The Glass Asylum: Big Brother Brasil

He’ll build a glass asylum
With just a hint of mayhem
He’ll build a better whirlpool
We’ll be living from sin, then we can really begin
–Bowie, “Big Brother”

I have been inoculated — by Greg House, M.D. —  against TV Globo’s Big Brother Brasil 10 (BBB10), but not even X-men mutant antibodies can shut down the virus completely.

Every newspaper in Brazil dedicates about ten times as much space to developments in the “show of life” — references to The Truman Show are common — than they do to the details of pending legislation. A random sample of top news items as selected by the Google News algorithm:

Corinthians F.C. is the grand champion of the moment, but the “unprecedented” paredão — putting someone up against the paredão means executing them by firing squad — that ousted Angêlica is 2.5x more important than whether or not avian flu is a pandemic.

The show is hosted by “actor-journalist” and former filmmaker Pedro Biale, co-host of Globo’s Sunday night infotainment magazine, the aptly named Fantástico. See, for example

• Biomagnetism: TV Globo Debunks Itself

TV Globo (Fantástico) debunks “quack science” that TV Globo (Fantástico), in a past report, has uncritically endorsed.

My favorite example is this moment from another Fántasico segment:

Voiceover: Corruption is genetically determined! Just ask this doctor!
Doctor: Corrupt behavior is mainly the result of environmental influences later in life.
Voiceover: QED! The corrupt are born corrupt! Corruption is a disease without a cure!

Pedro Biali of Fantaśtico and BBB10: "Actor-journalist." Fact is fiction. Gabba gabba HEY!

These idiots are too lazy even to line up an expert who will actually corroborate their thesis. They simply declare that black is white and move on with their brainless diatribe.

The references to The Truman Show (Truman: o show da vida) in critical discourse on, and promotional copy for, the program — which can be hard to differentiate — prove once again that some Brazilians are completely tone-deaf to cultural irony.

The utopian planned community of Alphaville, here in São Paulo, Sambodia, for example, derived its name from the dystopian sci-fi flick of the same name by Godard.

Still, no notebook on the current cultural moment in Brazil is complete without some reference to this virulent meme, and so I offer two vignettes fresh from the morning papers.

First, digital democracy Globo style.

Digital Democacracy, Globo-Style

O blogueiro José Mello, de Limeira, no interior de São Paulo, decidiu fazer uma campanha ousada contra o lutador Marcelo Dourado, participante do “Big Brother Brasil 10”.

Blogger José Mello of Limeira, in upstate São Paulo, has decided to launch a daring campaign against fighter Marcelo Dourado, the BBB10 contestant.

O paulista criou um endereço na internet que ganhou repercussão rapidamente por oferecer um prêmio a quem votasse para eliminar Dourado do programa.

The São Paulo resident created a Web site that quickly generated buzz when it offered a cash prize to those who vote to eliminate Dourado from the program.

Source: Folha Online, which links to the site so you can go claim your easy money.