord, Pablo Escobar.

Padilha has repeatedly been at the center of controversy for his work. For example, Variety called Tropa de elite a “one-note celebration of violencefor-good that plays like a recruitment film for fascist thugs” that espouses a “right-wing p.o.v.” and glorifies “brutish police methods” (Weissburg). Recently, Israeli spectators took issue with 7 Days in Entebbe (2018), in particular the depiction of Yonatan Netanyahu’s death as unheroic. The Jerusalem Post slammed the film for its “revisionist view of the events that are often seen as one of Israel’s finest hours” (Brown) and for centering the story on two German hijackers instead of the innocent victims.

Like O que é isso, companheiro?, the series O mecanismo is a political thriller based on a book that is based on actual events. The Lava Jato scandal is the largest and most far-reaching corruption scandal in Latin America, and some, such as The Guardian’s Jonathan Watts, posit that it is the largest in history. The operation, undertaken by the Federal Police in Curitiba, uncovered a vast network of racketeering that implicated Brazil’s largest companies and much of the political class. Indeed, a scandal of this magnitude is fertile ground for a political thriller. The book, Lava Jato: O juiz Sérgio Moro e os bastidores da operação que abalou o Brasil, is a work of investigative journalism, written by Vladimir Netto. Netto meticulously describes the Lava Jato operation in detail, including information that he acquired through exclusive interviews with key figures. As the title suggests and as is noted in the introduction by Fernando Gabeira, Netto’s book presents Judge Moro as the protagonist. The cover is a low-angle close-up of Moro’s serious face. He looks serenely off into the distance as if looking towards the future of a Brazil cleansed of corruption.

While the book immediately presents Moro as a hero, the prologue makes explicit connections between the Lava Jato corruption scandal and the party in power at the time, the Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), specifically incriminating Lula and Dilma. Netto chooses to introduce the Lava Jato and frame his narrative beginning, not with the chronological beginning of the operation, but rather on March 17, 2016; two years into the investigation when it reaches Lula in the midst of massive protests against Dilma and the PT: “Lula estava no meio do turbilhão. Nos últimos meses, o cerco da Operação Lava Jato vinha-se fechando em torno dele. Alguns dias antes, em 4 de março, às seis da manhã, o ex-presidente, vestindo um abrigo de ginástica, abriu a porta do seu apartamento em São Bernardo do Campo. Eram 15 homens da Polícia Federal com um mandado de condução coercitiva para levá-lo a depor” (Netto 10). The first person who appears guilty in the book is Lula. Netto’s book asserts that the Lava Jato scandal revealed that dirty hands sullied virtually all facets of the Brazilian government, including the popular PT leaders. Therefore, it is no surprise that Padilha’s adaptation of the book for streaming would stay faithful to this narrative that all parties and people in power are corrupt.

Together with screenwriter Elena Soarez, Padilha wrote O mecanismo for Netflix based on how Netto’s book synthesized and organized the narrative of the Lava Jato—no simple task considering the sheer amount of people and details involved and the far-reaching implications—transforming the history into a political thriller for an international audience.¹⁰ The transformation included changing all of the names of the characters inspired by real people (i.e., the character Verena Cardoni was based on Erika Marena, the federal police officer credited with naming the operation Lava Jato), changing the name of entities represented in the series (i.e., the Polícia Federal becomes Polícia Federativa), and inventing events and relationships to heighten the drama. With Selton Mello and Caroline Abras in the leading roles, the series boasts an all-star cast and crew.

Following its release, the first season of O mecanismo experienced mixed critical reception. Some public figures, such as then-presidential candidate Marina Silva, praised Padilha for taking on such an important and difficult topic as corruption. Still others attacked Padilha for portraying the PT unfairly and cite some specific moments in which the series departs from actual events. The controversy surrounding O mecanismo provoked the hashtag, #deletenetflix, as viewers slammed the company for supporting the program and urged fellow subscribers to punish Netflix with a boycott. Padilha, in response to the attacks on the series, cited the prefacing disclaimer that opens each episode, which states: “Este programa é uma obra de ficção inspirada livremente em eventos reais. Personagens, situações e outros elementos foram adaptados para efeito dramático.” Therefore, Padilha argued, any criticism based on a desire for a detailed faithfulness to history is misguided and unwarranted.

