Outside Edge: No jokes please, we’re Brazilian

From the country that Charles de Gaulle once described as “not serious”, a good joke: a standing Brazilian ban on political satire that comes into force in the run-up to presidential elections.

This year, though, it’s no laughing matter. Comics are up in arms – or at least waving them around. They may even have to suppress their smirks at a protest march in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday over the so-called “anti-joking” law. Enacted in 1997, this can in theory lead to fines of as much as R$100,000 (US$57,000, €45,000, £37,000), and twice that for a second offence. Serious!

The main butts of their missing jokes before the vote on October 3 are the ghoulish-looking centre-right candidate José Serra and Dilma Rousseff, the centre-left protégé of the wildly popular current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva – and thus also the candidate most likely to win.

A few months ago, I saw Dilma prepare for a television interview in Rio and it was nothing to smile about. Her black-tinted limousine pulled up outside the studio. A stern-looking guard opened the door. The “Iron Lady” stepped out. All brisk efficiency, she patted down her hair, plonked her used chewing gum in the guard’s open hand, and glared at a journalist smoking in the doorway. The impression was of a very serious person indeed.

Still, Brazil’s anti-joking law is no repeat of Cuban-style censorship. (One of the first newspapers Fidel Castro closed down was the humorous rag, Zig-Zag. In exile, its cartoonists went on to staff MAD Magazine). Nor is it even similar to the fines levied in Italy for disrespect to public officials (designed, Italian friends tell me, to curb the hot tempers of fined motorists).

In a country of still-high illiteracy, and where the airwaves are considered a public utility, Brazil’s law is instead designed to stop unscrupulous propagandists from defaming political rivals on the four daily 50-minute radio and TV party political broadcasts that Brazilians will be force-fed until voting day.

The law, in short, is not designed to muzzle comics. Print journalists can say what they want. It is only starting to affect other media now because Brazilian satire has reached such caustic levels. On one hit show, CQC, politicians are regularly put on the spot by sober-suited men. If the subject squirms, digital editing might paint their face an embarrassed red or draw sweat dripping from their brow.

Vânia Aieta, president of the Electoral Commission, believes the humorists are right to protest. The law may even be changed. In the meantime, the biggest lawbreaker is the president himself. Although banned from endorsing any candidate, he has repeatedly praised Dilma – and been fined for doing so. That’s unfunny. Mr Lula da Silva has also been unserious. Perhaps de Gaulle had a point after all.

– The writer is in Peru where the leading satirical magazine, Middle Finger, is in wonderfully bad taste and still going strong