Politics and power in “The Simpsons in Brazil”

Abstract

Former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and the tourism company Rio Tur were annoyed by the episode of The Simpsons, entitled “Blame it on Lisa”. In the face of this trauma, the impact of this animation movie on Brazilian politics was evident. Based on this, we justify our analysis and the time frame, since the then President of the Brazilian Republic, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, demanded public apologies from the author of the animation movie, Matt Groening. In addition, TV Globo network and the Rio de Janeiro tourism company have publicly positioned themselves against the representation of Brazil expressed ironically in the episode “Blame it on Lisa”. In this, the Simpson family travels to Brazil which is a country represented by futile values, marked by kidnappings, sexuality, poverty, soccer, carnival, slums, corruption, lack of beliefs, among other pejorative characteristics. In order to understand the relationship in the power of media (television) in politics, we will use in addition to the episode itself the analysis of other sources such as newspapers, magazines, internet pages of the author or even fans who comment on the episode researched. In this way, we will also be concerned with the viewers' perceptions of the episode in order to approach the motivations that make this a controversial animation movie.