Former President Dilma Rousseff attacked the series for misrepresenting her, calling it political propaganda. In a blog post entitled “O mecanismo de José Padilha para assassinar reputações,” Rousseff accuses Padilha of the “propagação de mentiras de toda sorte para atacar a mim e ao Presidente Lula” (Rousseff) and lists instances where she posits that Padilha is acting in bad faith. Her list of moments in which the series diverts from reality is extensive: first, that the Banestado scandal did not occur during Lula’s administration in 2003, but in fact took place under the administration of Fernando Henrique Cardoso; second, that Alberto Youssef was not involved in her campaign as the series shows the character inspired by Youssef (Roberto Ibrahim played by Enrique Diaz) giving money to the campaign of the character inspired by Rousseff (Janete Ruscov played by Sura Berditchevsky), thereby further implicating her in “the mechanism” of corruption; third, Rousseff insists that she was never friends with former Petrobras executive, Paulo Roberto da Costa, as the series suggests; fourth, she attacks Padilha for taking the famous words of PMDB senator Romero Jucá that they needed to “estancar a sangria” or stop the investigations from reaching him and his partners, and putting that well-known phrase into the mouth of the character of ex-President João Higino (played by Arthur Kohl), who represents Lula da Silva, thereby insinuating that Lula wanted to impede the investigation and obstruct justice; and finally, Dilma points out that the Minister of Justice was never Youssef’s lawyer, as the show depicts such an outrageous conflict of interest. Rousseff cites moments in the plot where she and her party are implicated and appear guilty, while Rousseff insists that they are innocent. These instances where the series diverts from reality are also noted by André Shalders of BBC Brasil and Natalia Leal of Piauí. Of course, there are other fictionalized aspects of the series that Rousseff does not mention because they apparently have no political importance, such as Selton Mello’s character in the show, who is very loosely based on a former agent of the Polícia Federal.

Rousseff insists that her critique of O mecanismo is rooted in a fervent belief in freedom of expression and against censorship. Nonetheless, she accuses Padilha of intellectual dishonesty and propagating “fake news,” explaining, “O cineasta não usa a liberdade artística para recriar um episódio da história nacional. Ele mente, distorce e falseia. Isso é mais do que desonestidade intelectual. É próprio de um pusilânime a serviço de uma versão que teme a verdade” (Rousseff). For Rousseff, works of self-proclaimed fiction that represent actual events have limits, and producers who cross the line are not using their creativity, rather they are manipulating their audience with lies. The lies, or “political propaganda” as Rousseff calls it, could shape public opinion and impact Brazilian politics. It appears that this is Rousseff’s fear. Her argument presupposes the power of cultural production to sway opinions and shape political reality.

In response to Rousseff, Padilha reiterated his right to creative license and implored her to read the disclaimer that prefaces each episode. In an interview with Observatório do Cinema he retorted, “Na abertura de cada capítulo da série avisamos que fatos foram alterados para efeitos dramáticos. Para o pessoal que sabe ler, portanto, não há ruído algum!” (Cimino). In the same interview, he pointed out that the phrase “estancar a sangria” is not owned by anyone, and, therefore, that Soarez could use it freely in the script. Padilha responded to attacks that he was choosing sides and demonizing the PT by explaining his intention to denounce the corrupt system of Brazilian politics, “Essa turma não entendeu que a série é uma crítica ao sistema como um todo e não a esse ou àquele político ou a qualquer grupo partidário. Por isso se chama O mecanismo. Assim, misturar falas ou expressões de um político-personagem que o público pode confundir quem falou não tem a menor importância, pois são todos parte do sistema. É esse mecanismo que queremos combater” (Cimino). Padilha used creative license to make a series with the thesis that the mechanism is a corrupt system and that everyone is implicated, so portraying a gradient of guilt in which some characters are less guilty than others is not in the interest of his main thesis.

In an article for the Folha de São Paulo, Padilha explains his thesis in detail, first arguing that the mechanism exists in Brazil by citing examples, and then positing that both the left and the right in Brazil have taken strides to undermine investigations into corruption. Padilha’s refrain is that the mechanism has no ideology and that politicians from all positions on the ideological spectrum enable it. He writes, “Criou-se, assim, um ambiente irracional e polarizado, em que o dogmatismo ideológico da esquerda radical e o cinismo pragmático da direita fisiológica passaram a trabalhar juntos para negar o inegável, o fato de que todas as lideranças políticas dos grandes partidos brasileiros são corruptas” (Padilha, “José Padilha: O mecanismo agradece”). Padilha persistently argues that the objective of his series was to denounce systemic corruption and that he can use fiction to creatively represent Brazilian corruption however he sees fit for making a quality product. He also argues that the PT and the Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (formerly known as the PMDB) have both benefitted from the mechanism and perpetuated it, thereby justifying the series’ portrayal of Lula and Dilma as part of the problem.

