Resgatar bons valores, ideias e sentimentos no coração dos brasileiros: o Brasil Paralelo e seu projeto de contrarrevolução cultural

Abstract

The rise of the far-right in contemporary times has become an unavoidable social phenomenon. Once marginalized, this movement is now at the center of political debate, anchored in the use of social media as vehicles for propaganda. The lack of regulation in the legal framework and the adoption of new discursive techniques have enabled the global far-right to establish its hegemony amidst economic and social crises and growing distrust in institutional political systems. In Brazil, this process gained its first momentum in the 2010s, with the popular protests of June 2013 and the demonstrations supporting the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff in 2014. Additionally, movements such as Movimento Brasil Livre (MBL) and Vem Para a Rua (VPR) grew and stood out amid an anti-corruption agenda targeting the Workers' Party (PT) government. The corpus of this research, “Brasil Paralelo,” emerged in this post-2013 protest context in 2016, offering an audiovisual and formative proposal for a rising right-wing political protagonism in the country. Its project presents a comprehensive vision of Brazilian society, grounded in an ideal societal perspective based on specific educational and cultural principles. With this dissertation, we propose to contextualize Brasil Paralelo's culturally reactionary transformation project through an analysis of the documentary series “Pátria Educadora”. For this analysis, we draw on Theodor W. Adorno’s work “The Authoritarian Personality” and Albert O. Hirschman’s “The Rhetoric of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy.” Both authors provide the theoretical framework to deconstruct the documentary series, focusing on the use of moral panic and adherence to conventionalism as central elements in Brasil Paralelo's rhetoric. We also highlight the role of reactionary ideology within the set of values mobilized by Brasil Paralelo through the analysis of the series “Brasil: A Última Cruzada,” supported by the discussion developed by Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke regarding their reflections on the French Revolution of 1789. Furthermore, we examine the organization and digital strategies employed by this company, as well as the argumentative and marketing structures used to reach an increasingly broad audience, emphasizing the formulation of didactic content as entertainment and the use of neutrality claims to reinforce authority, along with the role of experts in strengthening the argumentative line in its productions. Finally, we position Brasil Paralelo as a private apparatus of hegemony (Gramsci, 2017), seeking to establish a symbolic reference point in the disputes for hegemony in contemporary Brazil and thereby consolidate its ideal societal project.