Netflix Is Suddenly a Huge Political Issue in Brazil
Netflix Is Suddenly a Huge Political Issue in Brazil
Netflix's newest show in Brazil, O Mecanismo, runs the risk of undermining democratic rule as explained by AS/COA Vice President of Policy Brian Winter.
In April 2016, Netflix announced it had greenlit a fictional television series based on a very large, very much ongoing corruption investigation in Brazil. Titled O Mecanismo, or “The Mechanism,” the show, which debuted in March, follows a team of federal police investigators working to uncover a multi-billion-dollar kickback scheme implicating much of Brazil’s political and economic elite. Lava Jato, the real-life probe on which the show is based, has targeted pervasive corruption surrounding Petrobras, the state-owned oil company. As with the real Lava Jato, the investigation depicted in the show began at a car wash (the meaning of “lava jato” in Portuguese) used by a politically connected bagman to launder dirty money, and leads all the way up to some of South America’s most powerful people.
José Padilha, the creator of O Mecanismo, first rose to fame in Brazil with the Elite Squad films, which depicted violent police operations in Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns, or favelas. As in those films, the cops in O Mecanismo are the heroes, fighting righteously against overwhelming forces of evil. Padilha has also served as a producer of Narcos, the popular Netflix series about the hunt for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Seven Days In Entebbe, his film about a real-life Israeli commando mission to save Israeli hostages in Uganda, was released in the United States last month.