Padilha’s justification for his choices did not curb further criticism. A flood of critics attacked the show, not only for its unfaithfulness to their memory of the Lava Jato scandal, but also for its artistic integrity. Elio Gaspari argued that the voiceover narration and the telenovelesque tropes, notably gratuitous sex scenes, rivalries, and betrayal in the series cheapened the quality. Comparing it to other recent works based on historical events, such as the Netflix series The Crown and Steven Spielberg’s feature film The Post, he argued that the entertainment value of these works came from their fascinating histories and not from added melodrama, vulgarity, and nudity. For Gaspari, O mecanismo is valuable despite its flaws and inaccuracies because it tells the story of the Lava Jato scandal, “A narrativa do caso será útil para muita gente que perdeu o fio da meada da Lava Jato. Essa é a razão pela qual é melhor ver a série do que não vê-la” (Gaspari, “Vale a pena ver ‘O mecanismo’”). Therefore, the series can serve as a tool for understanding the scandal and its main events, taking on a pedagogical function. Gaspari recognizes that the series will inform viewers and shape their understanding of the scandal, but he stops short of problematizing the inaccuracies and their potential for shaping memories that never happened in the past.

Antônia Pellegrino connects what she identifies as the logic of the series to the looming threat of fascism in Brazil. She argues that Padilha’s mechanism misses the mark by condemning all politicians and, therefore, Brazilian representative democracy as a system, “Enquanto … o real mecanismo, das oligarquias e do rentismo—que capturam o estado e orçamento público para seus interesses—agradece” (Pellegrino). Pellegrino explains that while she does not see Padilha aligning himself with any particular presidential candidate or a military intervention, the show inadvertently does so by glorifying those who are outside of the realm of politics and fight the mechanism by any means, “Inclusive a violência, a intimidação e o microterrorismo. Mas a metodologia não interessa. Se for preciso misturar fatos, distorcer e caluniar para caber na tese do diretor, não tem problema.” Here she refers to the protagonist, Marco Ruffo (played by Selton Mello), who uses threats, violence, and intimidation in lieu of search warrants. Writing before the election of Bolsonaro, Pellegrino connects this logic with his discourse as a candidate: “Se a eleição fosse hoje e Bolsonaro se elegesse, pelo sistema de Padilha estaria tudo ótimo. O mecanismo poderia ser quebrado. Que outros métodos extrapolíticos valem para romper o mecanismo? Uma ditadura militar?” (Pellegrino). For Pellegrino, O mecanismo depicts Brazilian representative democracy as broken, as protecting criminals at the expense of the common citizen, and as a system that only law enforcement can fix—indeed, a perspective that echoes Bolsonaro’s campaign speeches.¹¹ Pellegrino’s issue with O mecanismo is not that it weaves historical references with fiction, rather she sees elements of the series as “um panfleto fascista.”¹²

Pellegrino’s critique appeared amidst global conversations about the rise of ultra-right-wing governments and fear of new forms of fascism, and she published it at a time when some Brazilians were calling for the military to take over the government temporarily to establish order in Brasília and to eradicate corruption. In May 2018 when the truckers’ strike paralyzed Brazil, the possibility of a military intervention grew in popularity, spreading via social media. BBC Brasil reports, “Em grupos de apoiadores da greve no WhatsApp e no Facebook, além de outros movimentos, são comuns os pedidos por uma intervenção militar temporária, que promova uma ‘limpeza ética’ no governo e conduza o país até a próxima eleição” (Fellet). Social media such as WhatsApp played a prominent role in enabling these sorts of conversations in Brazil, the fear (or hope) for a military intervention and even the rise of Jair Bolsonaro. WhatsApp has since admitted that vast majority of so-called fake news—that is viral videos and chain messages of unfounded information and news—was ideologically right wing and favored Bolsonaro, thereby helping him into the presidency (Avelar). He took office on January 1, 2019.

