Abstract
Readers of biographies in Brazil only get to read a rosy version of the truth, as tough legislation grants the subject of the book approval of the draft, or it doesn’t make it into bookshops.
In a country obsessed by celebrity culture, Brazilian citizens are not allowed to find out stories behind the hype of their favourite local TV stars and musicians or even their least favourite politicians and businesspeople.
Brazil has legislation that only allows authorised biographies on to the bookshelves, and often scandals and other controversial stories around the country’s personalities are not exposed.
The country’s 2002 reformed civil code made it mandatory for works of a biographical nature – films, books or otherwise – to have prior authorisation from the subject of the work before public release. As a result, most biographies published in Brazil end up being right up the sycophantic scale.
Critics contend that the current legal framework causes editors to practise self-censorship. “Instead of only taking care of the literary quality of the work, editors end up being busy with judicial problems and carrying out a self-censorship that is harmful to the industry”, says Sônia Machado Jardim, president of Brazil’s National Union of Book Publishers (Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros, or Snel).
Jardim also says that many relatives of people portrayed in biographies try to take advantage of the need for prior approval to demand huge amounts of money, making it expensive to have the books published.
Some cases have become notorious in Brazil. One is the biography of former footballer and two-time World Cup champion Manuel Francisco dos Santos Manuel Francisco dos Santos, generally known as Garrincha, who died in 1983. Written by journalist Ruy Castro, the book was withdrawn from circulation in 1995 because of a lawsuit filed by Garrincha’s relatives. The author appealed and his work eventually went back on sale.
You can’t read or write about Brazil’s history any more, you can’t produce knowledge. All you have is official stories
Singer Roberto Carlos, one of the most popular artists in the past 50 years, not only forced the withdrawal of a biography written by journalist Paulo Cesar de Araújo, but also banned the publication of a Master’s degree thesis on Jovem Guarda, the musical movement Carlos was part of in the mid 1960s. In the 1980s, Carlos also obstructed the publication of magazine articles about him. “My book was in full flight when it was shot down,” author Paulo Cesar de Araújo told Index on Censorship. He says his biography on Roberto Carlos was on the bestsellers list when it was pulled off the shelves in February 2007, having sold 47,000 copies already, a very healthy figure in a country where there are far fewer frequent book readers than in the USA or Europe.
ABOVE: Brazil’s former President Lula dips into a book
Credit: Reuters/Nacho Doce
After so many years of fighting to re-establish democracy and freedom of expression in our country, we cannot allow censorship to put its clutches into artistic works ever again
“You can’t read or write about Brazil’s history anymore, you can’t produce knowledge. All you have is official stories that serve their characters,” says Araújo. Snel’s Sônia Jardim agrees, arguing that preserving history’s knowledge is more important than profit. “After so many years of fighting to re-establish democracy and freedom of expression in our country, we cannot allow censorship to put its clutches into artistic works ever again.”
In 2011, controversies like this led deputy Newton Lima (Workers’ Party) from São Paulo to draft legislation – nicknamed the Biographies Act – that changes the Civil Code and annuls the need for prior authorization of biographies from public people, like politicians and media celebrities.
“The Civil Code’s Article 20 [that makes previous authorisation mandatory for biographic works] makes no sense. The Constitution already gives everyone the right of publicity to protect one’s dignity, and if necessary, anyone can go to the courts,” deputy Lima told Index on Censorship.
“When people go into public life, it gives everyone the right to protect their dignity, and anyone who feels harmed can go to court,” deputy Lima told Index on Censorship. Of course, one does not want to deprive public people of all their privacy, but it certainly gets diminished,” says the Biographies Act’s rapporteur in Congress, deputy Alessandro Molon (Workers’ Party) from Rio de Janeiro.
The Chamber of Deputies’ Constitution and Justice Committee passed the draft Bill conclusively in early April, which meant it should have gone straight to a Senate vote. However, deputy Marcos Rogério (PDT Party) from the state of Rondônia filed a petition against it, making it mandatory that the deputies voted before senators – a move that put the Biographies Act on the bottom of the pile of draft Bills.
Rogério justified his petition by saying the draft Bill’s language left some issues unaddressed.
“What is public dimension anyway? It’s a relative concept. Someone can write, for example, a biography about a city counsellor either accusing him or promoting him electorally. It can be used for good or for evil. The constitution protects both freedom of expression and privacy,” the deputy said during a Constitution and Justice Committee debate.
Newton Lima says he has no hope of seeing a vote on his Biographies Act until next year, when a new Congress is to be elected. “If I’m re-elected and nothing new happens until then, I’ll do it all over again, I’ll present this draft Bill again from the very start.”
However, Lima feels optimistic about another move made by a group of publishers called the National Association of Book Publishers (Associação Nacional dos Editores de Livros, or Anel). They filed a direct action of unconstitutionality with the federal Supreme Court in July 2012, arguing that the Civil Code clause governing prior authorization generates censorship, which is prohibited in Brazil.
The federal Attorney-General’s office issued a favourable opinion to Anel’s action, but Solicitor-General Luis Inácio Adams Roberto Gurgel was opposed to it. Minister Carmem Lúcia is responsible for ruling on the case in the federal Supreme Court. There is no deadline for the court’s ruling.
“It’s a matter of time for Article 20 to be revoked, because it is so evidently unconstitutional,” says Newton Lima. ‘It will go down either by an act of the Supreme Court or by new legislation, I’m sure about it.”
Author Paulo Cesar de Araújo also feels confident about a Supreme Court ruling that would make the publication of biographies easier – and he already plans to have an updated version of his Roberto Carlos book in the stores. “We still have to know in detail the format this ruling is going to have. But it’s certain that my book will be back in one way or another.”
However, he points out that opposition is already moving against changes in legislation. Recently Roberto Carlos himself – along with other artists – went to Brazil’s capital of Brasília to confer with congress people and even with President Dilma Rousseff to defend Article 20.
This worries Araújo, because he feels the debate about biographies is still not clear to everyone. “I think artists in general don’t understand that the present legislation is bad for them. It restricts not only books but film biographies and plays as well, so they have less work.”
As writer and politician Winston Churchill famously said: “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it” – an approach to history that the Brazilian authorities currently seem to support.