Season two came out five months into the Bolsonaro presidency. While Padilha insisted on O mecanismo season one as not being a representation of reality, stressing the fictional and creative aspects of the show, in season two there are some glaring inconsistencies. For example, while season one focused on the operations of the Polícia Federativa in Curitiba and the governing party was called the Partido Operário, season two slips into depicting the work of Polícia Federal and uses the acronyms of the major political parties of the time that it depicts, the PT and the PMDB. The thinly veiled fictionalization of these entities is dropped entirely. In interviews to promote season two, Padilha also brings the historical referents closer to their fictionalized counterparts. In an interview with BBC News Brasil, Padilha discusses the representation of Sérgio Moro as Moro, and not as the character, Judge Paulo Rigo (Mori and Mesquita). Whereas before, Padilha attacked his critics for conflating his fictional representation with reality, as season two is released, he begins interchanging names of characters and fictional institutions with those of reality both in the work itself and in interviews. It is not clear if the inconsistencies within the world created in the series are a result of carelessness or deliberate; nonetheless, they show that historical fiction, especially of recent and inconclusive histories, is not only tricky for the consumers who scrutinize the cultural product’s faithfulness to reality, but also for producers like Padilha.

As critics point out, in season two O mecanismo shifts its critique of Brazilian politics from centering on the characters and party that represents the PT to include the corruption, conspiracies, and obstruction of the democratic process and of justice by other characters and political parties, such as characters inspired by Aécio Neves, Michel Temer, Eduardo Cunha, the PMDB and the PSDB. Season two depicts the main characters working on the investigation and reflecting on the possible consequences of Lava Jato, the triplex scandal, and the impeachment of the President. As such, season two attempts a more nuanced discourse on the Lava Jato and appears selfaware of the unintended consequences of the investigation that some argue have thrown the country into a crisis. Even the protagonist that embodies Padilha’s thesis, Marco Ruffo, who in his voice-over narration theorizes the mechanism and its impact on all facets of Brazilian life, recognizes that the fall-out from Lava Jato and the impeachment will not subvert the mechanism, but could leave a vacuum to be filled by “repressive forces.”

In the final episode of the season, the impeachment vote is in process and as Ruffo watches, he reflects on the mechanism and the history of political parties. When the character who represents Jair Bolsonaro, a character described in the credits as Deputado #1a Votação, played by Garcia Júnior, casts his vote the soundtrack and visual montage create a scene that foreshadows the impending political shift and its danger. The soundtrack includes soft non-diegetic music that heightens the drama and suspense, the diegetic speech of Deputado #1a Votação—almost verbatim of the actual speech that Jair Bolsonaro gave preceding his vote in favor of Roussef’s impeachment— and Ruffo’s non-diegetic narration. Visually, the scene alternates between the impeachment vote where the Bolsonaro-inspired character speaks and shots of characters watching the speech on television and reacting to it. After the speech begins, there is a close up of Higino (the Lula-inspired character), watching from the president’s office during which Ruffo narrates:

Ruffo:O PT, que tinha representado a esperança, formou uma quadrilha com o PMDB e traiu a população. Só que os políticos honestos de esquerda não queriam dar o braço a torcer. Eles preferiam acreditar que o PT era vítima de uma conspiração de direita.

Deputado:Perderam em 1964 e perderam agora.

Close up on Thames smiling and watching.

Ruffo:E ignoravam o fato de que eles mesmos haviam votado no Thames.

Deputado:Pela inocência das crianças em sala de aula.

Shot zooms in on the TV in Thames’s office.

Ruffo:A opção do PT matou a esquerda. E com a direita fisiológica e desonesta entrando na mira do Lava Jato …

Shot zooms in on Ruffo; the speech continues as diegetic sounds from his TV.

Deputado:Contra o comunismo!

Continues zooming in on Ruffo.

Ruffo:… formou-se um vazio bem perigoso.

Deputado:Pela nossa liberdade! Pela memória do coronel que apavora a presidente Janete.

Continues zooming in on Ruffo close up.

Deputado:Pelo Brasil acima do tudo e Deus acima de todos!”

Extreme high angle over the congress with Deputado in the middle of everyone, at the center of it.

Deputado:Meu voto é sim!”

Diegetic shot of Ruffo’s TV showing Deputado.

Ruffo:Um vazio que poderia ser preenchido pelas forças repressivas de um passado no muito distante.”

Zooming in to a close-up on Ruffo, identifying the viewer with him and his preoccupations.

By editing the Deputado’s speech together with Ruffo’s non-diegetic narration, this scene presents the Deputado character as putting forth ideas that amuse Thames and scare Ruffo. When the Deputado mentions 1964, alluding the civic-military coup d’etat, the visual is of Thames’s smile. Ruffo recognizes the Deputado’s discourse as that of the “forças repressivas de um passado não muito distante,” also alluding to the dictatorship. This scene is the climax of the episode, and part of the conclusion of the season. The season concludes with a new rift among the Lava Jato team, with Judge Rigo and his team from the Ministério Público preparing a case against Higino and Janete. Meanwhile the officers from the Polícia Federal, Verena and Vander reflect on the political merits of the PT and the worst-case scenarios of impeaching a democratically elected president. The program begins to reproduce the discourses circulating in Brazil at the time. Whereas season one denounced the Brazilian political class in its totality for corruption, season two begins to consider the cost of the corruption probe and the merits of different regimes and their policies, concluding with many open-ended questions, but with a clear denunciation of Bolsonaro and his rhetoric that exalts the military dictatorship and state terror.

The preoccupation with dictatorship memory intersects with the debates about O mecanismo and O que é isso, companheiro? Despite the 20 years since Barreto’s film and the controversy it generated, very little has changed in Brazil regarding investigating the truth and pursuing justice for the dictatorship. In 2011, the Comissão Nacional da Verdade (CNV), created by the federal law 12.528/2011 and instituted in 2012 under the Rousseff administration made headlines and exposed Brazilians to the testimonies of survivors of the regime’s human rights violations and the stories of the family members of those who were murdered. While it created a forum for survivors and the families of the dead and disappeared to share their stories with the nation, the CNV espoused a limited definition of victimhood and kept its work relatively discrete until publishing the final report (Salgado 72). Working within the framework of the Amnesty Law of 1979, the CNV fell short of depicting the dictatorship as a repressive government that victimized all of Brazil through the systematic implementation of censorship, suspension of political and civil rights, and suffocating national security policies. As such, the CNV failed to effectively counter the dominant narrative about the dictatorship that portrays the military intervention as a move to save the nation from a communist revolution. Therefore, the common discourses about the dictatorship had not changed dramatically between the production of O que é isso, companheiro? and O mecanismo.

The way that Brazilians consume media, on the other hand, did transform during the twenty years between the two productions due in part to the spread of the internet, the social media revolution, and the aforementioned changes in TV consumption toward a more personalized experience on VOD platforms. Globally, in the wake of Trump’s election in the United States, the epistemological crisis of “fake news” and “alternative facts” became a topic of conversation, an accusation among political rivals, and a subject debated in journalism. In Brazil, “fake news” was a preoccupation across the political spectrum amidst the parliamentary coup, Temer’s time in office, the imprisonment of Lula, and the election of Bolsonaro. As previously noted, the “fake news” phenomenon framed the reception of O mecanismo complete with critics fact-checking the self-declared work of fiction. Some critics, such as Sérgio Bruno Martins, consider O mecanismo to be part of the digital media landscape of viral videos, memes, and WhatsApp chains that provoke intense feelings and polarize viewers (de Lima).

To dismiss O mecanismo as part the same category of fake news as memes, viral videos, and other audiovisual texts circulated via social media is to ignore its form and genre: it is a serialized drama, a work of historical fiction designed for binge-watching. In her work on binge-watching and VOD, Jenner posits that binge-watching is encouraged by a specific kind of text, specifically one that is “quality” or “cult” and these binge-worthy texts are not associated with the “low-brow medium of television” (Jenner, “Bingewatching” 313). She distinguishes it from the way people passively consume scheduled, synchronized television, rather binge-watching requires the spectator to choose to watch and then actively view it, paying close attention to keep up with the complex narrative structures. There is a closer relationship between the viewer and the text, thereby fostering close reading and a deeper engagement (Jenner, “Binge-watching” 314). In a 2013 study, respondents to a survey reported overwhelmingly that binge-watching is a way to escape from their busy lives and from social media (Netflix, Inc.). The majority of respondents disclosed that they would rather binge-watch a series than read social media posts (80%) and that TV would be an exception to any “digital timeout” (65%) (Netflix, Inc.). The cultural anthropologist responsible for the Netflix survey, Grant McCracken, noted that rather than fitting into the digital storytelling of memes and short videos, binge-watching is an engaged form of viewing (Netflix, Inc.). The debate surrounding O mecanismo is evidence of an engaged audience watching critically, which may be more meaningful than the series itself.

Ann Rigney argues that the concept of cultural remembrance, “the complex set of mnemonic practices through which collective views of the past are continuously being shaped, circulated, reproduced, and (un)critically transformed with the help of media” (6), offers an apt framework for analyzing fictions that deal with historical events and depart from historiographical accounts. In her analysis of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five (1968), a novel criticized for publishing an inaccurate number of victims in the Dresden bombing, she highlights how the novel has affected public knowledge and opinion of its historical referent. She proposes to:

use the (ir)relevance of numbers as a springboard for considering historical fiction as a distinctive medium in the ongoing production of collective remembrance. Vonnegut’s mistake regarding the number of victims is enough to discredit the novel as a source of historical knowledge in the traditional sense. But the novel was not received by its many fans as a work of history (even if it was perceived as being about the past). (Rigney 11)

Like O mecanismo, Vonnegut’s novel begins with a disclaimer that what follows is a work of fiction that references history, that it is “more or less true.” Therefore, it explicitly asks that it not be confused with historiography and that it be read as fiction.

Rigney reminds us that cultural memory is informed by a myriad of media sources that support each other’s claims, contradict each other, and struggle:

It is because (freebooting) artists and (disciplined) historians are constantly pulling away from each other that certain topics remain “alive” and feed into public discussions. Such sites of memory remain alive … not because their importance was established once and for all, and their significance pinned down in an immutable truth, but because they continue to generate discussion about what actually happened, what is important to know in the first place and, finally, what sort of lessons we can draw from what we do know when we try to deal with contemporary realities. (Rigney 22)

Both works of fiction and works of history play important roles in the production and circulation of knowledge about the past, and both inform public discussion, which is, indeed, the subject of this article. The perspective of the dictatorship that O que é isso, companheiro? and of systematic corruption in Brazil that O mecanismo put forth were deemed worthy of intellectual energy, critical inquiry, and space in online and print publications. The interpretations of these works circulate and incite passionate debates that address more than the works of historical fiction, but also fuel conversations about what actually happened during the dictatorship and during Lava Jato, who is guilty, and how these contested histories relate to the current conjuncture.

Cultural works “play a variety of roles in the ongoing production of cultural remembrance” (Rigney 22). Remembrance here is a sensitive topic as both of these histories are highly contested and divergent versions of the past compete for dominance in the collective imaginary. The positions taken in these works and the way that these positions are interpreted by spectators contribute to the competing discourses about the past.

Disputes over how the dictatorship should be memorialized and over how to remember the events surrounding the Lava Jato scandal are so volatile, in part, because both of these histories are unresolved and there is no consensus over who is responsible. Because of the lack of resolution, these debates go beyond the struggle over how the collective memory about these periods is negotiated and formed and into the realm of the future of Brazilian democracy. At the heart of the debates is the question of responsibility. Who is responsible for the dictatorship? Who is responsible for Brazilian corruption? Critics interpret O que é isso, companheiro and O mecanismo as offering a response to these questions by portraying everyone as responsible: the socalled terrorists of the armed struggle and the torturous military regime are responsible for the horrors that occurred between 1964 and 1985; the whole political class acquiesces in corruption and is responsible for the mechanism. However, assigning responsibility to everyone obscures any possibility for personal responsibility or guilt in a country where impunity is a problem.¹³

In the current conjuncture, representations of the past matter. For example, when a portrayal of the dictatorship posits that state violence was only directed towards armed terrorists, this impacts the way that viewers understand the past and could well inform their opinions about a possible military intervention. Likewise, when a portrayal of the Brazilian government shows an unanimously guilty and corrupt political class, this, too, can impact elections and civic engagement with politics. Nonetheless, Brazilian cultural producers are free, and must be free, to represent history, the past, and the world (fictional and real worlds alike) however they desire. When these works illicit a strong response from the public and fuel public debates about politics, art, and truth, they are a part of a democratic process of the negotiation of meaning and of memory. O que é isso, companheiro? and O mecanismo as visual representations of the past become vehicles for confrontation and dialogue, therefore contributing to the construction of cultural memory. These conversations are vital, especially in situations where the past is contested, and the future is uncertain. These conversations commemorate moments in which spectators are not distractedly consuming visual products, like some Benjaminian nightmare, but instead engaging with visual culture and reckoning with it, fighting over it, and appropriating it as a backdrop to larger issues to be addressed in the real world.